there are larvae, too. Demons born of the semen wasted during masturbation. they can turn into women to seduce men, too. But they're made of coagulated sperm and period blood.

>>17057742
Exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for.

The strzyga of Polish folklore (appearing as a hulking "striga" in the Witcher games... but that rendition doesn't resemble the folk original at all) is an undead stillborn/newborn baby.

It stalks travelers in dark forests and kills them by burying its way inside the victim and devouring his organs from the inside.

Obviously the sensible prevention method was decapitating the baby and burying the head and body separately.

interesting, I didn't know that part of mythology

Not really fucked up, but did neat stuff with his phylactery.

Koschei the Deathless of Eastern Slavic folklore is an immortal, skeletal (his name comes from the word for bone) sorcerer who's basically the archetypical lich. Among his powers are healing and raising the dead. He cannot be killed because he hid his soul separately from his body - sealed in a needle hidden in an egg hidden in a duck locked inside a metal chest buried under an enormous oak growing on an island in the middle of a faraway ocean. The only way to kill him is by breaking the needle against his forehead.

>>17057933

OH MY GOD THAT WOULD MAKE A FUCKING AWESOME ADVENTURE

>>17057933
Does anyone know where Rasputin's soul was?

>>17057933
>sealed in a needle hidden in an egg hidden in a duck locked inside a metal chest buried under an enormous oak growing on an island in the middle of a faraway ocean
>only way to kill him is by breaking the needle against his forehead

I beg to differ, that IS fucked up

>>17057933
Welp, that is one good way of hiding your phylactery, I guess

Yeah central slavic folklore overall has a lot of pretty fucked up stuff.
Most of the stuff actually remained after christianity came and was just explained differently.

>>17058004
Sounds like something a PC would think up to protect his soul.

Also, I am pretty sure that myth is the source of the lich as it dates back hundreds (if not a thousand) of years.

Thumb up for the SMBC Theater picture.

>>17058040
I'm pretty sure it is.

>>17058035
I am a fun of slavic myths in general. Marzanna's legend connecting with the cycle of seasons or the eternal fight between Perun and Veles are both pretty cool.

>>17058066
derp.. fan.

Nightmares. Resembling old, ugly women, they would ride men's chest in their sleep and cause bad dreams.

>>17057933
There was an episode of storyteller that was very similar. Except the lich was a giant. His heart was in an egg in a duck in a well in a church on an island in a lake in a cave on a mountain in a faraway land.

>>17057933
Wasn't the duck inside a hare locked inside the chest and didn't the island also have an ability to appear and disappear?

>>17057731
I love how it's the perfect justification for your child looking more like your neighbour than your husband.

The original golem is a pretty freaky thing. You control it by writing words on its forehead(or putting pieces of paper with commands into its mouth), and it keeps growing larger and more violent, and can eventually even destroy the Universe(medieval speculation). Some versions also say the golem eventually kills its creator.

MORE!

I love twisted myths!

One of the description of cerberus says he have five thousand heads, not just three. That's fucked up. Five THOUSAND heads, on a single wolf/dog body

>in a needle hidden in an egg hidden in a duck locked inside a metal chest buried under an enormous oak growing on an island in the middle of a faraway ocean

A modern lich would hide its soul within a turducken. Discuss.

>>17058168
How would he get a live turducken?
And anyway, a turducken's egg inside a turducken inside a statue.

>>17058138
The tale regarding the golem was from gnostic jewish lore. A rabbi (who in the Kabbalah - the jewish mysticism tradition - is pretty mage a godamn wizard) created it through invoking the angels of god and writhing truth upon its forehead. As mankind was not meant to wield the power of god - though some say mankind simply could not do it properly - the creation was flawed, because Man himself is flawed. The golem turned on its creator.

To animate it the Rabbi wrote TRUTH upon its forehead, which is written in three letters in hebrew - Alef, Mem and Taf. To kill it the rabbi deleted the first letter, leaving Mem and Taf, which reads DEAD.

>>17057933
Small time. In Welsh mythology Lleu Llaw Gyffes simply could not be killed during the day or night, nor indoors or outdoors, neither riding nor walking, not clothed and not naked, nor by any weapon lawfully made.

So he needs to be killed in twilight, wrapped in netting, with one foot on a goat and one in a cauldron for some fucking reason, and the spear used to kill him has to be forged while everyone is meant to be at mass and therefore you must commit a sin to get it.

Also he could wildshape. Ahh, that crazy Mabinogion.

>>17058168
PaulaDeen.jpg

>>17057731
Tiamat
Seriously Mesopotamian myth was fucked up
She was a Massive Serpent or Fish
Used her humanoid husband to impregnate her with thousands of monster that ranged from half man half scorpion and other borderline Cthulhu esc horrors.
She was eventually killed by the god king Anu and Anu then ripped out her spine to make the mountains, used her blood to make the oceans and other bits to basically create the planet.

>>17058148
>>17058066
>be slavic pagan ruler
>poison your uncles
>don't even bury them because you're a dick
>rats feast on their bodies
>the vengeful souls of your uncles possess a horde of rats
>living wave of rodents chases you and your family up a tower
>once there's nowhere left to run, they devour all of you alive
>so dies Popiel, Chief of the Polans

>pretty mage a godamn wizard

>>17058207
So the source of the golem's strength (used to defend the innocent from racist monsters) was the Alef, the Hebrew equivalent of the letter "A," on its forehead?

>>17058263
it was the whole word, AMT
when A was erased., only death remained

>>17058035
That actually happened a lot.

Fun fact, the whole "Succubus steals your lifeforce" kind of thing? Actually comes from an Irish Fae, who would drain the life-force of her victim, but inspire him to create great works of art.

