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| Age of Conan - Beastiary |
| Acheronian Warlord |
| Blackblade cursed and shook a mailed fist at his men, his voice like the crack of a whip. A soldier paused to wipe his sweat drenched brow and, in the process, threw off the rhythm of the others.
“His given name was Dhurkhan Blackblade, a name that filled the hearts of men with fear and hate. His brutish biceps were thicker than a man’s calves; his shoulders rose above a tall man’s head. And Blackblade’s ability to intimidate was more than physical, for he was Supreme Warlord of the Army of Acheron and brother of the dreaded Xaltotun.” “Blackblade cursed and shook a mailed fist at his men, his voice like the crack of a whip. A soldier paused to wipe his sweat drenched brow and, in the process, threw off the rhythm of the others. An instant later, the soldiers head flew from his shoulders with a scarlet spray. It thumped down the marble steps as Blackblade ordered another to take the dead man’s place.” Acheron; long will it’s name live in infamy. An ancient civilization of black hearted sorcerers, it conquered the north in the name of vile magic and blood fuelled corruption. Only the wild tribesmen who dwelled in the gray hills of the north, where Cimmeria stands now, were able to resist them. All other nations fell beneath their blades and sorcery. Dhurkhan Blackblade was one of its most feared dark-champions. Leader of the thirteen hosts and commander of the greatest army to march across Hyboria, they were all lost when the Holy City of Nithia was scoured from the face of the earth some three thousand years ago. |
Camel |
| The famed “ships of the desert”, camels are large, ungainly-looking herbivores whose strange bodies are uniquely adapted to allow them to thrive in the harshest desert wastes. Players can use camels as mounts. Standing up to eighteen hands at the shoulder, the camel has a tall “hump” of fatty tissue that the animal can draw upon for energy when traveling through regions where food and water are scarce. Their long necks and sharp teeth allow them to feed on even the thorniest of plants, and broad, two-toed feet give camels excellent traction along the soft desert dunes. Though notoriously foul-tempered and prone to spitting at handlers who have earned their ire, desert nomads and merchants plying the southern caravan routes value camels for their intelligence and legendary endurance. |
Dark Beast |
| The Wild Lands and the frontier villages are bedeviled by the presence of creatures earning the name ‘Dark Beasts’ from the lips of terrified peasants. The latest threat to the peace of Aquilonia comes from no natural source. It is not the thunder of a Nemedian army’s march, or the howling cries of a Pict tribe running to battle. Instead, the Wild Lands and the frontier villages scattered throughout its reaches are bedeviled by the presence of creatures earning the name ‘Dark Beasts’ from the lips of terrified peasants. Exactly what the Dark Beasts are and where they come from remains a mystery known only to those involved in the creatures’ sorcerous birth. The beasts hunt animals and humans alike, though not always for food. While many victims of Dark Beast attacks end up serving as feasts for the creatures’ appetites, many more are slaughtered and left to rot unburied, seemingly killed for no reason beyond the malice of these monsters. Few who meet the beasts live long enough to tell of what they saw, so the creatures are known to the people of the Wilds Lands as a shadowy threat, a faceless danger, and the gruesome evidence the Dark Beasts leave after a hunt. Those who survive to speak of the creatures tell tales of black-furred abominations with long, bestial claws and maws of teeth that tear flesh with hideous ease. |
Flesh Eater |
| These behemoths tread through the cold pools of bog water like manifestations of the defiled swamp, all muscle and slime and hatred.
It is said by those insightful in the ways of the world that the wilderness is alive, just as people or beasts are alive. An area exists in a balance-a balance of the flora and fauna that dwell within its boundaries. But the balance is not eternal. It can be lost, especially when humans come to the area. A warrior’s body bleeds when he is wounded, and so too does a region react when injured by human presence. The Frost Swamp, violated by the foul magics of invading Hyperborean sorcerers, has spawned horrors as a reaction to its wounds. Chief among these are the monsters known to Cimmerian hunters as Flesh Eaters, which in recent months have risen from the icy wasteland of the swamps, each possessed of only the basest animalistic cunning, and hungering for the flesh of men. These behemoths tread through the cold pools of bog water like manifestations of the defiled swamp, all muscle and slime and hatred, with their stone-hard skin festooned by twigs from swamp trees and reeking of the region’s tainted water. To stand against one of these hulks is to stand against the Frost Swamp’s fury incarnate. |
Frostcrawler |
| No natural beast, a Frostcrawler is somewhere between a serpent and an eel, yet with aspects resembling neither creature.
