Wikipedia posted:
Tengu (天狗, Tengu? "heavenly dogs") are a class of supernatural creatures found in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature. They are one of the best known yōkai (monster-spirits) and are sometimes worshipped as Shinto kami (revered spirits or gods). Although they take their name from a dog-like Chinese demon, the tengu were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey, and they are traditionally depicted with both human and avian characteristics. The earliest tengu were pictured with beaks, but this feature has often been humanized as an unnaturally long nose, which today is practically the tengu's defining characteristic in the popular imagination.
Buddhism long held that the tengu were disruptive demons and harbingers of war. Their image gradually softened, however, into one of protective, if still dangerous, spirits of the mountains and forests. Tengu are associated with the ascetic practice known as Shugendō, and they are usually depicted in the distinctive garb of its followers, the yamabushi.
Due to increased levels, there is no poinnt in keeping low leveled minions. IT IS FUSING TIME.Wikipedia posted:
The kelpie is a supernatural shape-shifting water horse from Celtic folklore that is believed to haunt the rivers and lochs of Scotland and Ireland. In Orkney a similar creature was called the Nuggle, and in Shetland a similar creature was called the Shoopiltee. It also appears in Scandinavian folklore where it is known by the name Bäckahästen, the brook horse.
quote:
PHOENIX
Origin: China
Feng Huang (Chinese)
Hou-ou (Japanese)
Feng (Hou) represents male phoenix, yang, solar
Huang (Ou) represents female phoenix, yin, lunar
Often depicted together with the Dragon,
either as mortal enemies or as blissful lovers.
Considered equivalent to Red Bird | Big Bird (Suzaku)
One of the guardians of the Four Directions (Shishin)
In Japan, as earlier in China, the mythical Phoenix was adopted as a symbol of the imperial household, particularily the empress. This mythical bird represents fire, the sun, justice, obedience, and fidelity.
According to legend (mostly from China), the Ho-oo appears very rarely, and only to mark the beginning of a new era -- the birth of a virtuous ruler, for example. In other traditions, the Ho-oo appears only in peaceful and prosperous times (nesting, it is said, in paulownia trees), and hides itself when there is trouble. As the herald of a new age, the Ho-Oo decends from heaven to earth to do good deeds, and then it returns to its celestial abode to await a new era. It is both a symbol of peace (when it appears) and a symbol of disharmony (when it disappears). In China, early artifacts show the Phoenix (female) as intimately associated with the Dragon (male) -- the two are portrayed either as mortal enemies or as blissful lovers. When shown together, the two symbolize both conflict and wedded bliss, and are a common design motif even today in many parts of Asia (see below).
Wikipedia posted:
A cockatrice is a legendary creature, "an ornament in the drama and poetry of the Elizabethans" (Breiner). The cockatrice was invented in the late twelfth century based on a hint in Pliny's Natural History, as a duplicate of the basilisk or regulus, in appearance resembling a giant rooster, with a lizard-like tail. It was supposed to be born from an egg laid by a cock[1] and incubated by a toad or serpent. Attempts to identify it with any particular biological species, often of snakes, are fruitless: it is a bogey of the wasteland.
Its reputed magical abilities include turning people to stone or killing them by either looking at them—"the death-darting eye of Cockatrice"[2]—touching them, or sometimes breathing on them. The cockatrice is very similar (if not identical) to another legendary creature, the basilisk; the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) considers them identical.
It is said in the medieval bestiaries that the weasel is the only animal that is immune to the glance of a cockatrice. It was also thought that a cockatrice would die instantly upon hearing a rooster crow. According to legend, having a cockatrice look itself in a mirror is one of the few sure-fire ways to kill it. The cockatrice was also able to fly with the set of wings affixed to its back.
Like the head of Medusa, the cockatrice's powers of petrification were thought still effective after death.
Wikipedia posted:
In Greek mythology the Erinyes (Ερινύες) or Eumenides (the Romans called them the Furies) were female personifications of vengeance. When a formulaic oath in the Iliad (iii.278ff; xix.260ff) invokes "those who beneath the earth punish whoever has sworn a false oath. The Erinyes are simply an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath" (Burkert 1985 p 198). They were usually said to have been born from the blood of Ouranos when Cronus castrated him. According to a variant account, they issued from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, "Night". Their number is usually left indeterminate, though Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto ("unceasing," who appeared in Virgil's Aeneid), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("avenging murder"). The heads of the Erinyes were wreathed with serpents (compare Gorgon), their eyes dripped with blood, and their whole appearance was horrific and appalling. Sometimes they had the wings of a bat or bird, or the body of a dog.