She would either drain them completely, or abandon them and cause them to die of sorrow.

>>17058163
Well, in antiquity they generally liked large numbers of body parts. Hekatonkheires much?

Also, sticking with the topic - biblical angels are mandatory. There's a reason they say "fear not" all the time.

>>17058207
>Original golem was a story with anime grade word pun power
I don't like golems anymore, and I fucking loved the idea of constructed beings.

>>17058274
Meaning it was the A that gave him life and strength, where without it he was useless.

>>17058263
Kabbalists believed in something very similar to the concept of true speech (with the bible secretly being a massive spellbook and the key to the universe, its meaning hidden from the common folk as to not drive them mad), so it was not the isolated letter, but I lol'd at captain america.

>>17058095
> in an egg in a duck in a well in a church on an island in a lake in a cave on a mountain in a faraway land.

and theres a hair on the wart on the frog on the bump on the log at the hole in the bottom of the sea.

>>17058298

FUCK
YOU
JERK

A local legend from my region has a forest demon, but he's... the opposite of being more fucked up than the average demon.

Originally a demon of the forest swamp in pagan belief, he got morphed into a demon in the Christian sense of the word in local folklore.

But he doesn't give a fuck about corrupting people and other such nonsense. He likes to party, get drunk and brawl, usually in hilariously over the top ways. He can alter his appearance, but usually wears hat and a long coats to cover his horns and tail in case inebriation screws up his shapeshifting.

The gist of the folk belief is: if you ever met a rowdy, larger than life, drunk stranger at a party, tavern or club you just might have had a run in with the devil Boruta.

>>17058320
I love buggers like this one.

How's this for fucked up mythology:

In Hungarian mythology, witches (boszorkány) are depicted as (sometimes iron-nosed) old hags who rape young men while they sleep. As for Hungarians themselves, some scholars around the XI.-XII. centuries actually believed that they are descendants of Incubii and whores.

For obvious reasons, this is not included in tourist brochures.

Now I want to play in a game of rabbi wizards.
The image is just too hilarious though. I won't be able to take it seriously.

>>17058320

>>17058320
That sounds like a lot of fun, though I'm not really much for drinking.

In Romanian Folklore, the wizards where called Solomonars. They were feared and worshiped by people, because they had deciphered the secrets of how to cast spells from the book of Somolon (hence the name). To get privacy, they lived up in the mountains, hidden in deep inside caves. When they ventured out they did so on the backs of summoned dragons. Supposedly they caused storms and lightning to appear as they flew above the world.

>>17058240
>>17058240
>>17058240

>One of the dancers used to be a man

Just like in real life!

Alraune, the humanoid mandrake plant that was born from the semen and/or blood of a hanged man. It was used by witches to impregnate themselves, and the offspring would be born with no feelings and no soul.

Discuss.

Also in Romanian folklore:
iele - wood nymphs that dance about in forrests naked. If a man sees them they atack him in a rage, disembowel him and throw the guys on the roof of a mill or on a fence.

Moroi - Undead stillbirths or babies that haven't been baptised sometimes come back to life and drink the milk from the family's cow every night until it withers and dies. If this happens the solution is to dig up the body and cut off it's head.

Leviathan and Behemoth. Two entities that even God fears, and when Jesus looked upon the Behemoth, he freaked out.

It is said that their child would be even greater than them. Good thing they hate each other.

>>17058276

Suddenly Aisling in the Secret of Kells has much more sinister implications.

This reminds me of the dark tower with the demon of the circle. I should really re-read that.

Since it has been a while since that thread I made on slavic myth, I'll retell one of the many legends surrounding Marzanna, the goddess of death, the seasons (especially winter) and nightmares.

At the beginning of each Spring, the goddess is (re)born as a virginal, kind-hearted maiden who seeks to nurture life in all its forms, filling the world with warmth and joy.

At the end of Spring she inevitably falls in love with a mortal man, and as their passion grows the whole world heats together with Marzanna, bringing upon summer. Eventually the relationship grows colder, for no mortal man can withstand the presence of a goddess for long, and the pair drifts more and more apart. Filled with melancholy, Marzanna's grief engulfs the world in frigid winds, bringing upon fall.

Inevitably, Marzanna discovers that the man has been cheating on her with another mortal woman. Filled with rage she seeks him out to confront and slay him, but he flees and hides from her. In bitter anger she decides to destroy the world itself in retribution (and to ensure that he and his woman suffer). As she gave life, so she takes it - choking plantlife, taking away all warmth, and freezing the world over. Actively malicious, she will take any chance given to her to torture, maim, and kill mortals.

Eventually (and, as always, inevitably), after her power weakens due to her broken heart, the people gather in a ritual to burn effigies of her and then drown them. This destroys Marzanna, but as she is a goddess she is reborn in her first form, as the virginal maid of spring, and the tale repeats itself.

(Note that though wikipedia (where I took the picture from) labels the characters as different it is my belief they are in fact one and the same, given one is the embodiment of winter and the other that of spring, which fits the cyclical view of Marzanna.).

>>17058512

I could've sworn God slew the Leviathan.

>>17058512
I'm going to need a source on this.

>>17058572
He did.

The Tiyanak

Takes the form of a newborn baby and cries like one in the jungle to attract unwary travelers. Once it is picked up by the victim, it retains the general shape of a baby but then forms sharp claws and fangs to attack its victim.

>>17058594
He did? I was under the impression that he WILL slay it, eventually, so that it doesn't fuck up His master plan for doomsday. Also, rich people will eat its flesh.

