Rare Monsters

   The Ziz is a giant bird from Jewish mythology. It also appeared in earlier versions of the bible, but has since been edited out. The Ziz was one of the archetypal animals, like the Leviathan and Behemoth. As Leviathan was the king of the sea creatures and Behemoth the king of the beasts, Ziz was king of the birds. The Ziz was said to look like a gryphon. Its exact appearance beyond that is left vague, other than its great size, which is discussed in two stories. One story said there were some sailors who saw a giant bird standing in the water when they were out at sea. The water was only ankle deep on the bird, and it was so massive its head towered into the heavens. The sailors assumed the water must be shallow there where the bird stood, so they planned on bringing their ship ashore and swim in the water. God called out to the sailors and told them, “Do not stop there. That bird is the mighty Ziz, who towers above all beings. The water there is so deep once a carp...

 The dingbat was a fearsome critter from the local folklore of the western Great Lakes region. It’s origin was a taxidermied mash up of different animals that was displayed in the Friendly Buck-horn Tavern in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. The dingbat had the head of some small predatory mammal, often some sort of mustelid, the body of a bird of prey, and the antlers of a young buck. The legend of the dingbat states that it revelled in making the life of hunters difficult. The dingbat would whinny like a horse just as a hunter was about to take a shot at a buck, breaking his concentration and making him miss. If that didn’t work, the dingbat was capable of flying at incredible speeds and capturing the bullet mid air. The dingbat fed on bullets and gasoline, which it would drink from the hunter’s truck, leaving him stranded. The dingbat was a humorous way for hunters to explain why they had bad luck on a hunt or came back empty handed. The Friendly Buck-horn Tavern had several taxi...

   The gudiao is a monster from China, featured in The Classic Of Mountains And Seas . It resembles a giant eagle or maybe a more gryphon like beast, as it’s sometimes described as having panther qualities too. One thing that is consistent is that the gudiao always has a single horn on its head. Often, its depicted with a bright green head as well. The gudiao was said to live on Mount Luwu, where there is very little plant life, but bountiful amounts of mineral resources, like gold and precious stones. The gudiao would prowl this mountain looking for prey. It would eat almost any animal, but it especially favoured human flesh. It’s call sounds like a baby crying, which it would use to lure people within range. Sources https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Gudiao https://chinese-mythology.com/en/wiki/gu-diao/ https://mythus.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:RUBENHC/Creatures_and_Beings_of_China_Folklore_and_Lower_Mythology#List_of_creatures

  The nachtkrapp is a boogeyman that haunts Germany, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Poland. It’s name in German means night raven. The exact details of the legend vary quite a bit regionally. Sometimes it appears as a raven, or as a more human like undead being, or as a shadowy, shape shifting ghost. It also varies in size from huge, to human sized, to the size of an ordinary raven. The nachtkrapp is used as a cautionary tale to scare children into behaving. It’s said the nachtkrapp only comes out at night. If the nachtkrapp sees a child out at night it will carry the child off to its nest, rip the child apart limb from limb and eat its heart. Some tamer versions of the legend only have the Nachtkrapp putting children in a large bag it carries over its back and doesn’t say what’s done with them after that. The nachtkrapp has hollow skeletal eye sockets. If anyone looks into its empty eye holes they die instantly. Depending on the region the nachtkrapp is said to ha...

  Most people have heard of the Chicago mothman sightings that happened between 2011 and 2018. Occurring among those events was as strange variation of flying humanoid. This isn't that surprising however, as the original Point Pleasant mothman flap involved many strange sightings of UFOs and creatures besides just the mothman itself, This sighting happened in 2015 in Howard Heights Illinois, a small town located near Chicago. Greg, no last name given, was coming home at 1:30 am,  from a late shift at work. He first spotted the monster when he pulled into his driveway. The creature was standing motionless in his backyard.  Overall the creature looked similar to mothman. It was black all over and had wings instead of arms, with an overall human frame. Although the body was  disproportionately small and its head disproportionately big. The creature had an elongated snout that tapered down to a point, similar to the cartoon characters in the old Spy vs Spy comics. It als...

