Creatures¶
The beasts, monsters and spirits of Terrun as they exist in the world: what they are, where they live, what people believe about them, and how they are dealt with. This section holds one page per creature or family of creatures. Peoples with cultures of their own (Elves, Giants, the Uk'Zarai) are under Peoples; named individual monsters are under Figures; the gods and god-spirits that made or command these creatures are under Religion. Stat blocks live in the ARCS Bestiary and are footnoted from the family pages, never reproduced.1
How the scholars sort living things¶
The Souls, Outsiders and Cycles of Life tradition divides every animate being by what it is connected to. Outsiders have a connection to the Outer Planes or beyond: demons, angels and the Uk'Zarai. Soul-like creatures are tied to the Ethereal or Astral Plane, which is to say every mortal people. Essence creatures are connected to Terrun itself or to one of its Inner Planes; "only the most powerful essences are capable of achieving sapience and most creatures with an Essence achieve only bestial intelligence". Soulless beings, chiefly constructs and automatons, are connected to nothing but the place where their body stands, and "death represents an absolute end to whatever consciousness they had".
The Cosmology Revision names a smaller set of cosmological beings, "beings that as far as anyone knows have always existed": the Einar, the Eldritch, the Elementals, the Demons, and the Void-traversing Outsiders. Everything else on these pages was made, bred, bound, corrupted or summoned by one of them.
Families¶
| Family | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Demons | The children of the Void: essence not soul, the Mortiquery, forms and possession, the Archdemons, Devils and the Hollowlords. |
| Outsiders | Beings connected to the Outer Planes or beyond: angels and celestials, the Void-traversers who harvest Terrun, and the void entities called up by telemancers. |
| The Dread | The races of the Yawning Void: Cthuls, Umbars, Tyrax and Abols. |
| Elementals | The true natives of Terrun, soulless energy that forms matter and reforms when scattered; the elemental beasts and servants seen in play. |
| Primordials | The indestructible first beings of the Elemental Chaos, defeated in the Primordial War and bound as the foundations of Terrun. |
| Fae | Faeries and the natural Fae stages, the Fae Archons, and the Faeborn kinds whose bodies are tied to Fae energy. |
| Titans | The living chains forged by the Einar to bind the Primordials, now mostly corpses that still bind. |
| Dragons | Dragons as a kind, their broods and drakes, and their fall in the Fifth Age. |
| Primal Dragons | The Dragon Gods, one immortal per colour, each the head of a brood. |
| Undead | The Restless Dead and why they fail to pass on: ghouls and wights, apparitions, liches. |
| Araxians | The beetle-like hive creatures of the Elder God Seth'Arax, the Thur'arax and the Pitch. |
| Eldritch Horrors | Corrupted, possessed or half-mad Eldritch and the things bred from their fragments. |
| Hollow Creatures | The Abyssal and hybrid life of the Hollows, by Abyssal biome and Fae domain. |
| Scourged | The corrupted beasts of the forbidden forest of Arne'Athosia and the four stages of Teneb'Vari's corruption. |
| Shades | The sentient emotions of the Shadow Realm and the abominations imprisoned there. |
| Beasts | Mundane, dire and monstrous animals by habitat, from winter wolves to dinosaurs. |
| Dangerous Flora | Predatory and animate plants: the Duskblossom Tree, Chokevine, Briarblade, Lashers, treants. |
| Rift Flora | The fifteen magical plants that have adapted to life in the Rift. |
| Constructs and Automata | Soulless animate beings: the Darahlan frames of the dwarves, golems, and the machines of Nurizak. |
Gap
The sources describe creatures as they were met in play or as asides in cosmology and history; no single document surveys the fauna of Terrun. Common animals, livestock and ordinary vermin appear only in passing lists and are not given pages. Legacy stat blocks from the archive's rules drafts are organized under Mechanics and are not canon for play.
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Stat blocks for creatures and ancestries: ARCS Bestiary ↩