Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror: L is for Lamentable!

[Nathan of the FoS]

Lich, dry [Sandstorm]

It is, of course, quicker to go by way of the Dry Lakes, but this can only directly after the rainy season, when the lakes are filled; not, as many outlanders think, because then the Dry Lakes can be used for water (they are much too brackish to drink at any time), but because when the lakes are gone, leaving only the hard salt pan, the Old Man of the Dunes comes down out of his winter home and walk to and fro throughout all the dry season, killing any he finds there.

Luq al-Taber, Pharazian caravan leader


Lycanthrope, werepanther [new]

The tallest and youngest of the guardsman turned and looked at me, and I could see in his cat's-eyes that he knew me; but the change on all those who receive the Mark meant that I did not know him. They dragged Master Arvenson from the post and thrust him into the arms of his son, and there was a little disturbance in the crowd; the tall young guardsman took advantage to stop near me and say, so low only I could hear, "Mother...I'm sorry."

I knew the voice, then; it was my son, little Torvald, whom we had thought dead. If only I could have rejoiced in finding him again; but now he had the cat's-eyes, and the Mark, and I knew my little boy had become a monster.

Interview of Rejna Haraldsdottir with Gennifer Weathermay-Foxgrove

[ChrisNichols]

Leech, occult, witchbane leech [Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, Denizens of Darkness]

The thorp had a girl they were certain had been aiding the fey. While Jermeyn, the local Inquisitor, was investigating the matter, they kept her in a little hut the community used as a jail cell. I got a chance to look at her one night and it was a pitious thing. She couldn't have been more than thirteen or fourteen, rail-thin, dirty, and sobbing. Her hands were bound in front of her with a short manacle.

But the worst thing was that her ragged blouse had been torn away at the back. Attached to the girl's shoulders were three fat leeches. When I asked about this later, one of the villagers told me that the leeches prevented the girl from using "fey deviltry," but could not explain how. Supposedly, Inquisitor Jermeyn could explain it better, but it seemed better to move onward given the suspicious glances the villagers had been giving me since my visit to the jail-hut.

Bertram Mac Laren, Sixty Nights in Tepest

[cure]

LYCANTHROPE, WEREBAT

“Not only is our killer unhindered by darkness, he, she, it can distinguish between vessels identical in every way save for that one is full and the other empty. Pendleton, what clue does this fact cast in a whole new light?"
“I have not the foggiest idea. Pray tell Vail."
"It is obvious Colonel. The sound of leather snapped taunt of course. As well as the absence of any evidence that the walls were scaled.”

-The Case of the Sightless Death From Above, Colonel Oliver Pendleton

[ChrisNichols]

No, it was never updated. For my personal use, I'm updating it as a simple snap-on variant (along with a few new variants), like the undead variants in Libris Mortis.

Could add these and any other snap-on variants to the monster lists so we can do blurbs for them? Even if they aren't useful, it should be fun.

Chris Nichols

[Mangrum]

Here's the updated list of remaining L monsters:

Leech, occult, mindsapper leech [RL MC III (as pisonic leech)]
Leechwalker [Monster Manual II]
Lost soul [The Nightmare Lands]
Done! Lycanthrope, werejackal [Denizens of Dread]
Done! Lycanthrope, werejaguar [Denizens of Dread]
Done! Lycanthrope, wereleopard [Denizens of Dread]
Lycanthrope, werelion [new]
Done! Lycanthrope, wererat [Monster Manual] Pic
Lycanthrope, wereray [Denizens of Dread]
Lycanthrope, weresea cat (sea stalker) [Ravenloft Gazetteer II]
Lycanthrope, wereshark [Monsters of Faerûn]Pic
Lycanthrope, weresnake [new]
Lycanthrope, werewolverine [new]

A humble request for the rest of the lycanthropes: We now have plenty of blurbs where the narrator encounters a human who gives off signs of being a werebeast. With the lycanthropes that are left, let's include some more actual werebeast encounters!

[Mangrum]

Could we add these and any other snap-on variants to the monster lists so we can do blurbs for them? Even if they aren't useful, it should be fun.

Eventually, sure. For now, though, there's still a couple hundred monsters to go through, so I want to keep focused on that.

