A yearly tradition of mine is to draw a batch of 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 '26
Ganjizi
Ganjizi are the petrified souls of miners trapped deep underground, kept in a state of unlife by the breath of the earth. They are driven by the (perfectly understandable) need to get the hell out of the cave, and will beg anyone they happen to pass to lead them outside... and for any spare smokes (old habits die hard!) But one should never help the ganjizi out, no matter how much they beg, how many riches they promise, how violently they threaten you — in fact it'd be best to put the poor souls out of their misery, since the moment they finally enter daylight they dissolve into a toxic sludge that kills everything in the vicinity. This doesn't appear to be a dastardly trick on the ganjizi's part, they genuinely wanted out of the cave and were largely oblivious to their own rotten state.