Among the malefic horrors spawned by Hyperborean sorcery are the feral blasphemies known to Cimmerian hunters as Frostcrawlers. These rapacious things ghost through the mist-cloaked forest, hissing to themselves and slithering in search of prey. No natural beast, a Frostcrawler is somewhere between a serpent and an eel, yet with aspects resembling neither creature. A serpentine tail thrashes through the foul-smelling swamp water as the Frostcrawler glides towards its intended prey, while a roughly humanoid torso rears up from the depths to lash out with surprisingly powerful arms and multi-jointed fingers tipped with vicious claws. Its mouth is that of a sea-snake or giant eel-an ugly slit in its reptilian face, lined with rows of needle-like shark’s teeth. Some of the few living witnesses to have seen a Frostcrawler describe it as a throwback from an earlier age, when crocodilian beasts claimed the world as their own. Most survivors are not educated enough to make such an assumption, and merely point to Hyperborean sorcery, citing the creature as the brutish, malformed result of black magic tainting everything it touches. |
Great Ape |
| Terrifying in size, strength and stature, the Hyborian great ape comes in many colors and from many different territories across the world.
Terrifying in size, strength and stature, the Hyborian great ape comes in many colors and from many different territories across the world. They have very little to fear from most of their natural neighbors. These savage beasts are always willing to rend an armored man limb from limb if it means protecting their home or getting a quick meal. They are fast and powerful, able to split forged metal with their bare fists like shale. It is no surprise that these aggressive animals are hunted not for flesh or fur, but to keep their numbers down and protect nearby settlements. Fighting with their metal-bending fists and bone-crushing jaws, they are huge beasts able to withstand a great deal of punishment. Some might think them just "dumb animals", but there is a clever cunning behind their sloping brows. Hunters surviving encounters with the hulking towers of sinew and muscle claim that they can cross great distances in long strides, ignoring the pin pricks of arrows until they are within their considerable reach. While perhaps not as deadly as some of the creatures of Hyboria, the great ape is one of its most recognizable threats. |
Grol |
| Harbingers of a greater evil to come, the Grol are lesser echoes of more powerful demon lord that has languished in magical bindings for centuries. Harbingers of a greater evil to come, the Grol are lesser echoes of more powerful demon lord that has languished in magical bindings for centuries. While their master remains trapped within the bole of a great tree, bound there by the magic of the witch Zelata, the weaker Grol creatures manifest in the land nearby, foreshadowing the appearance of their filthy scion. Every fifty years, the spell imprisoning the demon within the tree grows weak and must be renewed. There are those tasked with the watching for when the spell must be restored. These watchful souls know the time is near once they begin to see the Grol appearing across the Wild Lands. The ichor-covered imps delight in attacking humans, bearing all the spite of their patron demon in his hatred for mortal life. Mutilations and deaths at the hands and teeth of the Grol are becoming commonplace once more in Aquilonia’s easternmost reaches. Those aware of the ancient secret know the signs are waxing as each night passes, and unless the Grol are killed soon and the spell around the great tree renewed, the frontier settlements of the Wild Lands will be at the mercy of the imps and their malicious lord. |
Hyena |
| One of the many species of predator that roam the desert, the hyena is a cunning and opportunistic hunter, as capable of living off the bodies of the dead as they are at stalking and killing live prey.
Operating in large packs, hyenas use the same tactics as the wolf packs of the far north, pursuing solitary, sick or injured prey until they are exhausted, then closing in from all sides to finish off their victim with their powerful jaws. Fierce and extremely territorial, hyenas have been known to chase lions from their hunting grounds, and have no fear of humans whatsoever. |
Killer Rhino |
| With ferocious speed the Killer Rhino charges the fields of the Border Kingdom, plowing through hordes of enemy soldiers, sending them flying through the air.