[cure]

LYCANTHROPE, WERERAT

We had amputated the hand, so badly had it been bitten, so fearful were we of the disease. Would we have to take the life? How could we know? Would there be warning? Would there be warning enough? A dull thud, accompanied by a slight shutter, fixed our eyes upon the door. But we were not overly concerned. Not only was it well made. It was thoroughly barred. A sharp squeak reached us from the other side. We all looked at Alain. He looked beyond the portal and shuttered. We could almost see reflected in his eyes the flashing blades, that feral face, his blood dripping from its chin. But our composure did not elude us for long. And then it began, the gnawing at the door.

-La mort de l’innocence, Chantelle Yvrie

[Nathan of the FoS]

Lycanthrope, werejackal [Denizens of Dread]

Again I struggled to ascend the side of the sand-pit, and again I was thwarted by the downward drift of each step; it seemed the more I struggled to rise, the more quickly I fell. I therefore ceased my exertions and called out to Geddar to come with a rope; but (as I later learned) he was then engaged with our guide in attempting to collect our camels, which had had their hobbles cut and had wandered into the night.

When the silouette of a human-like figure thrust its head over the side of the sand-pit I thought for a moment I was saved; but then I saw the great bat-ears and the outline of the dog-muzzle against the rising moon.

“Feed us, feed us, Protector of the Poor,” it called down, in imitation of the Pharazian beggar’s call, and laughed horribly. “You see now how the Jackal-People provide for themselves! In a day or so we will come for you again; yes, we will help you out of the pit then.”

Rudolph van Richten, working notes to Van Richten’s Guide to Werebeasts

Lycanthrope, werejaguar [Denizens of Dread]

…[T]here are among them Lodges, or Cabals, brotherhoods sworn to some joint purposes; chief among these is the Cabal of the Tiger, or Jaguar as the natives name it, the great spotted yellow cat who prowls the deep jungle and whom they take for their Totem or spiritual guide. By some deviltry there are those among them who take on the very form of the cat itself and do battle as half-man, half-beast, the violence they wreak being horrible to behold. I have seen one of them tear a man to pieces using only its terrible clawed hands…

letter from one Hernan Mouriros, origin otherwise unknown; Special Collections, Great Library of Port-a-Lucine

Lycanthrope, wereleopard [Denizens of Dread]

We had built the kraal only two meters hight; we did not know that the plainsmen, if they go there at all, build to a height of at least five, and always use the greenest thorn bushes. I was on watch at midnight or thereabouts when it came into the camp, leaping the kraal as an athletic man might leap over a stile. It was a thing like a cat on two legs, with horrible green eyes; it struck left-right, left-right, with its hands (like a man but with claws two inches long). I shot at it, but I do not know if I hit. Seizing Vermijson, it picked him up as a man might pick up a child, threw him over the kraal, and leapt over after him. He did not scream for long.

manuscript found in a bazaar in Sri Raji, script and language previously unidentified; Special Collections, Great Library of Port-a-Lucine

[Nathan of the FoS]

Lycanthrope, werelion [new]

In all that land we found only one sign of the work of any human hand; on a great stone we found the following characters engraved...the inscription we found there has since been translated by Dr. Robert Pembroke, who gives it as follows:

Behold the king Sundiata! How great his strength like the sun! How terrible his rage like the summer tempest! How generous to his true servants like the winter rains! Truly, truly we may say he is the son of the lion! Truly, truly we may say the spirit of the lion is in his heart! Truly, truely we may say the majesty of the lion beams from his face! Truly, truly the form of the lion marks him as the true king of kings!

In the Wildlands, Captain John Smith

Lycanthrope, wereray [Denizens of Dread]

They also say of that city, doomed Shay-lot, that there are some who walk among us day by day, yet still visit the Drowned City and go up and down its streets, cloaked in their own wide wings.

Catalog of the World Entire

Lycanthrope, weresea cat (sea stalker) [Ravenloft Gazetteer II]

Captain Harris laughed his booming, cruel laugh. "So it's to be the plank, is it?" he asked of our captors, grinning. (Never had those strong white teeth, gleaming from that tangle of black beard, seemed fiercer or less human than they did then.) "Well, I suppose I’ll just have to take it like a man.” I thought to myself that these pirates could hardly have chosen a less effective means of execution; they had not seen (as I had) the captain leap overboard in a high sea after a fallen crewman, to surface with the sailor’s collar in his teeth, his nails (now claws) digging deep into the ship’s timbers as he clambered up the side.