Any Latin American myths here, by the way? The mexican in me hates himself for drawing a blank on that one.

>>17058547
Nah, Ailsing wasn't tall and busty enough to be a leanansidhe.

>>17058635

La Llorona is all I can think of. I don't even know if I spelled it right.

>>17058600
Like I always say, when you find a crying abandoned infant you should stomp on it's neck as quickly as possible.

>>17058658
Pray it doesn't respawns like in some tales and then comes to murder you in your sleep from the underworld.

Romanian folklore

Sort of posting these as i remember them:

''muma padurii'' (forest hag) - It will sometimes call on people's houses if they live next to the woods to ask for butter and a comb, to make her hair beautiful and shinny. If one utters more than three words during her visit she would steal your voice. Similar to the Baba Yaga myths of slavic folklore.

Samca - demon described as a ugly naked woman with iron hands that have sharp talons, tits hanging to the ground and a distended fire breathing mouth. Tortures children under 4 years old and women during childbirth. Has 19 names (via wiki) Vestitia, Navadaraia, Valnomia, Sina, Nicosda, Avezuha, Scorcoila, Tiha, Miha, Grompa, Slalo, Necauza, Hatavu, Hulila, Huva, Ghiana, Gluviana, Prava și Samca and you need to carve all of them on your house by someone else. If it tries entering, it instantly will go to the person who wrote it, usually an old man who, because of the fullness of his life, will not die, but simply have nightmares.

>>17058566
Samefag's note: I always wondered why the fuck nobody warned her with like 'Yeah, 'snot gonna work out. Don't date that asshole. How about a nice god?' or stopped the dude from pissing off the goddess of nightmares.

>>17058692
>Ward your house by causing nightmares to an old man

>>17058320
>Demon with a long coat who likes to party and fight in hilariously over the top ways
I like where this is going.

>>17058635
Chaneques in example, as a more flokloric element
"Chaneque or Ohuican Chaneque, as they were called by the Aztecs, are legendary creatures in Mexican folklore. They are conceived of as small, sprite-like beings, elemental forces and guardians of nature.
By tradition, these beings would attack intruders, frightening them so that their soul would abandon their body, which the chaneques enclosed in the depth of the land. If the victim did not recover their soul through a specific ritual, he or she would become ill and die soon after."

People turned into dragons when they were greedy enough in Norse mythology.

Well dwarves anyway.

>>17058687
Behead it, burn it, and nail it with iron.

If it exists, there is a way to kill it.

>>17058767

Additionally, cast a circle of salt around the ground where it's buried or alternatively place it in a burlap sack with a few heavy rocks and let it sink to the bottom of a river that never runs dry.

>>17058800
Wouldn't the ocean be just as effective then?
Salt water, not gonna run dry in my lifetime, makes sense.

Oh but wait, elder gods. right.

My two favorite folk creatures are:

French Canadian Folklore: The "Jack Mistigris". They're skeletal undead "men" of all shapes and size, generally with the horned head of a bull, the body of a snake and the legs of a poult (IIRC it's more about the fact they're thin as fuck and bestial looking). They party all night long, making music by snapping their joints and dancing by twisting into impossible positions. They mutliply by suckign and devouring lost christians leaving their damned souls to transform into a fellow Mistigris.

My other fav are the japanese ghosts of mothers who died during childbirth alongside their stillborns. They're essentially L4D witches who kidnap healthy babies and feed them ghost milk which turns them into horrible monsters who will then eat their old families.

There is an old russian folktale about a soldier who captured Death inside a bag in order to grant mankind immortality. At first he was hailed as a hero, but soon the problem became apparent: people still got old, got sick, went hungry, got wounded.. but death could not claim them and free them of their suffering. Each moment would be agony. Those who starved lacked the strength to move yet felt the hunger. The wounded would not pass away, kept in twilight. The old have lost all memory of who or what they are, eventually going insane.

Terrified by the result of his actions, death opened the bag and let death out. Death was so terrified of the soldier's might that he immediately fled. While he claimed all of the others, he never did dare to come close to the soldier again, and so when the soldier himself got old Death refused to accept him.

No foe could kill the soldier - even without his immortality he was too skilled. The soldier went to heaven, but angels barred the way, saying what he did upset the natural order and so he cannot enter. The soldier then went to hell, but the devil heard of his prowess and feared that he would kill him and take over. With nothing from heaven to hell being able to kill him, the soldier had no choice but to wander the earth aimlessly, slowly forgetting everything beside this tale.

I posted a story about this a couple weeks ago, so here it is again, the abridged version.

You all know the Mothman, right? Probably saw the movie at least, or have at least heard of the legend.

Well Point Pleasant in West Virginia wasn't just known as the home of the Mothman, for a lot of the early 20th century, the prevailing myth was that the town was cursed by a Shawnee chief, Cornstalk, who was murdered while he attempting to broker a peace between his own people and the white settlers of the area.

And according to this story, the Mothman is the vengeful spirit of one of the Shawnee warriors that was murdered alongside Cornstalk, brought back to oversee the curse that was laid on the town.

>>17058829
he opened the bag and let death out*

>>17058635
Chupacabra?

or la llorona
Pretty much a woman that killed her children for some reason or another and kidnaps children to replace her own.

The brazilian amazonian florest has many weird shit legends like that. One of my favorites is the Boto. A pink river-dolphin (this bizarre creature actually exist) that would polymorph into a attractive man to fuck girls and party during the night. Then he would go back to the river and shift back to pink river dolphin mode and swim away. Funny thing is that until nowadays, many women claim there were impregnate by this guy.