The Devil’s Lance, the enemy calls them - incredible speed packed into a body intended to maim and slaughter. On their backs, skilled riders fight for control, carefully employing them in battle where the death of many is required in as short time as possible. In siege battles the Killer Rhino is a potent yet dangerous instrument of death thanks to its ability to brutally plow through large masses of enemies in a quick, brutal and lethal frenzy. In Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures players can acquire and ride their own Killer Rhino into battles throughout the Border Kingdom. At launch, the only way to obtain such a beast is to pre-order the game at select retail chains where it is on offer. |
Mammoth |
| Colossal elephant-like beasts, mammoths are creatures clad in shaggy brown fur, with curved tusks as long as a man is tall. These beasts roam the lands of Nordheim in herds, hunted by the Vanir and the Aesir for food, fur and precious ivory. While the fur can be used as blankets and armor, the tusks are made into weapon handles or ivory jewelry, and mammoth meat will feed a clan for some time, purely because there is so much of it on even a single animal.
In battle, a mammoth is a fearsome foe, often requiring the strength and skill of many warriors to bring the beast down. Their thick, hairy hides are armored against sword slashes and spear plunges alike, and between their great strength and lethal tusks, an enraged mammoth is more than capable of killing a group of careless hunters. Even peppered with a dozen arrows, such creatures will fight on, trampling the men that seek to kill them or goring them with their tusks. It takes all of the strength Crom gave a man at birth to stand and face a rampaging mammoth, with the ground shaking under a warrior’s feet and a gruesome death awaiting if he falls under the beast’s legs or is impaled on the creature’s tusks. Some warriors among the Vanir and their Ymirish leaders have a different use for the mammoths they come across in the frozen wilds of Nordheim. These huge animals are shackled and enslaved, either through mundane means or Ymirish sorceries, and used as beasts of war, driven into battles in order to dishearten their foes before being unleashed to crush them. In the Eiglophian Mountains, mammoths roam the wilds, and recent rumors tell of a blood-furred beast striking fear into the hearts of Cimmerian hunters. In the Border Kingdoms, mammoths are not only scattered through the wild but also serve as battle-mounts for the soldiers of the bandit-king Atzel. In the past, the northern warlord Grimnir Stormbringer has ridden into battle atop a war-mammoth. In any conflict between the Vanir and the Cimmerians, mammoths have inflicted horrendous casualties against the Cimmerian defenders. |
Python |
| In the shadowy streets of ancient Stygia, where the worship of the Set holds sway over one and all, the serpent is the living image of the true god. Because of this, serpents are held in high regard in Stygian culture. It is forbidden to harm a snake for any reason, and in the cities of Keshatta and Khemi the faithful live in the constant presence of all manner of serpents. Cobras slither unchallenged through the corridors of the temples and vipers sun themselves upon the street corner or in the market square without fear of harm. If a man is bitten by a serpent it is the will of Set, and there is nothing for him to do but seek solace in the temple and let the venom run its course. Of all Set’s children it is the giant python that is revered the most. These deadly constrictors are housed in temples all across Stygia, where they are treated as sacred treasures by the zealous priests. When these giant reptiles grow hungry they are free to leave the temple and hunt the city streets for their prey. When a Stygian crosses paths with one of the sacred pythons he must prostrate himself on the ground before the hungry snake and await Set’s judgment. It is considered a great honor to be chosen as a sacrifice to the Great Serpent, and every day men and women willingly submit themselves to the coils of these dreadful beasts. Once they have fed, the sacred pythons return to their subterranean lairs beneath the city temples to slowly digest their meals. The pythons of Stygia continue to grow each year they are alive. Sailors who ply the sacred river Styx claim to have seen specimens as large as thirty feet in length. It is rumored that within the confines of Set’s temples there are pythons that are hundreds of years old, grown so large that they may feed upon a grown man as easily as a lesser snake eats a common mouse. |
Sabre-tooth |
| Sabre-tooths resemble tigers or other big cats in form but have minimal markings and have extremely powerful forequarters in comparison to other big cats.
