Common Creatures
in the Continuing GameHere is a brief overview of the creatures that are most familiar to the residents of the CG world:
Mahiri (also called Elf)
Fictional Appearance: like a slender humanoid with slightly pointed ears and a gem on the forehead.
Costuming: forehead gem
Characteristics: The mahiri (sometimes called elves) are a civilized, long-lived, forest-dwelling race, prone to contemplation. Their philosophy centers around “the Balance”, avoiding extremes. They do not worship the gods but rather the seasons and other natural concepts. They are organized into loosely-knit nations called “clans”. They have a gem on the forehead denoting their age; purple is for infants, progressing to red for the elderly.
Dwarf
Fictional Appearance: a stocky, short humanoid (about a foot shorter than humans, on average) with a ridged forehead and two circular spots at the temples
Costuming: stripe of makeup across the forehead, and two thick black dots at the temples. Usually wearing dark-colored clothing with a preference for leather and metal.
Characteristics: The dwarves are an orderly, subterranean race known for their skills with the forge and other crafts. They value their honor highly and are formed into tight-knit, very hierarchical nations called “clans”. Each clan has a distinct forehead ridge that identifies it.
Ackarack
Fictional Appearance: a humanoid with blue leathery skin, silver-grey hair, and a goat-like snout.
Costuming: blue facepaint, ragged clothing, stooped posture and shambling gait
Characteristics: Ackaracks are wilderness-dwelling monsters who are very fond of silver and sometimes other shiny objects. They are not especially bright but do stage ambushes and simple ruses to get what they want.
Orc/Grum
Fictional Appearance: humanoid, with green craggy skin and a blunted snout.
Costuming: green face-paint. Usually dressed in olive-green vests and other barbaric-looking clothing.
Characteristics: Orcs are green-skinned, pig-snouted tribal monsters predisposed towards aggression and violence. They readily prey upon the civilized races for food and wealth, forming raiding bands that emerge from the wilderness to savage towns and villages.
In the kingdom of Ragnorack, the orcs are called “grum”, since they consume an ale called “grumale”. The ale makes them marginally smarter and less violent than regular orcs, although Ragnorackans find that having smarter orcs can be a mixed blessing.
Shen (also called Kobold)
Fictional Appearance: five-foot-tall, virtually hairless scrawny humanoids with black, diamond-shaped splotches about the face and body.
Costuming: black diamond patterns on the cheeks and skin, shirtless (climate and gender permitting)
Characteristics: Shen are nasty, wilderness-dwelling creatures that seem to hate all life save their own, but are also known for their cowardice when facing a superior foe.
Dragon
Fictional Appearance: tremendous winged lizards
Costuming: large dragon costume (a three-person shell with mounted head, wings, and legs)
Characteristics: Dragons are legendary for their might, and they consider humans and the other civilized races to be beneath their contempt. They prey upon the civilized races for treasure or food, taking it as they see fit.
Ratman
Fictional Appearance: in natural form, humanoid rat-like creatures.
Costuming: in natural form, with fur-covered face-masks.
Characteristics: Ratmen are a ruthless subterranean race that emerge periodically to plague the surface world. They hate the world above and have little regard for life. They are very cunning and quite intelligent. Their most fearsome ability is that they can assume the shape of other species, and they use this to infiltrate the surface world and wreak havoc.
Ent
Fictional Appearance: trees with vaguely humanoid shapes
Costuming: brown tunics and clothing; brown or green cloaks or cloth wrapped around the body; leaves in hair; branches held in arms to act as branches. Sometimes represented using an actual tree and a hidden voice actor.
Characteristics: They are a sentient species of mobile tree-like creatures. They are generally benign, though they do not take kindly to anyone causing harm to a forest.
Faerie (also called Fae or Sidhe)
Fictional Appearance: faeries come in many shapes and sizes. Goblins look bestial and nasty; pixies are short and winged, leprechauns are tiny and wear green, and so on.
Costuming: varies widely
Characteristics: The faeries live in their own, otherworldly realm, but sometimes cross over into the mortal realm. They can be lighthearted and capricious, vicious and bestial, cunning and clever, alien and inscrutable, or all of the above. Supposedly faeries do not like iron but do enjoy mortals’ food and drink. Malicious faeries have been known to steal mortal children and replace them with faerie duplicates.
Demon
Fictional Appearance: varies, but usually humanoids with twisted faces, red-hued or charcoal-hued skin, and sometimes with black wings.
Costuming: usually black clothing, black wings, and red or black facepaint -- but demons come in many varieties, so costume varies.
Characteristics: Demons are the unholy residents of the hells, who cross into the mortal world to spread pain. They come in many forms, from the lowly imps to the devious jacks to the powerful archdemons.
Ghoul
Fictional Appearance: hunched-over, undead humanoid with skin turned green from rot.
Costuming: rags, green mask over white facepaint, hunched stance, whiny voice
Characteristics: Ghouls are sniveling, vicious undead that feed upon the flesh of the living (or recently dead).
Skeleton
Fictional Appearance: animated skeletons
Costuming: tattered clothes, white facepaint or mask with dark eye-sockets. Sometimes represented by drawing or taping a white skeletal pattern of “bones” on black clothing.
Characteristics: Skeletons are undead, animated through necromancy.
Vampire
Fictional Appearance: like a normal human
Characteristics: Vampires are powerful, unholy immortals who feed upon the blood of the living. Supposedly, they can control animals and assume the shape of a bat -- but they cannot cross running water, fear garlic, and are damaged by sunlight or by a stake through the heart.
Werewolf
Fictional Appearance: in human form, normal. In wolf form, as a wolf-like humanoid.
Costuming: in wolf form, grey or brown fur and a wolf mask
Characteristics: Werewolves are unholy beings that change from human form to a rampaging wolflike form when the moon is full. Supposedly, the bite of a werewolf will turn you into a werewolf as well.
Zombie
Fictional Appearance: rotting humanoid corpse; pale, decaying skin
Costuming: white face paint, dirty rags, blank stare, staggering movement
Characteristics: Zombies are re-animated, shambling dead that tend to work in hordes.
Golem
Fictional Appearance: humanoid made of clay or other material
Costuming: face mask and crude, earth-colored costume
Characteristics: golems are synthetic humanoids, created by a mage through a difficult process where the mage animates a human-shaped form made of clay, stone or other base material. Golems operate under a set of instructions given to them by their creator, but have only limited intelligence.
Dragon
Fictional Appearance: tremendous winged lizards with six legs and sharp claws.
Costuming: three-person shell with a mounted dragon head, wings, and legs.
Characteristics: Dragons are mighty and fearsome, and they know it. Dragons see humans and their ilk as short-lived, annoying, and beneath contempt, and dragons will treat them as such -- taking treasure that they covet, or plundering fields for livestock and other food.
Dragons are known to be very strong and difficult to slay, and they are potent users of strong magics.