Rare Monsters

  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...

  Valravn, meaning raven of the slain, is a sort of boogieman from Denmark. Valravns were created when a raven ate the flesh of the fallen in battle who had not been given a proper burial. The valravn was a thoroughly evil creature that sought to bring harm to the surrounding communities. After being transformed the valravn gained human intelligence and various magical abilities that allowed it to spread pestilence and misfortune. It also gained the ability to shape shift into wolves or a half wolf – half raven form. Even with these abilities valravns still sought out more power. The one thing they desired the most was the ability to take on the form of a black knight, which they could only gain by devouring the heart of a child. How they accomplished this was usually left to the imagination. However in one traditional Danish song a valravn offered to protect a maiden on her way to her marriage in return for her first born child, echoing similar trickster deals made with fairies an...