Otherworldly Creatures

“…so it’s always best to go straight in the belly, then hoik yer sword upwards. You’ll be up to your elbows in bear guts, but it does the job.”

Warming to the subject of killing things, Horgoth settled back in the chair as he filled his old pipe.

“’course, there’s other things up there that’s worse ‘an bears ‘an such… You ever heard of genies? Well don’t believe all you’ve read about ‘em in yer fairy tales. Nasty buggers they are – promise you the world one minute, the next they’re smashing yer head on a rock like it’s a melon. I seen it happen to an ol’ mate o’ mine…”

He paused to light his pipe, watching as the bad-smelling smoke swirled among his coughing audience.

“Wraiths… now they’re dodgy… can’t harm ‘em see? Unless you go some wizard to magic up yer sword. Otherwise they just comes at you – through wall an’ everything! Let ‘em touch you an’ you’ll end up like an’ ol’ chum o’ mine an’ shrivel up like an ol’ prune…”

His audience shifted and whimpered slightly as he scrunched up his face before breaking out into a grin.

“Now their cousins the frost wraiths is a bit easier if you get a strike in, but worse if they touches you. Yer heart freezes and the blood seeps from yer eyes and turns to icicles – least that’s what happened to my ol’ mate – I can see ‘im now… screamin’ an’ such…”

As he waggled his stained fingers in front of his eyes, a few onlookers cried.

“Now ghouls – ghouls is tough, but’ll bleed easily enough from a normal blade. They wuz once like you an’ me see? Only they got a taste for yooman flesh and now they’d eat you as soon as look at you! Gotta watch ‘em when they get together, ‘cos if they surround you they’ll be chomping up yer bones, slurping on yer guts an’-“

“Yes that’s quite enough!” wailed the ashen-faced teacher as her class of tearful little ones huddled shivering around her. “I mean, let’s thank Mister Horgoth for his most interesting talk, and see if one of the other dads would like to tell us what he does at work… Mister Carter – I believe you drive an, er, cart…?

More things to cross off the creature list, this time some lovely figures from Otherworld Miniatures. These minis painted up a treat and I’m very happy with how these came out, especially the genie.