Sabre-tooths resemble tigers or other big cats in form but have minimal markings (their fur is typically a sandy color all over) and have extremely powerful forequarters in comparison to other big cats, though even their hindquarters are more powerful than those of a lion. This makes them very strong but their bulk makes them slower than most big cats and has contributed to their quick and savage hunting style. Their most distinctive feature, though, is the pair of vast teeth that give them their name. These are huge curved fangs, bigger than daggers and capable of inflicting the most devastating injuries. Though these fangs are enormously powerful weapons, they are far more brittle than smaller fangs and older sabre-tooths often have one or both of their great teeth broken off. Sabre-tooths are not so common as in former times, now that Humanity and wild cats have spread over many of their old hunting grounds. Deep in the forests of the Pictish Wilderness, though, they can still be found wild and shamans of the Pictish race often call upon them as powerful allies. |
Savage Cannibals |
| To those who know of these primitives, they are considered beast-men, savage cannibals capable of little in the way of reason and lacking all higher intelligence. There were about a dozen of the mountain men, armed with crude wooden clubs and stone-headed spears and axes. They were short-limbed, thick-bodied creatures, wrapped in tattered, mangy furs. Small, bloodshot eyes glared out from under beetling brows and sloping foreheads; thick lips drew back to reveal large yellow teeth. They were like leftovers from some earlier stage of evolution, about which Conan had heard once heard philosophers argue in the courtyards of Nemedian temples. Just now, however, he was too fully occupied with guiding his horse and aiming his lance to spare such matters more than the barest fleeting thought. Then he crashed among them like a thunderbolt. –– Conan of Cimmeria Some scholars believe there were other ages before the Hyborian Age, and that if one travels far and looks hard, there is the chance one might discover echoes of these lost ages when men walked the world, yet were not as they are now. To those who know of these primitives, they are considered beast-men, savage cannibals capable of little in the way of reason and lacking all higher intelligence. They are incapable of anything but the most basic, simple culture, and communicate in a language little more than the first grunts and growls mankind made when the world was young and humanity was new. The Cimmerian clans of the Eiglophian Mountains know that these beast-men still exist, though they care nothing for whether these primitives are echoes of humanity’s past or degenerate monsters that take a form close to that of humans. What concerns these clans most is the merciless raiding carried out by the savages, who attack Cimmerian villages and outposts in order to capture weapons of better quality and drag villagers screaming back to their filthy, squalid little caves, where the Cimmerian captives are devoured by the savage cannibals. These flesh-eaters are a source of great terror for the scattered clans of Cimmeria’s northern mountains. Tribal tales tell of even darker fates than as the raw meal of a cannibal family; be it as the living sacrifice to the great ice worm Yakhmar, or worse—offered up to the snow dragon Coltranach, whom these ugly, misshapen half-men worship as a god. |
Scorpion |
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Rightly feared by desert dwellers and the bane of weary travelers, scorpions are eight-legged arachnids with a hard outer shell and a long, flexible tail containing a venomous stinger.
These predatory creatures typically lie in ambush for their prey, striking from concealment and trapping its prey using a pair of powerful, crab-like pincers. Once immobilized, the victim is stung repeatedly until it is incapacitated by the powerful venom, then the scorpion dissolves its meal with a spray of powerful acid and slurps up the remains. Even when not hunting, scorpions are typically highly aggressive, and will not hesitate to attack much larger opponents if they feel they are threatened. Some desert traders even tell stories in the caravanserai of massive specimens large enough to prey upon unwary camels - or people. |
Specter Chieftains |
| There are reasons why the honored dead are laid to rest on biers of stone, with trophies of past deeds and treasures piled at their feet. Their deeds in life earned them honor and respect, and their long service and sacrifice bought them hard-won rest in the afterlife. But such fierce spirits do not rest easily. As in life, they are quick to offense and all too willing to take action against those who have wronged them. More than one grave robber has come to a grisly end when the spirit of a former chieftain rose in his wrath to defend the treasures won over the course of a lifetime. This terrible drama is now being played out on a grand scale in the Cimmerian Field of the Dead, as a large force of Vanir warriors have invaded the sacred site. They are pillaging the grave mounds of ancient chieftains and plundering them of arcane relics, caring nothing for the warriors interred within. Bodies have been dumped onto the dank earth, or defiled by Vanir knives. Now the specters of angry chieftains haunt the region’s southern forest, seeking to avenge themselves against those who wronged them—or upon any living soul unfortunate enough to cross their path. Worse still, the Vanir digs have uncovered relics of an even more ancient time. At the northern end of the Field of the Dead, the raiders have found Atlantean ruins and while tunneling through a Cimmerian burial mound they stumbled upon an even older tomb cut into the mountain itself. When the Vanir broke into the tomb, they were shocked to discover the resting place of a tall, powerfully-built woman, laid to rest in ornate Atlantean armor and surrounded with grave goods fit for a mighty chieftain. Her name, as written in the runes of lost Atlantis, was Chief Toirdealbach. None of this mattered to the Vanir; they cared only for the ancient relics scattered about the tomb. Toirdealbach’s fingers were cut away to strip them of their rings, and her neck sawed through to get at the torc of gold that rested against her collarbones. Her remains were them dumped unceremoniously on the stone floor, piled like the bones of a peasant. But the greedy jests of the Vanir changed to screams as the howling spirit of the angry chieftain rose up before them. Only one of the raiders escaped to tell of what he’d seen, though he died of his wounds shortly after. Since then the raiders’ mysterious leaders have sent one group after another into the tomb, each one larger and better-armed than before, but none have ever returned. Their mangled bodies fill the tunnels leading to Chief Toirdealbach’s resting place, warning would-be treasure seekers of the peril that awaits them. |
Tarantula |
| Tarantulas are very large, hairy spiders that prefer to seek out and kill their prey rather than trapping them in the strands of a web.