Also a forest spirit with his feet backwards to confuse hunters, red hair (although there were no redhair people around when the natives invented this shit), and pointy teeth. Also this creature would prank animals. Seriously, like, tying animal's tails together, or fucking then when they sleep. It was called Curupira.

>>17058822

I dunno. I just heard that running water will keep bad things from escaping somewhere.

I think there are some kinds of creatures that can't cross running rivers, too. The Kyonshi comes to mind.

>>17058872

IIRC, vampires and other unholy undead traditionally can't cross running water.

>>17058872
Yeah, generally speaking demons and monsters are "unclean" therefore anything "purifying" and "clean" would keep them at bay.
Some cultures put up decorations that have an eye motif to ward off bad luck and evil spirits because they can't get you if you're watching them.

>>17058867
lets not forget the headless ass. Ass as in the burden-beast, not the anatomical designation. Legends says when a woman seduces a priest and he impregnates her, she will transform int a headless ass with flames spitting out from her neck, hooves of steel and a banshee scream. She would go around the countryside trampling people for no reason, burning houses and haunting farms, for seven years, seven months and seven days, before turning back. Others say the vile creature was the spawn of man of the cloth fucking a horse...go figure.

>>17058928

And speaking of asses...

>>17058841

Appalachia in general has a shit load of ghost stories and folklore, I love it.

>>17058888
>>17058901
I've heard the explanation that it's due to rivers usually forming over magical ley-lines, and it's really just the ley-lines that fuck with vampires, not the water itself.

>>17058945
There is a monster called "Olho do Cu" in portuguese. Literally, it means "Ass' Eye"

>>17058967
This sounds like recent "less stupid" justification for stupid past believes.

>>17058972
It sounds like the weakest monster ever.

>>17058841
What the fuck is it with WV and beings of abject horror?

http://chanarchive.org/4chan/x/28229/op-s-horror-tale
http://chanarchive.org/4chan/x/26782/not-some-creepypasta

Mananangal

Woman turns into bloodsucking flying beast by separating from the lower half of her body, which wanders around at night until she reattaches to it during the day. Using a proboscis-like tongue, it attacks pregnant women by eating their baby while still in the womb.

>>17058829
...Y'know, immortality is overrated anyway. I think I just might quit my gig as a big bad evil guy.

>>17058981

West Virginia and Appalachia in general has always been pretty insular and primarily rural, mostly due to the mountainous terrain and lack of old, established transportation routes that would bring influences from other areas of the nation and disseminate that cultural aspect. Ghost stories and folklore tend to flourish in areas like that, since they've been circulated and passed down since the first frontiersmen settled the area.

bump

>>17058981

West Virginian here, first thing I thought of when I read that story was the Flatwoods Monster. Although it's reported to look kind of differently and happened in Braxton county, which is more than halfway across the state.

http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/fall02/legend.html

>>17058867
Well fuck there really is a pink dolphin.

>>17057731
Spain has the creepiest bogeyman for kids ever, precisely because it has no associated supernatural elements whatsoever.

>>17059189
protect the womenfolk!

>>17058380
i want to run a game of this, but extra lloyd kaufman (the guy that invented troma films and the toxic avenger) with his jew-jit-sue using his jew-do nose.

watch the word filter ban me now. fuck.

>>17058829
they made a god tier episode of jim hensons the storyteller about this, the demons were freaky as fuck.

>>17059251
Lloyd Kaufman's chill as fuck. I hung out with him for awhile at a con once.

sage for offtopic

bump

>>17058829
Oh hey I remember the full details of this story.
A soldier returns from the war with only three biscuits in his name. He gave them, one by one, to traveling entertainers, and the last one gave him two things: a bag that would make anything called by the owner to go into the bag, and a set of playing card that would win any game of cards. So the soldier tries the bag by calling some grouse, and sure enough, the grouses fly into the bag, and the soldier had a good dinner. Later, the soldier heard a rumor about a castle full of gold hoarding demons, which would challenge people to a card game for their gold. If the dude lost, the demons would devour them. So the soldier went there, and with his card deck he won the games, but the demons tried to kill him anyway. So the soldier uses the bag to trap all the demons, and beat the bag with a big stick. When the demons were released, they all ran out of fear, but the soldier caught one and made it give a magic glass that can see if death is near someone, and how to cure it, in exchange for the demon's freedom. So the soldier becomes a famous miracle healer, and one day he learned that the tsar is ill.

(contd.)

>>17059842
Being a loyal citizen, he sees the tsar, but sadly the tsar's illness is terminal. So he offers to take the place of the tsar on his death-bed. Sure enough, Death came knocking, so the soldier uses his bag and trapped Death. And so he was hailed as a hero, but problems arise all over the world due to Death not coming to take away the pain. So the soldier let Death go, but in return Death became scared by him he became immortal. Nothing could kill him. So he tried going to hell, but the demons are still scared of him, and gave him 200 souls and a map to heaven at his request. he went to heaven, but since he's one of the living, he can't enter it; So he gave a soul the magic bag and told it to call him once the soul enters heaven. But he didn't know that souls lose their memory when they went into heaven, so he waited for a long time outside the gates of heaven, got tired, and went wandering the world forever instead.

>>17059842
>>17059844
Dat you Rasputin?

>>17059850
Nope! John Hurt as the Storyteller.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0710992/]

This series, folks This series will turn children into ca/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls

>>17058276
So, succubi are the myth version of rock stars and drugs?

>>17059894 not dude
it made my nieces and nephews freak the fuck out. i had DL`d the whole the thing, and burned them off for when i went home for the holidays the other year. kids were being brats and screamed for a movie. i put that on, and the oldest niece wigged teh fuck out over the first scene with the devils in the castle. the other kids thought it was the greatest thing ever.

