A yearly tradition of mine is to draw a baker's dozen monsters for each day leading up to Halloween. It started off with just the classic spooks, but has since gone on to cover everything from mythological beasts to literary nightmares to unsung creepy things I think deserve more attention.
Halloween '20
Rat King
A rabble of rodents joined by twisted tails and unwavering camaraderie, the Rat King desires to unite all within its collective self. Not just rats, but mice and squirrels and gerbils and chinchillas as well. Even short-tails like hamsters and zokors and capybaras. And why stop at rodents? The whole world deserves to be made one.
Deep down, the Rat King is kinda terrified by this dream, by the notion of sacrificing the privacy of individuality for completely open unity.... and also because can it still be a king if it's one and the same as its subjects?
Fafnir was once a noble dwarf in ages past, but his lust for gold lead him to killing his father over a cursed treasure hoard. Twisted into a vile form to match the evil within his heart, Fafnir dedicated the rest of his miserable existence to guarding his ill-gotten spoils, going so far as to swallow the entire collection so he'd never be away from it.
Many have challenged the fell beast — and a rare few have actually won out! Not merely nicking the beast and nicking a few coins, but killing the devilish dwarf-thing dead. Inevitably, though, no matter how noble the cause was, the victor finds their thoughts returning again and again towards that treassure trove. Completely unguarded, it could be taken by anyone. That'sss not fair, I ssssslayed the bassssssstard, that treasssssure belongsss to me! Thievesss! THIEVESSSSSES EVERYWHERESSSSsss!
....well, not quite. The scrying stone isn't particularly knowledgable about the world (much less the future), but it IS a window into a vast interconnected system with its own interdimensional selves — that is, those who look into the crystal ball can see what's happening in other worlds. Potentially a very useful ability, if one could actually figure out that’s how the sphere works in the first place. Naturally, the orbuculum delights in being as vague as it can be, misleading many a would-be diviner with horrific visions of things that absolutely definitely will happen certainly. To at least one version of you, somewhere....
Originally it was just a computer worm that was safely trapped within a disc, until a cyper-punk decided to have some misbegotten "fun." Restless after decades of nothingness, the worm assimilated the poor fool (and most everything within the vicinity) and wreaked bloody vengeance in a new dimension that had long forgotten since about it. The people were able to fight back, despite the worm's penchant for absorbing everything and growing out of control, and threw its fried, frozen, fragged, and frazzled remains in a rocket and launched it into space, where if nothing else it was someone else's problem.
The worm survived, of course, and longs for the day it reaches another world. At least this time the nothingness isn't quite so... nothing.
The artificial nurse was a great boon for society... until they began to glitch out. "Can a pigeon heart be used in place of a human one?" Uh, no. "What if we use more than one, even a dozen?" No, and where are you getting this from? "I revived ALL the animals from the cafeteria’s mystery meat!" You what?!
Consequently, most of the artificial nurses were decommissioned, but a few managed to escape and continue to practice their dubious craft, without any pesky supervision.
An appearance by the Moth spells disaster. As in, the lepidopteran literally scrawls a terrible fate all over the floor and walls and wherever it sees fit, and that perilous prophecy eventually comes to pass. One could change their destiny by simply changing what the Moth wrote, but given its poor penmanship and strange spiral syntax, any edits may unwittingly do more harm than good.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Conquest launches mind-control worms to create an army completely loyal until their dying day — which is often too soon, given how careless Conquest can be. Humans are so fragile for creatures that boast they can live a century, ugh. At least there are billions and billions of them...
On the other hand, Conquest isn't actually sure what he'd do with the slaves if he could get them to live that long. He could no doubt accomplish many a great and terrible deeds, but watching the humans fail and fall apart is so fun.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War lives to wage... war. Preferring to stay out of direct combat, War instead gets into peoples heads, needling them with rumors, hearsay, and just plain insults until everyone is at each others throats. Conversely, the Red Horse absolutely revels in brutal carnage, having a grand old time killing and stomping and tossing and eating and strangling but never EVER using War herself to impale anyone. She gets so mad...
Is War afraid of violence or something? N-No! She just, er... wants to be like her hero, Eris. Yes. Start so much chaos with something as simple as an apple. So much... cleaner that way.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Famine seeks to keep the world in balance, that nobody takes more than their fair share. With dubious authority backed up by the threat of unleashing her fellow Horsemen, Famine makes a dramatic show of measuring someone's food or wealth or other goods against a strange squishy object she pulls out of her... person. Will the scales be balanced? Tip one way, or perhaps the other? What will it be, WHAT WILL IT BE?!
... and then the horse-head-halves close on the victim, consuming them completely with a satisfied belch from Famine. ~urp
One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death can kill with the slightest bony touch. But mercifully for the world he is plagued by random bouts of rigor mortis, causing him to freeze for days at a time. Death naturally tries to play it off, that he never intended to kill any fortunate escapees anyways. To further downplay his posthumous plight, Death will sometimes only pretend to seize up, killing his victims while they let their guard down.
One should never give into the temptation to ride Death while he's petrified. The horse's skin isn't lethal like its master's bare bones, and as such a whole host of mites and lice and nasty little things just waiting for unsuspecting prey. Death is fully aware of these parasites, and gave up trying to exterminate them long ago as they just keep coming back.
These boorish brutes are always found in the service of some other fiend, acting as guards, soldiers, garbage disposal, and occasionally dinner. Hardly opportunists looking for honest work, these hench-hams have been led to believe by their elder oinkers that a life of servitude is actually revenge against their oppressors. One might think that this is a side effect of having your tusks grow through your own head, especially since the senior swine notably keep theirs shaved down, but the hogs are persuaded long before the teeth fully grow in...
Said to be the souls of children who ate all their Halloween candy in one night, these sugary sprites run around stealing all the best sweetmeats they can find. Especially the ones some kid was obviously interested in. Treats are sweet but petty vindictiveness is even sweeter!
These confectionery creeps detest fresh fruits and vegetables, and telling them "it's nature's candy" is sure to send them running. They don't know what they're missing out on.
Once in a blue moon, said satellite will visit its companion planet and bring chaos in its wake. Tides swell, werewolves transform, green cheese curl into floating mini-moons, and lunacy spreads like wildfire. Evidently this is all the Moon's good side, its lighter half is in a constant struggle to keep its darker twin turned away.
The Moon wishes those silly little humans would visit it again, it's been far too long. Hopefully they are doing alright...
