To the Monsters and Creatures Treatises

Eons ago, some histories tell us, the Great Wyrms made their forms into those of humans, and our ancestors were born. So powerful was the Great Wyrms’ magic that the world of Carador could not encompass all their desires and perceptions, and on some ethereal level, the world split into ‘realms’ – each one a different incarnation of the world as we know it. Our most raw and violent and lustful nature became the realm of Lorenai, where demons dwell and bring such ungoverned passions to life. Our most pristine wishes and desires for peace became Kaelum, a land the deities reside in, where all is perfect. And between them arose the realm of Fae, sometimes called the Elemental realm, which sprang out of our truest natures – the place of no thought, of pure action and natural spontaneity.

As the ages passed, each of these realms evolved in its own manner with its own separate inhabitants and unique flora and fauna, until today they exist almost independently, each one a balanced whole.

This internal balance, some sages assert, is why such inexpressible horrors arise from the realm of Faerie – in a place most of us associate with wild innocence, the ‘un-innocent’ must also lurk.

By inexpressible horrors, of course, I am referring to the race of ‘Chimera’.

Below is a written depiction of the chimera, from The Nature of Chimera, by Kasaan, who has devoted his life to studying the historical accounts of the beasts.

The word ‘chimera’ actually refers to an entire class of fae animals. Distinguished as huge predators, chimera often combine aspects of a number of different creatures, but are universally long of tooth and claw, and sport numerous growths of horns and spikes.

Some have been described as enormous bears gone wrong, writes Kasaan, or as serpents who have grown clawed limbs. One account speaks of a beast ‘as large as three horses, with a maw of crooked teeth, thick, doglike forelimbs, and the hindquarters of a giant cat’. I have heard equally of chimera that both possess and lack wings.

Many descriptions get even more colorful, and are probably the result of vision tainted by desperate fear. Indeed, most sightings of chimera don’t afford the witnesses much chance to see what’s going on. Whether from the air or the ground, the beast typically launches a surprise attack and kills whatever it is going to take as prey with swipes of its heavy claws. It then drags them up in its mouth before it bounds away. Kasaan shares an account from an adventurer’s journal:

When the chimera do possess wings, they often glide into the midst of their prey, as likely happened in the above account. Too heavy bodied to actually fly effectively, the wings are used to glide from higher ground, though accounts do relate instances where, with heavy wing-beats, chimera were able to achieve some small degree of altitude.

The chimera seems to be one of the varieties of fae which seldom comes to Carador, although when it does, it probably lacks the ability to pass back into the realm of fae. Being territorial, it will reside in a specific area until it is slain.

In the early days of Masalla, writes Kasaan, there was a beast who haunted the region of Brinnid for over a year. Hundreds died to feed its ravenous appetite, and massive hunts finally brought down a creature described as a ‘dragonbear’. Doubtless a chimera.

But there is another side to the chimera tale. Though we see these creatures as bloodthirsty beasts, might they not simply be predators like any other? Humans might merely be the slowest things in the forest that are also of the appropriate size to feed such a creature. And we have certainly bestowed our own brand of brutality back upon them. Read on, from Kasaan’s book:

Some might call me a bit audacious for a seventeen-year-old sage, but I suggest that the chimera is no more evil than any other beast of the deep woods. Certainly we have a right to defend our own territory and to slay a creature that has killed one of our own, but it benefits us naught to live in ignorance, thinking that the chimera has some vendetta against humankind in general. Indeed, there is ample evidence to suggest that they eat more deer, wolves, bear, and forest dragons than humans. In fact, many sightings tell of a strange reaction on the part of the chimera. Last year, to make my point, young Melissa, a server at the Loft in Aranor, was taking a day-long adventure hike outside the city walls.

"I was looking for some ruins that I had heard of, half a day out from the southern gates. No hope of finding them, really, but I had settled at mid-day for a bite of lunch in a clearing. I was nearly finished when I heard something approaching through the woods. When I saw it, I froze up. My whole body seized into inaction. It was a chimera, I’m sure – my head might have come up to its shoulder. It had narrow little eyes and its jaw was hanging open – it seemed to be panting or something. It had huge teeth. It walked right into the clearing and made its way along the edge, not fifteen paces from where I sat. It looked right over at me as it loped along, and then looked ahead again, as if I weren’t interesting at all. It was an amazing sight, but I have to admit that after it was gone, I broke down into a sort of fit, and lay there crying for probably an hour. It was strange."

While Kasaan dismissed this incident as an instance when the chimera simply wasn’t hungry, another sage from the library of Aranor, one Jalatir Kirael, had a different opinion.

"There’s no doubt the beast sensed her – their vision is sharper than ours, as with the rest of their senses. But in the fae realm, the only human-shaped creatures they see are nymphs and tyver – creatures which are nearly impossible to catch, since they can disappear into the realm of Carador, and vice versa, if they need to escape. The chimera can’t follow, since we know they are unable to move from realm to realm at will. So it is likely that chimera associate humans with uncatchable prey. Indeed, most attacks upon humans are surprise attacks for this very reason – the only way a chimera can catch a nymph or tyver is to pounce upon it unsuspecting."

If Queen Lillian’s renaissance teaches us anything, it’s that our old preconceptions should be examined. While the knowledge of yore would have us believe that some things, such as demons, vampires, chimera, or lycanthropes, are inherently evil, new learning might teach us that even the darkest of creatures have meaning behind their actions.

And if we ever wish to be safe from the ravages of such beasts, we must be armed with understanding and knowledge, instead of the old standby of unexamined ignorance.