>Polish legend
>nobleman Twardowski sells the devil his soul for sorcerous powers
>"So, what are you gonna do now that you unlimited magic power?"
>Twardowski summons GIGANTIC COCK
>rides off into the sunset
>pic related, epic mount

Not to sound racist here.

But I will, so brace yourselves guys.

Slavs are fucked up.

>>17060450

What is the scariest thing you can think of?

A Serb and a Croat holding hands, with a little Bosnian baby in their arms.

>>17060465
a-are they playing?

>>17059189

>>17058380
why not a rabbi cleric? rabbi's are men of god after all.

>>17060450

e moj prijatelju, you havent the faintest idea...

Kappa, who appear in many RPGs with supposedly Asian settings as generic turtle-men (thanks in small part to the popularization of the kappa as a turtle-man by none other than Super Mario) were originally water spirits who had such delightful habits as raping women, drowning children, passing gas loudly and ripping out people's intestines/drinking their blood through their anuses.

In spite of this, the kappa display an understanding of decorum that forces them to respond to a bow with an even lower bow, which people can use to their advantage by bowing so low that the kappa accidentally tips over the magical water on their bowl-shaped skull.

>>17058945

Thank you, ancient artists of Japan. You have provided me with a truly wonderful reaction image

>>17064722
Don't forget cucumbers. Motherfuckers LOVE cucumbers.

>>17064924
Even leaving individuals or families alone if given cucumbers with their names sliced into the side.
Also, they can reattach body parts within three days and they'll work good as new, and they taught bonesetters and doctors the basics of their skills.

>>17058751
Can you imagine if that happened in real life?

The Occupy Wallstreet movement would have lasted all of five minutes.

>>17058751
If I recall correctly, Burning Wheel actually went with this, with dwarfs who reached the highest level of their racial immorality stat (Greed) turning into dragons.

I love the Burning Wheel's take on the standard Tolkien races, but I can't wrap my head around the thousands of subsystems.

>>17060354
>Selling your soul for a giant cock

He would have fit in here pretty well.

>>17058829
This sounds like the story of Jack, who gave name to the Jack o' Lantern.

Jack was a guy who liked to drink a lot, and one night when he was walking home, the Devil stopped him, saying that his time was come, and that he was going to Hell. This night and the next two, he cheats the Devil once each night - by chasing him up into a tree, by tricking him to shapeshift into a coin that he puts in his purse, etc. - until on the third night, the Devil says "Fuck you!" and leaves without claiming his soul.
Jack grows old and sick, and at a certain age, he gets tired of life. He tries to get into Heaven, but the angels say that he has led a life of sin and can't enter. He think "What the hell" and tries downstairs instead. The Devil still holds a grudge, and tells him that he can't enter there, either.
However, seeing that Jack will have to "live" more or less as a ghost haunting the real world, the Devil takes pity on him and gives him a hollow turnip with an everlasting candle inside, so he at least has something to light his way as he walks the Earth restlessly.

>>17060354
looks totally fabulous

>>17058276
>>17058035
Ba‘al Zəbûl, "Lord of the High Place" a Philistine deity.
Jews/Christians/Muslims come along, destroy the Philistines and rename Ba'al Zebûb to "Lord of the Flies" or "Lord of Shit".

>>17057933
This is now the inspiration for my WFRP campaign's BBEG.

Thank you very much. Here's some Jeep Cavalry for thanks.

>>17057933
>his name comes from the word for bone
>Boner the Deathless
>Boner can only be killed by needle to head

sounds sensible

Here's one not many people know.

Manticores were never "proper" mythical creatures, but were the result of traveler's tales from the East. It's likely they were exaggerated versions of tigers in India. Now, what's interesting about Manticores is that while they have bat wings in D&D, they did not in any or the old bestiaries that described them.

Instead, they were capable of phenomenal jumps, with it often being stated that no four walls could hold them. There's a story about a Manticore leaping the wall of a king's palace as easily as a cat jumping a wooden fence. There's another more astonishing one of a Manticore jumping to the moon and back.

>"There are also variants cited by other alchemists. One such variant involved the use of the mandrake. Popular belief held that this plant grew where semen ejaculated by hanged men (during the last convulsive spasms before death) fell to the ground, and its roots vaguely resemble a human form to varying degrees. The root was to be picked before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed and "fed" with milk and honey and, in some prescriptions, blood, whereupon it would fully develop into a miniature human which would guard and protect its owner.[citation needed] Yet a third method, cited by Dr. David Christianus at the University of Giessen during the 18th century, was to take an egg laid by a black hen, poke a tiny hole through the shell, replace a bean-sized portion of the white with human semen, seal the opening with virgin parchment, and bury the egg in dung on the first day of the March lunar cycle. A miniature humanoid would emerge from the egg after thirty days, which would help and protect its creator in return for a steady diet of lavender seeds and earthworms."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonculus

According to another ancient alchemy handbook, another way to make a homonculus requires a lot of sperm (I mean, a LOT) in a huge glass that should be kept warm. And ultimately, a little human would gestate from it.

So, if you want your own personal homonculus bodyguard/slave, you know what to do.

>>17066763
Next time someone asks me what I am doing in there, I will answer 'ALCHEMY!'.

I'm a quarter Slovakian, and everyone on that side of the family is super fucked up. My great grandpa told one of my great uncles he was god while abusing the rest of his children. Personally I'm not very well adjusted but get by with my devilish good looks which I get from that side. (My aunt is the hottest lady ever) Also we're apparently related to some order of the dragon or something that had all sorts of crazies. Also we can farm the shit out of anything.