The Teeth of the Gale, from Twelve Tales of the Macabre, Jean Lafolie

[Nathan of the FoS]

Lycanthrope, wereshark [Monsters of Faerûn]

"Bad things happen to those who dive for pearls here without permission," the taller of the two young men said, his blank face more menacing than any bully's scowl. "Bad things?" I asked, feigning skepticism (I had already heard stories from others on the island).

"Sharks," he replied laconically.

"And yet, nothing happens to you," I replied. "Why is that?" He shrugged, fingering the shark-tooth necklace at his throat. "My brothers and I, we bite back," he said, and grinned, showing a mouthful of teeth filed to points.

Journeys in the Mists, volume 2, Simon Torrens

Lycanthrope, weresnake [new]

Suddenly someone screamed, and then the whole ballroom was in an uproar--men shouting and pulling at their dress swords, women screaming and swooning. I turned quickly, but at first I could not locate the source of the confusion. Then someone pointed to the floor, and I saw it--a great venomous snake, of the kind they call "bushmaster", writhing out of the clothing of Senor Garibado.

Prompted by some instinct, I looked toward General Maconda, who observed the confusion with a smile fit for a devil; he alone seemed unsurprised by Garibado's ghastly transformation.

Journeys in the Mists, volume 2, Simon Torrens

Lycanthrope, werewolverine [new][/quote]

Of all the wild and fierce spirits which they claim can descend on a man and lend him their own form, none is more feared than that they call "wolverine" (despite its name, it is a creature like a badger, but larger and fiercer still). Even the bear-shirts and wolf-shirts (or, in their tongue, berserkr and wulfserkr) will step aside from such a one unless the full battle-fury is on them, for the wolverine-spirit has no thought at all for life or death, nor for the strength of his enemy; for him there is only deadly hunger and deadlier rage.

Larraby Quift, Adventures of a Wanderer

[Nathan of the FoS]

Leech, occult, mindsapper leech [RL MC III (as psionic leech)]

"I know you have your methods, Alanik," I said, "but was it really necessary to trek to the middle of a mosquito, horsefly, and leech-infested swamp to confront M'sieur Negroponte?"

"Perhaps not strictly necessary," he replied coolly, his eyes scanning the surroundings carefully. "But it will make our task much easier, considering his unusual talents, of which we heard so much earlier today. I take it you failed to notice the very slight blue tint to the leeches you have been pulling from your legs the last half-hour or so?"

"I confess, it had quite escaped my attention," I responded drily.

Alanik chuckled. "Good. Let us hope M'sieur Negroponte is no more observant than you are."

The Mind Leech, from The New Casebook of Alanik Ray, Arthur Sedgwick

Leechwalker [Monster Manual II]

T.B. opined that the corpse we found in the New River Channel must have been attacked by vampires! Because the body had been drained of blood! So we should bring garlic! And mirrors! (!s are to depict T.'s conversational style, which can never end a sentence without a flourish.) Pointed out that it is the custom of vampires to bite once at the neck, not hundreds of times across the entire body, and advised him to formulate an alternative hypothesis. (!)

Journal of Nathanael Dent, grimetrekker, 12/12/754

Lost soul [The Nightmare Lands]

I have now seen several of these strange wandering spirits, which I have dubbed "lost souls" from the impression of loneliness and dread which I have always sensed in their presence. They are certainly not kindly disposed to such as I, but when solitary they are not truly menacing, often seeming to lack either the will or the confidence to approach even a lone wanderer such as I. I have, however, seen three or four join together into a frightful and aggressive creature of many arms and hands; if their ability to aggregate is not limited, a dozen of them acting together would surely be able to dismember even a strong man in mere moments.

from a purported diary of Dr. Gregory Illhousen

[Nathan of the FoS]

Leech, occult, witchbane leech [Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, Denizens of Darkness]

...

Bertram Mac Laren, Sixty Nights in Tepest

Hey, now. I'm honored by the borrowing.

[Mangrum]

That's it for the Ls! Thanks all.