This is a wolf leather-bound codex. The written portion consists a beastiary, authored by Ast Slingfastened the dwarf necromancer. It concerns the behaviour of various creatures. Overall, as a source of information this codex is passable.
I am Ast Slingfastened, former baron of Gleemirrored, a hillock of the Somber Palisade, a dwarven expedition, currently a member of the Portals of Quiescence, a group of immortals such as myself. This is a simple compendium of the various beasts I and my companions have come across in our travels around the world - should you be an adventurer, just like we once were, this guide may provide you with some knowledge, so that you may be forewarned of any dangers your destination may hold, for as you know, this part of the world is particularly untamed and filled with various wild, savage beasts, not known in other parts of the world - as well as many forms of clearly unnatural, malicious creatures.
I will also be including the various civilized races I've come across - it is quite helpful to be able to identify which creature won't attempt to devour you on sight and in fact may be able to provide shelter.
Beasts - Pt. 1WorgsWorgs are very large offshots of wolves - while giant wolves do exist, they appear to be unrelated to Worgs.
These beasts tend to be bigger than horses when they reach their adult size, and are very sturdy - for this reason, some races use them as mounts and animals of burden - Orcs in particular appear to have some sort of special bond with the worgs that allows them to domesticate these creatures easier.
They make quite ferocious and loyal companions, as well as great war animals. Wild worgs are quite difficult opponents, even for seasoned warriors - taking on even two of them alone, or worse yet, an entire pack of them, is suicide.
Regardless, should you be able to slay one of these beasts, they can provide quite a lot of meat for sustenance, and their leather and fur can be useful for making simple yet warm armor.
Saber WorgI've only come across these beasts rarely in my travels - they are a fiercer subspecies' of the Worgs, acclimated to the colder regions of the world. As a result, they are much more aggressive, and their fangs are also very big in comparison to their warmer brethren, allowing them to rend flesh much more easily - quite useful, given the other creatures in the taigas and tundras.
Their fur also insulates them much better than that of other worgs, again, quite useful, should you find yourself in the southern areas of the world.
Otherwise, they've been rarely domesticated - few races stay for any long period of time in the south.GarmThese canine predators are only found underground and in the tainted forests. They are bigger than either Worgs or Saber Worgs, and much longer-lived - although, they also take longer to reach their full, adult size. They resemble giant, decaying wolves, with raw-looking flesh of various shades of red, and their heads resemble bats more than canines - despite their horrifying appearance, they are not undead and still very much alive.
They are attracted to the smell of carrion, and are often found feasting on the corpses of various other creatures. Regardless, they are not picky, and will attack any nearby living creature that interrupts their feeding.
Garms have a peculiar ability, one that makes them a lot more formidable than even Saber Worgs - they can spew a gray fog that can temporarily blind those unlucky enough to be hit by it - this allows them to simply pounce on any unfortunate adventurer and bite them to death, as they're wildly flailing their weapons.
They have been domesticated, and obviously make very deadly war animals, although most races who managed this feat aren't particularly fond of outsiders - goblins, fel orcs and the corrupted humans often use these beasts as mounts, as well as hunting and war animals.CerberusThese beasts are very rare, and I have only seen one in all my travels, an experience I do not wish to repeat again. They are three-headed, gigantic, demonic wolves, and are capable of very easily tearing a man to shreds.
Each of its three heads can attack independently from the other two - even groups aren't safe from being mauled by these creatures.
To make matters worse, it also possesses the innate ability to spew streams of fire from each head - as you might guess, the beast can breathe in three, completely separate directions.
The Cerberi themselves are immune to intense heat of any kind, which is presumably how they can store their fire without burning from the inside.
Peasants and other common folk believe that they are the guardians of the Underworld, although I've yet to see one that was standing watch over a gateway of some kind - they are too aggressive to be guardians. Perhaps there is some truth to the myth, after all, stories like that do not come from nowhere.BehemothThese gargantuan beasts are thankfully very rare - only a few exist in the world. They resemble a canine crossed with a lion, and also have two large horns.
They do not possess any innate magical abilities or breath attacks, although they do not need them - their size dwarves even fully-grown dragons, and as such they can simply crush most other creatures under their weight, or tear them to shreds with their claws or fangs.
I've noticed a rather worrying pattern to their behaviour - they appear to somehow be innately aware of locations where civilization thrives - often the same areas where lots of trees are cut down for lumber and where animals are slaughtered for meat, leather and other materials - and they instinctively head towards these areas, killing the townsfolk and destroying buildings, but leaving the animals alive. This leads me to believe they're some kind of natural force given physical form.
Nonetheless, the rules of other biological creatures apply to them, and they still feel pain and can be knocked unconscious - at which point its easy enough to cut the throat and wait for it to bleed to death.
OOC: Something different - I'll be doing these beastiary entries every once in a while, for a bit of lore-building, whenever I need to do a voting process. Hope you guys enjoy them.
EDIT: Well, uh, this is an interesting result. Gonna do a coin toss.
EDIT 2: Alright, went with 5 coin tosses, Draenei were heads and Tarkatans were tails - Draenei got 3 wins and Tarkatans got only 2, so we're going with the Draenei.
The Draenei have 2 active civilizations and no dead ones - both are also fairly close to each other, so it doesn't make too much of a difference where we start.
This is the territory of the first Draenei civ, the Ordered Day of Cusps.
Their main neighbors are Draconians of the Confederacy of Tapering, to the south. Their area, as you can see, is actually quite open - there's quite a lot of bandit camps, lairs, and other fun places around - interestingly there's a camp not too far from their location that consists of 13 plump helmet men and 2 Sand Trolls, something I haven't really seen before (large amounts of animal people-like creatures in bandit camps, that is).
This is the territory of the other civ, the Crowded Gate.
Their area is a fair bit more crowded, as you can see - their western neighbors are Sand Trolls of the Sweltering Empires and Naga of the Competitive Realms. Centrally up north in the marshes are the forest retreats belonging to Dark Trolls of the Confederations of Competing, and the dark pits dangerously close to their villages belong to the Corrupted Humans of the Confining Cruelty. To the north-west there are some forest retreats, belonging to the Forest Trolls of the Confederacy of Tongs, and some towns of the Curious Confederations, a titan civilization. Lastly, to the north-east there are some hillocks and fortresses belonging to the Iron Guardian civilization of the Banners of Ticking.
There are quite a few lairs and bandit camps around their area, though not quite as densely packed as near the Ordered Day of Cusps' area, and interestingly, there's a vault called Meanblocks not far south from the dark pits situated on the river in the center-right. There's a fair bit of abandoned/ruined towns too, populated only by bandit groups. So, seems like it'll be a fun ride - I'll post the first update tomorrow.