While most of these new beasts can be found within specific regions of the Amherth setting, they can also be utilized for other settings quite easily.
Demeers
A bizarre creature known as demeer can be found within the forests to the north of the Republic of Westport. Demeers are brown-furred, hooved creatures that look a lot like deer, except for two black stripes along either side of the torso and flanks. To the unsuspecting traveler, a demeer is completely harmless. Once startled or injured, however, it becomes a demonic sight. The two black lines are actually frills that open and shake menacingly, revealed bright red muscle underneath. Its eyes roll wildly as the beast suddenly lashes out in all directions with its hooves, snapping and growling wildly as it stands on its hind legs. The transformation into a wild frothing lunatic beast is abrupt and hard-wired, although the beast calms down and goes back to whatever it was doing after several minutes. The locals have been known to tame demeers and use them as guards for their villages, as the sound of the rattling frills is unmistakable to the trained ear. Young men and women dare one another to startle a demeer as a test of bravery (or on a whim in times of boredom). An immediate kill is the only way to prevent this ingrained reaction from occurring. The meat tastes similar to deer, although the frills have a peculiar flavor.
| | fitness | | | awareness | | | creativity | | | reasoning | | | influence | |
| | F | | | D | | | 0 | | | 0 | | | 0 | |
Skills: athletics, brawling
Gimmicks: oversized, flight, toughness (2)
Natural Weapons: bite (2
inj), hooves (+2
inj)
Eye Piercers
Native to lowlands near the Black River, these little pests are avoided through the application of deterrents by the locals. Newcomers, however, must be warned of them. With bodies no bigger than a man’s thumb, eye piercers have long, thin beaks that equal or surpass their body length. They flit about on tiny wings that beat so fast, they become a blur. Eye piercers tend to be nocturnal or early dawn creatures. They hover over a sleeping creature,s face and, using a powerful anesthetic produced by their saliva, pierce the ocular tissue in either corner of the closed eyes, sucking fluid from the organ. While one bite usually leads to headaches, vision problems, and pain once the anesthetic leaves the victim’s system, several attacks over the course of a night can lead to irreversible blindness, unless countered by magic.
| | fitness | | | awareness | | | creativity | | | reasoning | | | influence | |
| | A | | | C | | | 0 | | | 0 | | | 0 | |
Skills: athletics, stealth
Gimmicks: undersized, frail, flight, toughness (2), disease* (lore: 3, anesthetic, injection, dose: 1 bite, carrier: eye piercers only, strain: 1, interval: instant, symptoms: eliminates up to -1D in penalties due to injury; see above for more symptoms)
Natural Weapons: beak (2
inj)
*Catalyst rules can be found here 
(Gamer’s Advantage article) or in Brews: Good & Bad Volume 1.
Furry Leechbats
Called torkles by the residents along the Gap of the Dragon, these creatures are furry, flying pests with a membranous, four-foot wingspan. They are nocturnal mammals that have no eyes. In fact, they have no apparent head, just a slightly-protruding maw on its underbelly. The torkle uses echoes and heat-sensing mechanisms to find other warm-blooded creatures to which to attach. Although silent on the wing, they attach themselves abruptly to any part of the prey upon which they can land, biting hard with their teeth and relying on their tough hides to prevent serious injury. Furry leechbats quickly drink blood from the wound, continually chewing on the flesh to gain more. In the cases of livestock attack, a single torkle aims for the back just behind the neck and lies flat on the torso, wrapping its wings around the victim’s body. The leechbat does not distinguish between prey, so long as it is warm-blooded. A single stab anywhere on its body from a weapon causes it to instinctively flee into the air. One must remember when stabbing wildly at this little monster that one’s own flesh is often underneath.
| | fitness | | | awareness | | | creativity | | | reasoning | | | influence | |
| | C | | | B | | | 0 | | | 0 | | | 0 | |
Skills: athletics, brawling, stealth
Gimmicks: flight, toughness (1), blind maneuvers*
Natural Weapons: teeth (1
inj)
*The blind maneuvers gimmick can be found in the Iron Gauntlets Companion.
Rocs
Once rocs darkened the skies throughout Amherth, but today they only appear in the northern reaches of Skjold. A mating pair can be seen heading further south into the Godspine Mountains to nest once in a great while. Rocs can have a wingspan up to nine-feet in length and are capable of carrying off a man, but prefer fattened livestock and other slow-moving herbivores. Their feathers are generally orange and brown striped with white down; the molted man-sized tail feathers are collected by natives and fetch a high price in the markets. Roc-hunts were once used to test bravery and hunting skills, but these creatures have become rare in the more populated regions.
| | fitness | | | awareness | | | creativity | | | reasoning | | | influence | |
| | F | | | D | | | 0 | | | 0 | | | 0 | |
Skills: athletics, brawling
Gimmicks: oversized, flight, toughness (2)
Natural Weapons: beak (2
inj), talons (+2
inj)
Shock Hawks
Found only above the plains of Tanne, shock hawks are known to steal meals from villages. These birds are usually awash in blue and grey feathers, but have a great deal of white insulating underneath their plumage. While capable of attacking, they prefer to scavenge or steal their meals from someone who has already done the work for them. They fly incredibly high, always on the watch for food. When they see a fresh kill in a predator’s mouth or on the back of a rider’s horse, they swoop down, building a charge of lightning on their outer feathers, causing a crackling sound. When they swoop for their meal, shock hawks contort their bodies, discharging the lightning into the nearest object. These birds have become skilled at aiming the considerably-hurtful shocks directly at the target they intend to attack. The lightning can kill a rodent or small bird, but leaves larger targets alive, albeit injured. Once the threat to the meal is removed, most shock hawks are content in raiding the victim of all food that that can find.
| | fitness | | | awareness | | | creativity | | | reasoning | | | influence | |
| | C | | | D | | | 0 | | | 0 | | | 0 | |
Skills: athletics, stealth
Gimmicks: flight, resistant (lightning)
Natural Weapons: beak (1
inj), talons (+1
inj), lightning discharge (2
inj; kills small animals)
Swarm Rats
Usually found in or near urban areas, swarm rats are an infestation that occurs once every several years. It is difficult to distinguish a swarm rat colony from a regular rat colony. Swarm rats are slightly larger than normal rats, dusky grey in coloring, and tend to keep to their colonies, sometimes working as a collective hivemind to obtain food and territory. Once every four or five years, the rats suffer a boon in population and find themselves without enough food to support the colony. When this happens, the colony numbering two to three-hundred rats goes on a feeding rampage. They swarm across a town or city, biting and eating everything possible, attacking people, granaries, livestock, and even leather goods and fruit, until every member of the colony is either overfed or dead. As quickly as it begins, the frenzy ends and the colony goes back to its sneaking and hiding. The rats are like many other rodents, capable of spreading disease should the colony be infected with such. Hybrids of swarm and regular rats generally tend to lose the hivemind capacity. The specifications below represent a colony of swarm rats.
| | fitness | | | awareness | | | creativity | | | reasoning | | | influence | |
| | B | | | D* | | | 0 | | | 0 | | | 0 | |
Skills: brawling
Gimmicks: disease
Natural Weapons: bite (1
inj)
*Awareness is B during a swarm.
Written by Jennifer Schoonover.
