Rare Monsters

  The Telchines were primordial daemons from Greek mythology. They were associated with the sea, smithing and the Island of Rhodes. They created Cronos’s scythe and Poseidon’s trident. They also raised the infant Poseidon. However, even though they initially aided the Olympian gods, the Telchinese eventually turned to evil and defiled the soils of Rhodes, causing Zeus to punish them. Every detail in the Telchine’s story beyond these broad strokes is variable, making them hard to pin down.  Telchines have multiple origins that contradict each other. They were either the children of Pontus and Gaia, or Tartaros and Nemesis, or of the goddess Thalassa alone. Sometimes they’re said to be created from the blood that was spilled when Uranus was castrated, however this contradicts the Telchines creating Cronos’s scythe, which he used to perform this act. Regardless of their origins the Telchinese are always regarded as primordial beings, created by the primal forces of the universe T...

  The ophiotaurus was a monster who's front half was that of a bull, with a snake's tail replacing the back legs. It's only known appearance was from Fasti by Ovid. Although he's retelling a story from the lost Greek poem Titanomachia. The ophiotaurus was a primordial being existed at the beginning of time when the world was forming. At that time animals were not fully formed and so had miss matched parts from the wrong species. The ophiotaurus, as well as the other first animals, were born from the goddess Gaia without a mate. The bull was so toxic that its flesh could kill any being. If its entrails were burned (such as was done in ritual sacrifices) then the smoke would kill the gods. The bull was otherwise peaceful and not inclined to harm other creatures. Because of this the bull was trapped in a triple walled ring, within an endless dark forest, on the far side of the river Styx. During the Titanomachy one of the titans' allies, either Briareus the Hecatonch...

  Many real creatures were turned into mythical beasts in the Medieval era. The hyena inspired the crocotta, the wildebeest the bonnacon and the ibex the yale. Yet few beasts have strayed so far from their real life inspiration as the antelope and the calopus. The antelope was first known in Europe by the ancient Greeks, who called it antelopos. The records of Alexander the Great called them aeternae and the Romans called them calopus, which means pretty foot. The name calopus continued through the Medieval period as a mostly separate creature from antelopes. Medieval bestiaries varied on whether they had entries on the calopus, antelope or both. Eventually the calopus became a symbolic beast in heraldry, where it gained its most unfamiliar form yet. The antelope known to the ancient Greeks was considered a fearsome beast, yet it still had the overall form of a goat or a roe deer. The calopus had dangerous serrated horns which it used to shred tree branches. It would hesitate to ...

  Everyone knows about python snakes, but fewer people know about the ancient Greek dragon the genus was named after. It does tend to get lost in search results, after all. Python is described by Hyginus as being a giant snake, not unlike it's real life counterparts. Although the dragon Python was said to be venomous. In later depictions from the medieval era onward Python is depicted as a more typical dragon, with legs and wings. Python first appeared when it was sent by Hera to torment Leto after Zeus took interest in her. Once Apollo was born he sought to avenge his mother's constant torment by slaying Python. In some versions of the myth Apollo accomplished this while he was still a child. Apollo pursued Python to Delphi, where he had to enter sacred ground to slay Python. In some versions of the myth it was Python's blood that gave the location of Delphi its prophetic qualities, in other versions Delphi's placement at the centre of the world already gave it thes...

      The monoceros is an animal that is mentioned by many Greek and Roman authors. Many people assume the monoceros was just a rhinoceros, however its description differs quite a bit from a mere rhino, and it was probably a mythical amalgamation of different animals. The description was added to multiple times by subsequent authors, further elaborating on the monoceros's attributes.      The monoceros was first mentioned by  Megasthenes, who was a Greek explorer who travelled to India. It's likely out of all the authors who wrote about the monoceros, Megasthenes was the only one who actually saw a rhinoceros. Yet, his description still doesn't quite fit a rhino, as he said the creature had the head of a stag and a horn two cubits long, which would be nearly 3 feet. The monoceros was also said to live in the foothills of the Himalayas, rather than in the lowlands where rhinoceros are actually found. Still Megasthenes' description does have a fair bit i...