Tarantulas are very large, hairy spiders that prefer to seek out and kill their prey rather than trapping them in the strands of a web. Depending on their size, tarantulas hunt prey as small as crickets or as large as lizards or even small birds. Like other spiders, they inject their prey with powerful venom that liquefies their organs into a stew that the tarantula can then consume. Though desert dwellers fear the tarantula, the spider’s venom is rarely poisonous, although its bite can cause severe pain for a short period of time. Despite their fearsome appearance, tarantulas are rarely aggressive toward humans unless provoked, although the villagers of Pashtun ascribe a diabolical intelligence to the swarms of tarantulas infesting the nearby Island of the Ancient Ones. |
Vistrix |
| Atzel’s Approach offers a variety of torments to ensnare unwary travelers, and not all of them - not even most - are human. While the bandit groups under Atzel’s banner are a grave threat throughout the region, darker dangers exist. The greatest of these, and the father of many lesser evils, is the demon known as Vistrix.
Little is known of Vistrix in truth, and much of the death-filled rumor tied to the beast is born of fearful speculation rather than iron-hard fact. The tales spin into myths as the cold nights pass, blending legend and truth into one. Young mammoths are taken from their herds, torn from the earth by a great shadow and a thunder of swift wind. Snake-like inhuman beasts, the chill crawlers, crawl free of the entombing snow in obscene numbers and claw their way to the surface world. Those eking out a living on the slopes of the region’s mountains blame Vistrix for these acts. The demon takes the mammoths to feed. The chill crawlers are the monstrous spawn of the dragon-thing. Vistrix appears to be a new threat to the region, rather than some ancient evil well-known for plaguing Cimmeria and the Border Kingdoms for centuries past. All aware of the spreading evil in Atzel’s Approach know the arrival the demon-dragon coincides with the blossoming darkness. Whether Vistrix is the cause or another symptom of the foulness in the realm, none can be sure. In form, the demon is a reptilian echo from a long-forgotten age when cold-blooded and scaled predator-kings claimed the world as their hunting ground. Does intelligence - a human intelligence - gleam in its giant eyes? The answer to that depends entirely on which tales a traveler believes... |
War Mammoth |
| Thunder can be heard on the fields of the Border Kingdom, it is the thunderous steps of the mighty War Mammoths.
These gargantuan beasts, mounted by skilled riders, strides across the blood-soaked fields as mighty battleships set to conquer some unknown harbor. A vital instrument in any siege attack, a War Mammoth may very well determine the outcome of a battle. Employing these beasts in your attack means that you can break down walls and damage buildings even without using traditional siege weapons. In Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures players can acquire and ride their own War Mammoth into battles throughout the Border Kingdom. At launch, the only way to obtain such a beast is to pre-order the game at select retail chains where it is on offer. |
Werewolf |
| The Field of the Dead is a grim, haunted place in the best of times, but lately the cries of wolves howling from the dark valleys have ominously changed in tone. Cimmerians standing watch over the lonely fields have gone missing, and others claim that there are werewolves stalking through the mists, hunting human flesh. According to legend and superstition, a werewolf is a mortal who has fallen under a terrible curse and been transformed into a bestial creature that is part man, part wolf. Fierce and terrible, the werewolf remembers nothing of its former self, driven only by feral urges such as rage, lust and hunger. Unlike true animals, however, the werewolf holds no fear of man; indeed, it relishes the flesh of humans, and will hunt them whenever it can. A werewolf is far quicker and stronger than the average human, and fights with its powerful teeth and sharp talons. Though they can be slain by magic or steel like any other creature, fighting a werewolf is fraught with risk. A mortal bitten by the monster becomes infected with its curse. Such victims often succumb to madness and die an agonizing death, but an unlucky few are transformed into werewolves themselves. Cimmerian clan leaders are mystified as to the sudden appearance of these monsters. Were they drawn to the Field of the Dead by the Vanir raiders that have entered the region, or are they part of a ancient curse called down by the specter of an angry chieftain? As yet, no one knows. So far no one is bold enough to search the dark corners of the burial fields for the source of the monstrous plague. |
Wolf |
| Any night spent sleeping on Cimmerian soil will have its tranquil silence cut by the distant howls of wolves. These beasts call the land their home in much greater numbers than the northern barbarians, stalking and sprinting through the forests in search of prey.