>>17058572
originally there were a pair of Leviathans, like everything else God created. But God slew the female to keep the two from procreating and has salted and preserved the meat for the feast of the righteous at the end of time. The male Leviathan will be slain at the end of time, to provide fresh meat to go along with the previously made dragon jerky.

>>17066235

It's disappointing to read about how cool catoblepas are, and then you look at a picture and go, "Oh. That's just a wildebeest isn't it. Dumbass greeks."

>>17067224

If you're in High School, do alchemy in cemistry classes. Be sure to chant pseudo-latin magic verses while you're at it.

>>17067248
>Order of the Dragon
So.
You're related to Vlad Tepes?

>>17067248
My last name is St.George.
We should hang.

>>17067499
Vlad Țepeș wasn't in the Order of the Dragon, his dad was.

>>17067928
and a son is also related to his dad, correct?

>>17067499
>You're related to Vlad Tepes?

Y-yup! Definitely, no doubt about it!

>>17071056

Totally legit.

>>17067499
More likely he's related to someone whose great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was drinking buddies with the grandson of a guy who was in the order at the same time as Vlad's father.

>>17058512
Leviathan also breathes fire, basically a mothefucking dragon.

>>17067928
Actually Vlad was inducted at a young age into the Order of the Dragon.

>>17071311

who? the father or the psichotic son?

>>17071336
Neither, it was the kung-fu magic rabbi vlad.

>>17071371
This is a viable character in 4e.

>>17058240
>that image
ALL OF MY BONERS

So, to go back on topic. Here's some fucked up Fairies for you.

There's the Kelpie, a river-dwelling faerie who takes the form of a young horse. He lets unsuspecting humans mount him, then dash into the water to give them a ducking.

He has a nastier cousin, the Each-Uisge or Aughisky, who inhabits seas and lochs and is far more dangerous. After taking you into the water, he tears you to pieces and devours you.

Kobolds are German mine fairies, who have a tendency to make the sounds of mining near veins of ore. They also tend to hate whistling, pelting whistlers with stones.

On a darker note, the Knockers (Cornish cousins to the kobold) have a tendency to come to a miner's house the night before he dies and make a huge ruckus outside. Their name comes from their distinctive knocking sounds they make by ores.

How about the Hippogryph? They're a bit of a historical joke (to mate gryphons with horses, joke's going back as early as Virgil), seeing that they're a combination of a gryphon and a horse, the latter being one of the former's main sources of food.

Since a Hippogryph's mother is always a mare: this has onlly one logical conclusion: Gryphons occationally descend upon your lifestock with the intent of raping the shit out of it.

As for other creatures, we have the Djinn. The source of the Genie concept, they don't grant wishes. Instead they are pranksters, occupying the place of the fae in Middle Eastern myth. They live in the City of Brass, a city so hot that it will melt the flesh off your skin if you touch any part of it directly. Cursed by God, they tend to hide in places and take exception to humans, who they blame for God's wrath.

Swedish Näcken, Norwegian Nøkken, is a supernatural male, nude water spirit that lives in rivers, creeks, ponds and/or lakes. In sweden he is depicted (pic related) as a young nude man playing the violin, luring people by his entranching tunes down into the water and drowning them.
There is a tale about him in scania (southernmost part of sweden) that he was the unsurpassed master of the violin and he was willing to teach mortals how to play but you ran the risk of getting addicted to supernatural forces. A player could be so entranced by his own music that he wouldnt stop playing until he became insane, the same for anyone who danced to his tune, they would dance until insanity took them.

Well, the Maori (Native New Zealander) mythology has a demi-god ancestor kind of guy named Maui. He does some pretty weird stuff, but his death has to be the strangest part.

First off, the less crazy bits.
The sun deliberately goes too fast around the earth, and people complain that the day isn't long enough to get anything done, so Maui and a bunch of friends throw giant flax nets at the sun, then hold it in place while Maui beats it with a jawbone club until the sun agrees to stop being a jerk.

Then he fishes the North Island of New Zealand (that's the northern one) out of the ocean, which was apparently a giant fish. The South Islan of New Zealand (that's the southern one) being his giant canoe, somehow.

And then, in an attempt to win immortality for the entire human race, he learns that he must crawl through the insides of a powerful witch godess who is seen by man as the redness in sunsets and sunrises. Of course, this journey must begin from the back end of the witch, so he and some bird friends of his sneak up while she is sleeping, and Maui starts to crawl inside. One of his bird friends can't help laughing, the witch wakes up, and kills maui by clenching her buttcheeks together and crushing his head.

Yeah.

>>17071797
I heard about him as a kid.
One myth from my part of Norway was that he would lure people (mostly young girls) to the water with his music. Once they were close enough, he would grab them, pull them underwater and strangle them at the bottom.
He makes his home in lakes with water lilies.

>>17071786

Better your livestock than you.

>>17071937
Nah, you'd just get torn apart by the little hippygryph.

>>17071797
Fuck, I remember this shit.

As a kid, we were told not to go near the pier, or the thing would grab us. I always pictured it as somesort of a big clam. It wasn't so long ago that I actually read up on the real story behind the legend.

>>17058723
Jenny Greenteeth, while we're on the subject of nasty things that live underwater and drag you in...

A river hag, part of the English folklore, she'd pull down small children into the water to drown and/or eat them. Or eat and then drown them. She'd also do this to the elderly...

So you're minding your own business by the river, fishing or playing or whatever small children do... and ever so quietly, a small, boney green arm snakes out of the water... to latch around your ankles like an iron trap, dragging you kicking and screaming into the water, while Jenny croakingly laughs. And the last things you see are the riverbed and Jenny Greenteeth's putrid face gloating over you.

