Creatures of The Dying Earth
- Chun the Unavoidable: Chun is a mysterious entity who lives in abandoned ruins north of Kaiin. His species is unknown. Chun kills and steals the eyes of anyone who attempts to steal from him, and pursues his foes relentlessly.
- Deodands: Deodands are humanoids which look like handsome, muscular human men, but with "dead black lustreless skin and long slit eyes." They are strong, murderous, and carnivorous creatures, but can be killed with offensive spells, which they fear.
- Gauns: Gauns are roughly humanoid creatures which haunt the streets of Ampridatvir by night, capturing and eating any human they can catch. They are large, slow, powerful, unintelligent creatures with pale skin, furry legs, fanged mouths, and arms as long as a man is tall.
- Oasts: Oasts are creatures which appear to be very tall humans with blonde hair and blue eyes, but are actually no more intelligent than livestock, and are kept as such. Some tribes to the north of Ascolais use them as food, mounts, and beasts of burden.
- Twk-Men: The Twk-Men are tiny bluish men who ride on dragonflies. They are useful sources of information, and are willing to sell their knowledge. By the same token, they can be bribed to lie to others. The usual form of payment is salt, which they crave for unexplained reasons.
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Famous quotes containing the words creatures of, creatures, dying and/or earth:
“I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Of all God’s creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“For them it’s out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time; to shed tears is weak and womanish, to be needy is degrading; to suffer defeat is a disgrace and hardly fitting for one who scarcely permits the greatest of kings to kiss the toes of his sacred feet; and finally, death is an unattractive prospect, and dying on a cross would be an ignominious end.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibilty of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)