In other regions, wolves tend to be aggressive to humans only when starving. In Cimmeria, the wolves are yet another aspect of the local wilderness that will kill a man unless he is careful or greatly skilled. In this harsh land that breeds strong beasts and strong men alike, the wolves chase down human prey whenever they get the chance. The northerners are used to this aggression and fight back with blades, fire and arrows, but the notion that people are prey to Cimmerian wolves is a lesson many outsiders have learned only at the last moment. As pack beasts, wolves rarely fight alone. Travelers will face many sets of snarling jaws at once, as the wolves seek to latch onto his flesh and drag him down with their weight. With leaping attacks that make use of their great strength and speed, they will knock prey down and feed even as their victim thrashes on the ground. Even among the stoic and dour Cimmerians, warriors sometimes suppress shudders at the sound of distant howls. Hunters tracking prey for their families' plates will rarely hesitate to kill a lone wolf that they come across in the wild, either out of spite for the beast's kind or to slay it before it can kill the hunter. The most common wolves in Cimmeria are the timber wolves - large-bodied, ferocious and strong. Dire wolves, coming down from the frost-ravaged winters of Nordheimer lands, are also seen in great numbers. |
Yakhmar |
| The greatest and most terrible of the ice worms is Yakhmar, gigantic in size and ferocious in its cold hatred for any of the living. The higher animals, he knew, radiated heat. Below them in the scale of being came the scaled and plated reptiles and fishes, whose temperature was of their surroundings. But the Remora, the worm of the ice lands, seeming unique in that it radiated cold; at least, that was how Conan would have expressed it. It gave out a sort of bitter cold that could encase a corpse in an armor of ice within minutes. Since none of Conan’s tribesmen claimed to have seen a Remora, Conan had assumed that the creature was long extinct. This, then, must be the monster that Igla had dreaded, and of which she had vainly tried to warn him by the name yakhmar. –– Lair of the Ice Worm, L. Sprague de Camp & Lin Carter The ice-crusted hell of northernmost Cimmeria is a land where life fights to survive. The Eiglophian Mountains rear up into the skies, becoming ever more hostile to humanity with each step up the face of those jagged spires. While scattered clans of Cimmerian barbarians cling to a joyless existence here, the only life that truly thrives in this realm of untouched snow and ancient stone is utterly inhuman. They are the predators of the peaks, and the mightiest among them are some of the deadliest creatures to be found anywhere in the world. First among these are the ice worms of Cimmerian and Hyperborean legend. Some warriors of the northlands believe with certainty that the ice worms are extinct. But the ice worms still live, burrowing ever deeper into the earth’s skin in order to hide from the agonizing touch of the sun’s heat and the fire-arrows of human hunters. The greatest and most terrible of these creatures is Yakhmar itself, gigantic in size and ferocious in its cold hatred for any of the living. The rare tales that tell of Yakhmar speak of a monstrous white-furred worm, its body formed of coil upon coil of winding, rippling, muscled flesh. The beast’s eyes are a sickly, undersea green that radiate cold light in the dark surroundings of its lair, and its opened maw is a gaping hole in inward-pointing teeth and a slick, grasping tongue that snares a warrior’s limbs and drags him closer so the creature may feed. Yakhmar, and perhaps its lesser kin, possesses the ability to produce a piping call that is able to hypnotize even strong-willed souls, luring them from the safety of their campfire and into a foul death. Ice worms feed on the flesh of warm-blooded creatures, rasping the flesh away from their victims’ bones and leaving the bodies encased in a block of solid ice once all warmth is leeched away. Of all the ways to die in the Hyborian Age, such a death is surely one of the most agonizing. |
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