  A striga is a vampire like demon from Slavic and Polish folklore. It has owl like features, such as feathers, golden eyes and bird like talons. It can also shape shift into an owl at will. Strigas are strictly nocturnal, coming out at night to feast on the blood and flesh of the living. A striga comes from a person, usually female, that was born with two souls. This person will have various signs that they have two souls, usually having duplicated body parts, such as having two rows of teeth or two heartbeats. If this person is found out in life, they will be cast out of society to go die in the wilderness. If they're not found out they will continue to live like a normal person while they're still alive. On death one of the souls moves onto the afterlife while the other stays trapped in the body. When this happens the stiga begins to transform. They'll start out looking like they did in life, just with pale grey skin. Over time they will transform, gaining long need...

  Aitvaras are a type of malicious house spirit from Lithuanian mythology. They look like purely black or white roosters with flaming tails while inside the house, and like small dragons outside. When they fly they look like a comet streaking across the sky. Aitvaras hatch from eggs of a 9 to 15 year old rooster. Don't ask how a rooster would lay eggs, although it's a motif I've noticed popping up in mythology occasionally. The aitvaras would serve a family in a household through deceptive means. It would bring wealth and good fortune to the household by stealing from the neighbours. The aitvaras would go on nightly flights to rob them. Owning an aitvaras would inevitably bring strain between the household and the rest of the community. Additionally, the aitvaras would slowly siphon away the souls of the residents, damning them. Once an aitvaras was inside a house it was very difficult to remove. Killing it would be difficult as it would heal as soon as it touched the floor...

  The billdad is a fearsome critter from lumberjack lore. It's a hybrid of bird and beaver with a little kangaroo thrown in too. It has the head of a hawk or eagle. It's front legs are short and taloned like the back legs of an eagle. It has a fur covered mammalian body, long, jumping kangaroo legs that end in webbed beaver feet and a beaver tail. The billdad is found only in Boundary pond, a small lake in Maine. There the billdad would hunt for fish. It did this by waiting on the shore for a fish to surface while hunting insects. Then the billdad would leap just past the fish and slam it's tail down onto the surface of the water, knocking the fish out. The billdad could then collect up the fish and eat it as its leisure. It was said that large billdads could cover a length of 60 yards in one leap. Billdads were secretive animals and more often seen then heard. Their tail slaps making a distinct sounds like someone slapping the water with a oar. In spite of having a very ...

  The Snallygaster is a monster that sits somewhere between lumberjack folklore and actual cryptid. In spite of it's ridiculous appearance, rivalry with another monster, and humorous stories, people have reported seeing it in earnest, some sightings being as late as the 1930's. The Snallygaster originates near the South Mountain in Maryland, but sightings and legends of it range as far away as West Virginia and Ohio. The Snallygaster looks like a cross between a bird and a dragon. It has large horns on its head. The Snallygaster's strangest and most notable features are having octopus like tentacles and a single glaring eye. Other than this short description the Snallygaster's appearance can varying greatly. Sometimes it has a set of front legs, other times it only has back legs like a wyvern. The Snallygaster's body can be long and twisting like a serpent, or short and squat, with its length being made mostly of its neck and tail. Even the location of its tentacl...

  In October of 1903 the town of Van Meter in Iowa had multiple encounters with a strange, bird like cryptid, which was later nick named the Van Meter Visitor. The creature had leathery, featherless skin, a bird like head with a beak filled with teeth and leathery bat like wings. The most unusual feature of the cryptid was that it had a glowing horn jutting out from the center of its forehead. Some people reported seeing a more humanoid creature, which stood upright, and had its arms replaced by bat like wings. While others reported a more animalistic and pteranodon like being. Whichever version they saw, people consistently reported the same details about its strange head. The people who reported the sightings were some of the most prominent and upstanding members of the area. The first sighting was witnessed by U G Griffith, a well know businessman in town. He was returning late at night from his work, around 1 o'clock in the morning, when he saw a light on top one of the buildi...

  The codrille was a medieval dragon from France. Its overall appearances was a mix of cockatrice and wyvern, and was between them in size as well. The codrille also had the notable addition of a glowing crystal horn jutting out from its forehead like a demented unicorn horn. While it would be easy to write off the codrille as just a hybrid of two other monsters, there's far more to its legend than just that. First off, it's name is derived from crocodile. Travellers brought back tales of crocodiles from Egypt, with their name and description being mangled and combined with cockatrice into the codrille, which is also sometimes known as the cocodrille. The codrille has an interesting life cycle for a dragon. It starts out born from a yolk-less egg. The legend varies on whether this egg is laid by a chicken or another codrille, but there are specific nesting sites where the eggs can be found. The egg is left out to incubate in the heat of the sun. The codrille then hatches out ...