When my fellow members of Illumination first asked me to write on monsters, I had a long walk by myself along Raccoon Creek, just outside of Selarum. I’ve seen all manner of beasts in my travels, but the difficulty, I knew, would be in defining a boundary between ‘monster’ and ‘animal’, or even ‘monster’ and ‘person’.

Raccoon Creek. Was a raccoon a monster? Most certainly not. A dragon? Most certainly. A bear?

I think that we tend to define a monster or creature based on two basic premises – first, we observe the level and type of interaction that the entity has with us. Monsters seem to be any type of animal that interacts with us on a level that includes eating us or otherwise being particularly destructive. But there are other things, ‘creatures’, who interact with us not by eating or killing us, but by preying upon us in other ways – often by stealing things from us or being interested in us for our minds or the pleasures of our bodies. These entities, who tend to have roughly human appearances and to have methods of communicating with us, I have decided to call ‘creatures’.

Monsters, then, range from bears and dire wolves to dragons and vampires, from harpies and chimera to forest cats and jungle tigers. Creatures are those beings such as merfolk, nymphs, trolls, unicorns, tyver, and kava.

The most important thing to know about monsters and creatures is that they are not a common sight, nor a common threat, in any of the Known Lands. At least not in the civilized areas. In fact, most people will live out their lives never seeing anything more fantastical than a large bear or a small forest cat – to see a mermaid or a dire wolf is to stand face to face with legend. I’ve even known a very few people who think such things might not exist, or are, at most, greatly exaggerated stories of less fantastical creatures. Nymphs and tyver, for instance, are simply humans who were lost in the woods early in their childhood and reverted to natural ways. Dragon skulls are likely the skulls of some large creature from the deep seas that someone found washed up on a deserted strand.

It is those who step out and away from civilization that see these entities. Huntsmen and explorers, adventurers and sailors. They will gladly tell you tales of forest drakes, unicorns, or the haunting vision of a mermaid that has turned a man’s heart to constant longing.

It is true that vampires and demons and delvorin lurk among our cities. Few doubt that they are real. But such creatures are secretive and stealthy, loathe to be discovered, and so their predations are quiet, swift, and done in lonely places. Those found dead? Their demises are easily attributed to muggings or sudden illness, and it is just as well for the predators, who do all in their power to remain hidden away.

Thus the study of monsters and creatures is the realm of the curious, else those who are likely to encounter such entities in their wanderings. There are those, too, who hunt monsters in our cities, attempting to make the night world safe from such predators.

As a professional adventurer, I tend toward the philosophical, and I’d wager that such creatures have a place in our world – for me they add the excitement and fear to my life that I so much crave – but perhaps for the rest of us, they serve to remind us that the world is not tamed, that its powers are far beyond us, and that we should keep a sense of perspective, even in the comforts of our greatest cities. A sense of perspective that reminds us that we are mortal, and that life is to be lived, and lived fully.

It is those who succumb to boredom and the grey dullness of constant comfort -- these are the people who have met and been preyed upon by the most awful monster of all. Wasted life.

Now I’d best take my opinions elsewhere before trouble finds me.

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