Folk Beings and Creatures of the Cold

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White Hydra

Many-headed sea serpent. Supposedly lives deep in the sea. Heads work like the usual fabled hydra.

Blue Man

A humanoid appearing in the last moments of those dying of exposure. He approaches the dying, touching them with a burning cold hand. He wraps them in a huge embrace, whispering to them of the immense warmth and cool awaiting them beyond sleep.

Those who recover see him in the corner of their eye for the rest of their life. He is always pointing north.

Alpine Demons

Those who ascend the peaks of mountains risk encounters with the spirits who inhabit the trees of the upper slopes. They appear as starving men with stumps for feet, swinging from branch to branch using abnormally long arms. The demons speak in varying tones and timbres, taunting those on the ground, asking if they would join them. If approached, they grab a climber and fling them up high into the air, and they fall to their death.

Furnace Grizzly

A machine gone rogue. Shaped as a giant bear, it consumes anything it can to fuel its internal furnace. It prefers trees, but anything even remotely flammable can be consumed, including various... "biofuels." The grizzlies will chase down anything at a constant speed until they run out of fuel, upon which they will be completely immobile. Unless someone were to refuel and restart the machinery.

Logger

Loggers are animate wood. They might appear in various forms: a large driftwood log, a mighty forest pine, even as a mass of splinters. They are said to lie in wait for those who commit arboricide, clamping an axe or saw in place, then opening along wood grains, swallowing the holder whole. For this reason, those who would cut wood never hold too tightly to their implements.

Coal Golem

Heat and pressure change most biological material into something foul black. But the potential for life never leaves the molecular structures. The result is partially formed masses living deep underground; their solid flesh made of coal, blood of crude oil, and lungs filled with natural gas. They move as formless blobs, with imprints of plants, bones, and rarely faces showing. Should you hear a slow sucking sound deep underground, extinguish your torch.

Stonepeople

Said to be different evolutionary path of humanity, stonepeople apparently resemble their would-be cousins, but are much more shy. However, they have an irresistible draw to humans. Those who have encountered them come back different, more savage, some abandoning organized civilization to live among the supposed underground settlements of stone. There is just something so entrancing about thinking about what could have been...


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