>>17072225
Frak. Forgot my image.
Best stay away from the river...

ausfag here.
anyone heard of the bunyip??
baisically its the fucked up australian versian of bigfoot/bogyman. friends parents run a farm and rent it out to bowhunters, usually tell this story to them when they get back or just before going out.

when white men first landed, unspeakable horrors were commited against aborigines. in a bid for revenge they summoned a spirit and gave it a body made from bones, all from animals- the speed of a kangaroo, the venom of a snake, the senses (hearing smelling and sight) form a dingo, the cunningness of a kookaburra and the voice of a koala- (koalas have teh most fucked up sounds ever, somthing aking to the scream of a 12 year old girl being raped and an undead moan.)
it baisically got sick of whites and ambushes lone hunters around twilight, and leaves message stones in place of where they were killed (supposedly using the victims bones for replacement parts)

in denmark it was once belived that if a pregnant woman where to take the membrane of a newborn horse and stretch it between 4 wooden sticks and then proceed to crawl through this membrane naked she would give birth without any pain BUT her children would be one of two things... a male would be a powerfull shaman, and a female would be a "Mara" which is a female werewolf who would go through a painfull transformation flaying its own skin and its face would take the form of a meaty wolf head (maras wherent necesarily evil, but they where humongusly strong, and they might have been an ancestor to Berserker warriors who, some sayed, had the spirit or the blood of a wolf, ox or bear in them)

Finnish folklore has a tale of the central wizard/bard dude having an epic level singing battle with some nobody, which ended with the mr nobody almost drowning in a swamp because the wizardbard beat his ass so bad with his mad singing skillz.

AFAIK, there was no magic involved, the guy just found himself half-submerged in a swamp because he got beat up so bad in a fucking singing battle.

>>17072316
Motherfucker's an epic level bard. There was magic involved: the magic of MUSIC.

>>17072336
>>17072316
Kalevala has some fucked up stories and characters

Not really a myth but more of a legend from early Australian history. This guy (Ned Kelly) and his gang of bush rangers (outlaws) took steel plates from farming equipment and strapped them to their bodies. This combined with their gun slinging skills and high endurance made them nearly invincible. They would get shot regularly during robberies and survive because nothing could penetrate the armour. In the end they got into a shoot out and died except for Ned who was trialled and hung. His armour kept him alive to get within 15 metres of the police gun line and he only went down because his legs were unprotected.

>>17072403

>Not really a myth
>Also factually incorrect

>>17072403
It's actually debated whether or not Ned Kelly really was hung. Some people suspect he was never caught at all.

>>17072403

I don't care. That's one bad ass story.

Norse mythology has quite a few.
How about the clouds actually being the brains of a giant?
And the firmament is his skull being held up by four dwarves representing north, south, west, and east.
But that's not nearly as hardcore as ragnarok, when Loki will be sailing in on a ship made of NAILS.
I love those crazy Norse.

>imaginative nttomon
Very imaginative nttomon indeed captcha.

>>17072412
Well do correct me then mister green texta man.

In South America there's the duende. In Bolivia they are described as very short humanoids wearing broad-brimmed hats that hide their faces, sometimes playing a small guitar, and trying to lure children away from their homes and into the forest.

Where, obviously, it will eat them.

>>17072312
Fun fact about berserkers: They would drink a concoction made of hallucinogenic mushrooms and mead and trip balls while whirling around in a blood-frenzy slaying friend and foe alike.

Bakbakwalanooksiwae a little known Alaskan boogie man. He's the giant cannibal that lives at the north end of the world. He is completely invisible, except for the hundreds of mouths that cover his body which are always blowing a frigid wind. Supposedly the people he eats are trapped in his stomach and become voiceless, mindless husks.

>>17058829
I've heard this story! It was on The Storyteller!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agwx0Q-SQec

>>17058229

God King was Marduk, Anu was her husband. She is numerously referred to as a 'dragon', but your description is more befitting.

Everyone here should read the Enuma Elish. Shit is like an action movie.

Pic related, supposed effigies of gods. Depictions of Dieties always showed them with giant eyes, and some theologians suspect its due to fish, I guess since their divinity originally came from a world of saltwater and freshwater

>>17072551
Creepy.

Lot of good stuff here. Can anyone recommend a good bestiary that would include references to these kinds of creatures across cultures? Given that it would take a lifetime or more to read all of the related stories, maybe you could recommend a collection of essential reading....really anything would be helpful. Reading through wikipedia for info only gets you so far.

A Jewish friend of mine swears that there's a piece of little known Hebrew folklore out there that details king Solomon's journey to the underworld (Sheol) to become the greatest sorcerer in the universe. It involved riding the Ziz, which is like the Leviathan of the sky. Eventually he did become the greatest sorcerer in the world and decided to bind a hundred thousand demons to a ring or something.

Whether or not such a tale actually exists will be a major factor in any eventual decision of mine on whether to convert to Judaism. This is some hardcore shit there.

>>17073178
king Solomon is known to control demons, demonology is a big part of the Hebrew bible

>>17073178
You can't eat bacon. Fuck that shit.

>>17073213
>>17073178
forgot the pic

>>17073219
I read in some paper today that a certain kind of goose was confirmed to taste like pork by a few european chefs, and confirmed to be casher by a rabbi.

>>17073178
Why would you need to convert?
Do what every good mage ever did.
Steal the secrets of your rival and adapt them for your use.

>>17072551
Anu and Marduk are both god kings. Name changes depending on what region's myths you listen to, tho Marduk came later.

Also the role of Tiamat changes as myths evolved.

