THE
LINDORM |
Cyhalloian legends speak of a giant, serpent-like beast of the dark pits in barren and reclusive lands, around 30 peds long and with dragon-like forelegs, pairs of lesser hind legs and a terrible head with a leering, fang-filled mouth and cold, hypnotic eyes - the Lindorm. The Lindorm uses a powerful hypnotic ability to lure its victims; both to ease the hunt for the beast and also making the enslaved thrall carry out the wicked-hearted creature's biddings. Unseen by most as its skin adapts to the environment like the shapeshifter, it always attacks with surprise; striking fear in its foes. It is said to be unnaturally intelligent and even sentient-like and uses its power for dark purposes, but this is yet to be confirmed.
Appearance.
The Lindorm is an
enormous creature, especially in length, although the few recorded encounters
with this beast speak little of the exact size. Since it usually spends its day
in its lair, none has actually seen the creature in its full appearance, but it
is said that its snake-like body wriggles and twists in and out of holes around
its lair in a nearly infinite dance of terror, making it appear as if it came
from the very depths of the world. A fathomed guess is that the Lindorm's full
length is somewhere around 30
peds, but the tail and the belly takes up the most part (at least by 20 to
25 peds) , like the body of
an ordinary snake. The thickness of the body is supposedly around 2
peds at its largest point.
Nevertheless, it is the upper body that characterizes and decribes the Lindorm
best. For it is not like with ordinary snakes, but more like the one of
dragons. There is a torso-like part from which a pair
of forelegs grow, and also the neck; long still in its serpent fashion. While
the forelegs are quite weak and not often used for anything else than digging
and clutching (and only in some cases for fighting), the two pairs of
underdeveloped hind legs on the lower part of the body are not used for anything
other than crawling. The upper body and neck are both more heavily scaled and
robust than the rest of the beast's full body, yet not as thick, and warts,
spikes with patches of skin in between and other reptilian protuberances grow
all over it. Still, it is the head which is known to strike the looming horror
of the Lindorm into any poor fool who happens to lay eyes upon it. It is the
head of a monstrous serpent, but even more sinister and fiendish than the
regular fashion. Often mistaken for the head of a serpent-like
dragon, it leers at the viewer in its grotesque glory,
with many a sharp fang exposed, and the eyes gather all the hypnotic fear of
serpentdom and burns ever with the cold gaze of death; never to blink or to be
shut.
While the terrible eyes are said to have no colour but the faint, blueish grey
tone of moonlit ice, the colour of the skin adapts like a chameleon to the
environment. In summer, when the snow is faint in Cyhalloi, the lindorm takes
the shade of dark, mossy green and brown, and in winter, it becomes a deadly
white monstrosity almost invisible to the common eye, and when in barren lands
of rock and stone it takes a shade of grainy, spreckled grey.
Special Abilities.
The Lindorm fears no cold as it has slumbered deep within the Cyhalloian tundra,
thus making it grow powerful in the most ancient of cold places in the world. A
giant predator as it is, the Lindorm strikes violently with fangs and claws, and
can also attack with tail-whipping and by squeezing its foe with its large body,
based on local rumours. Also, due to its skin's shapeshifter-like adaptation to
the environment, it almost always passes unseen by its foes. But what also seems
to be disturbingly true is the saying that when the Lindorm is on the hunt, it
uses indeed its most effective talent. With its demonic
eyes, it hypnotizes its victim, only to strike shortly after. It takes but a few
moments of the prey to stare into the Lindorm's eyes for it to fall under the
beast's spell. The Lindorm also uses this powerful hypnotism for other wicked
purposes, such as making the hypnotized foe influence other of its kind to come
to the beast's lair and be hypnotized in turn, and all of the victims are thus
forced to follow the Lindorm's bidding.
Territory.
The Lindorm has only been sighted in the deepest woods and ravines of Cyhalloi's
two largest islands as of yet, as far north as man dares to travel. Cyhallhrim
lore also speaks of the beast further up north in the continent.
Habitat/Behaviour.
Naturally, the Lindorm attacks when agitated or threatened, as local hunters
claim. But it is also said that the beast sometimes attacks purposely as if
driven by a special goal, and even takes pleasure in killing and mutilating its
victims. Still, this seems to be more of a little spice added by the narrators
to make their stories better.
By further accounts it has also been learned that the Lindorm is very reclusive
and seldom venture outside its lair with as much as a tip of the tail unless
necessary, like, for example, when it needs to hunt. If so, it mostly only needs
to move short distances to find its prey. In the common snake fashion it can
strike its victim with great surprise, but the beast is also known to use its
strange hypnotic abilities to capture its prey.
The Lindorm's lair is constituted by large burrows or holes in the ground or a
hill and even the mountainside, preferably below one or more large trees.
Diet.
From what yet has been learned from the myths and tellings, the lindorm is
obviously a carnivorous beast, but it seems as if it does not have to feed more
than every third month. Local hunters have found numerous cadavers of Cyhalloian
sheep and goats, and even some wolves
or bears with teeth and claw marks of what supposedly is a large serpent or
serpent-like reptile, which in the way the hunters told it speaks of the
Lindorm's violent and almost sadistic nature. There have also been horrid
tellings of humans being devoured by the
creature, but such rumours seem far fetched and exaggerated.
Mating.
As the rumours go, the Lindorms are apparently very few in number and extremely
rare. Not much has been learned about their mating behaviour, but it is fair to
say that they follow the ordinary fashion of reptiles. Both sexes supposedly
mate only once per lifetime, and after the female has laid her egg she nurtures
it, but only until the infant Lindorm has hatched. It is then shuned by its
mother and driven out of her lair to find a lair of its own and start growing.
As a newly hatched Lindorm is said to be already very large (about the size of
an adult wolf) , it can without any trouble take down a
sheep, so naturally, younglings must have a good chance
of survival. Since there have been no reports or rumours of two Lindorms living
together, the conclusion is that the creature lives alone for its entire
lifetime.
Myth/Lore.
As far as legends tell, the Lindorms originated from
dragons, but it is said that dark, unspeakable powers had a part to play in
their ancestry as well. In Cyhallrhim
lore; especially in the fabled tomes of old, which are said to be originally
written by the mysterious ulvur, the beasts are
spoken of in dread, as they, according to the legends, are evil, sinister and
greedy by nature, but on a dangerously sentient level. Whether this is true or
not none now can tell, but all legends somehow always tend to have some sort of
truth in them. A favoured myth as well is the one of wonderous treasures which
lie hidden in every Lindorm's lair; gathered under decades of feeble attempts
from bold adventurers to slay the beasts.
Still, it seems highly unlikely that the Lindorms once, as told in the legends,
in the past enslaved entire villages of settlers in Cyhalloi's east island, and
by the help of powers unknown and darker still built an empire to challenge the
mythical ulvur shapeshifters' legacy, which in
turn also is known as legend alone.
Yet there have been reports of sinister cults dedicated to the Lindorms and
other serpent-like beasts among the settlers, even if they have not shown any
notable trouble to society as of yet.
Information provided by
Isilhir
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