At first she was the sea to Anu's sky. The whole mother of monsters came later.

>>17073213
No. Demonology is part of the Talmud, not the Bible.

>>17071786

I prefer to imagine that there's an active hippogriff-breeding program in the setting. Hippogriffs are easier to tame than griffins yet retain some of the griffins' ferocity, so they're optimal flying mounts.

This would make perfect sense in Eberron, where one of the Dragonmarked houses is pretty much a bunch of magical genetic engineers.

>>17072336

Finnish magic was very big on music and true naming. Knowing the ture name of something gave you power over it, but saying the true name of somethign too powerful for you to controll would piss it of. Which is why bears have so many names in Finnish. Only a very powerful wizard could control a bear since bears are fucking badass, so most people would avoid actually using the word "bear" and unse a whole bunch of alternate names.

Also, if a hunter would kill a bear, its skull would be mounted on a pole and a big party be held in its honour, so that the spirit would be appeased and not come lookign for revenge.

>>17058600
The Philippine "tiyanak" may be loosely based on the Japanese "konaki-jiji", but whereas the tiyanak mauls its targets to death, the konaki-jiji becomes super-heavy and crushes its victims to death.

>>17059002
The Philippine "manananggal" has a counterpart in the Malaysian "penanngalan" (evn their names are similar). The mananaggal is more modest in the sense that it's at least got a torso...the penanngalan has its entrails dangling just under its floating head.

>>17057933
>sealed in a needle hidden in an egg hidden in a duck locked inside a metal chest buried under an enormous oak growing on an island in the middle of a faraway ocean. The only way to kill him is by breaking the needle against his forehead.

Thats just full on retarded! Everyone know the first kind hearted innocent hero to wander by will find it by accident and be foreced to destroy the evil.

>>17075794
Also, the Finnish word for the pubic area is closely related to the Finnish word for shame. Back in the good old days there was an entire profession of women called "Bear-shamers," whose job was to ritually stand at the edge of the village whenever a bear was noticed near a community, lift their skirt and point their vagina at the forest. The bear, being a very prudish creature (and the vagina being a source of great power), would shy away from the town.

I shit you not.

Scandinavian folklore:
Skogsrå are beatiful maidens who can be malicious (luring people to their deaths in forest) or be so pleasant as to reward politeness with their supernatural powers. Their main tell is that if you see one from behind their backs are completely hollow. ("like an old tree trunk")
Maror, thought to be spirits of the dead or shapechanging (against their will) women. Said to "ride" things which made them ill from exhaustion, such as when you wake up in cold sweat with pains in your chest. They are the basis for the english word Night-mare. (the Scandi words being more along the lines of "mare-ridden" or "mare-dream")
Valravn are Ravens who have eaten the corpses of the dead at battlefields, should they eat the heart of a child then they can transform into knights. (or alternatively wolves)
Tomte, the spirit or soul of your home basically. They are thought to help out in a lot of things and required sacrifices (they should never be characterized as reciprocal gifts as the Tomte will no doubt see this as being "payment for work" and will leave forevermore) of porridge or milk around Midvinterblot. (Yuletime)
Myling's are the souls of abandoned dead children who walk the earth until they either convince someone to bury them properly. Some tales speak of them jumping on the backs of people, directing them to take them to graveyard and growing heavier the closer they get. If the helper is too exhausted to enter the graveyard the Myling slays them in rage.

>>17082131
So.... the natural foil of Bear Cavalry are Vaginamancers?

Byron Hall? Is that you?

>>17082131
I'm seeing a very camp bear running away from vagina waving women muttering in that high pitched stereotypical lispy gay voice about how it's disgusting
Also bears, hairy gay guy coincidence I think not

>>17057731
I wonder how many men have used this as an excuse when trying to avoid their exs leeching cash out of them with their baby.

>>17057933
Sealed inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, inside a chest.

If the chest is opened, the hare will attempt to sprint away. If the hare is opened, the duck will attempt to fly away.

Oh, and the island is a mythical place that fades in and out of existence.

>>17083214
I remember seeing a bunch of cartoons growing up with Koschei in them.

They might've been books.

The Roc, a Giant eagle that carries people away and eats them.

That's essentially the myth, want to know the fucked up thing?
They existed as real animals in New Zealand until only a few hundred years ago, Apparently Maori's used to get fucking picked up and plucked away by a Giant Eagle. Can you imagine it? riding your bike one day and suddenly your mid air, being carried by a fucking bird that has the intention of eating you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H89iXWEKMMc

Irregular Webcomic

Forest Maidens in finnish myth.

Beautiful, barely clothed maids come to visit men at night near campfires and danced for them.

...however if men were ever to see their backsides, which were hollow or just a lump of wood, the maidens would scream and run away.

>>17083016
Skogsrån can also be identified because of this fox tail, they'll try to hide it but if you notice it and tell them, they will reward you for not embarrassing them.

Also, they are lusty women, and there a few myths where they try to seduce men or disguise themselves as their true lover.

Also, there are a fun, naughty story about a woman that was really lustful and made fun of a priest/shaman, so he cursed here to think the water in a river was rising, until she had lifted her skirt up (to not get it wet) so far that everyone could see her vagina (no panties in the middle ages).

>>17083731
Always loved skogsgras :P

Not really fucked up, but I remember reading somewhere about women with cow tails that would marry human men as long as they didn't brag about it.

If they did brag about it, they tended to scare them off doing it again by bending red hot horseshoes straight with their bare hands.

>>17083829
Those are the Skogsras or Huldras, though in some versions they have fox tails.

Much of the Mesoamerican mythos could count as at least a bit fucked up.