The Cryptid

=|Introduction|=
I want to say that I was never scared during my encounters with this entity. It was weird, certainly, but I strongly believe that it is not malicious, just mischievous. This entity never gave me its name, so I will call it the Cryptid, as that is what I called it when it was in my world. I understand that this is a “creepypasta” wiki, but I’d much rather tell the less interesting truth than a scary—albeit more compelling—lie.
The Cryptid was present in my world between November of 2022 to July of 2023 and, in that time, I only ever got one screenshot of it, which I took of a (most likely unrelated) weirdly generated igloo on a village farm:
=My Story=
I want to give the facts, and I guess that a narrative account of what happened is included in that. Of probably more use is the information I give after this story, but I will write out my experience for the sake of posterity. I will warn you that I took a lot of pictures.
I don’t remember the exact time I created the world, but it was some time when the latest update was 1.19.
It started the same way all of my survival worlds do. I picked a random direction, ran in it until I found certain resources, then found the nearest large hill in a good area and made my home in its side. In this particular world my home was in an icy biome at about x = -733 z = 3881.
I played on it and progressed it for a bit and then mostly stopped. That is also a common theme connecting my survival worlds. Whatever.
In fact, recognizing this tendency is what made me determined to play on the world again. I don’t remember how long I wasn’t playing on the world, but it was 1.19.2 by the time I resumed.
The initial plan was to make a village from scratch (except for maybe the villagers themselves). Of course the issue is that I’m awful at building and not especially motivated to do large-scale projects, so my motivation began to rapidly wane. I completed the wall of the village, and was planning on stopping there. Take note of the trees within the walls, which I planted for extra wood.
The next time I entered the world, I noticed the (to my understanding) very first thing that the Cryptid did.
File:Cryptid saved tree 1.png
File:Cryptid shaved tree two.png
These two trees were shaved. Of course, this was weird. Obviously I am aware of Herobrine and how one of the things he does is shaving trees. Based on this and some of the other things the Cyptid did, I believe it was trying to emulate Herobrine to some degree. But at the time I was like “huh that’s odd” and didn’t pay any further attention to it. However, the intrigue did keep me playing on the world. The first couple of months after that, nothing really happened.
More trees were shaved. Trees I didn’t plant kept appearing, and some trees disappeared on their own. The trees changed very subtly most of the time (to the point I didn’t even notice) but there were some occasions where it was very apparent, like here:
I didn’t plant any of those trees.
…and I didn’t destroy them, either.
As strange as it sounds, the novelty of being haunted by trees started to wear off. I built that path and the fountain thing in the center, but I couldn’t really bring myself to actually build any houses. I’d just open the world, look around to see if anything changed, then exit. I suppose that the Cryptid felt the same way, because things started to ramp up around the start of 2023. Before I continue, I want to say that the tree stuff continued throughout the entire time the Cryptid was in my world.
The first thing that had nothing to do with trees I noticed were the banners in my house changing. I don’t have a sheep farm, so I didn’t have very many banners, but I did put two banners on my enchanting setup like this (and on my shield but that’s irrelevant):
They were replaced.
I actually took the first image after replacing the tricolor banners, as the original banners were just put in the lapis chest between the two bookshelves. I knew things were ramping up at the time, so I endeavored to finally do something in the village…
That’s right, I created a sextuple beacon setup.
File:Cryptid 6 rainbow beacons.png
File:Cryptid 6 rainbow beacons 2.png
If you’re especially astute, you may have spotted the fact I haven’t constructed anything else in the village. That’s because I’m self-conscious about my lack of building skills lazy. The beacon was also such a monumental effort I didn’t have the energy to do anything else. So I took a break.
I returned to this world in March, only to find that the Cryptid had made its own progress on building the village.
File:Cryptid shackattack 1 1.png
File:Cryptid shackattack 1 2.png
File:Cryptid shackattack 1 3.png
File:Cryptid shackattack 1 4.png
File:Cryptid shackattack 1 5.png
File:Cryptid shack attack 1 6.png
These “shacks” would become a frequent occurrence. For now, however, I destroyed them. In response, it made a Herobrine shrine.
It was a free 9 gold blocks at least.
Nothing happened (except for tree stuff) for a bit until I was going to swap out the furnaces of my furnace array with normal furnaces when I saw this:
The cryptid filled all the empty slots with a single bone. For some reason. Maybe it did that a while ago. And yes, I DO carry around that many fireworks at a time. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is this:
File:Cryptid shackattack 2 1.png
File:Cryptid shackattack 2 2.png
It’s another shack, made out of oak this time.
I destroyed it. It reappeared. I destroyed it again. It reappeared again. It would always be a different wood type, and sometimes it would be a tower of them. Once, I burned it down and it reappeared made out of crimson wood. I eventually gave up and left it there, a single shack made out of dark oak.
I did a lot of giving up, to be honest. The Cryptid built another Herobrine shrine, but with soul fire stuff for some reason.
I didn’t bother destroying it.
The Cryptid changed the glass of my beacons.
I didn’t bother changing it back.
The Cryptid started putting these armor stands around corners and behind doors and other such places where they aren’t visible until you’re right next to them. Each was wearing a “Night Cap” with a blue name that was otherwise a completely normal black leather cap. I evidently didn’t bother to even screenshot one.
It planted a forest of birch trees outside the walls of my village.
I didn’t cut it down. The Cryptid took advantage of this.
I didn’t play all of May or June. When I came back on, I was greeted with probably the strangest thing the Cryptid ever did.
I eventually wrote out a book and placed it next to the sign.
I know I should go over what I wrote in that book for completion’s sake. I’ve pulled out screenshot after screenshot of everything that happened here. I went so far as to draw a mockup of what the Cryptid’s skin is (see The Cryptid’s Appearance). The issue is of course that what I wrote in that book is really personal and I do not feel comfortable sharing it. After writing that book and putting it on the wall, I left the world.
When I came back a day or so later, the wood was gone and the Cryptid was waiting for me outside. Upon seeing me, it ran into my house and stood upon the barrel in the corner. I tried to communicate with it in chat, but it never responded. Instead, it put a book in the barrel and then vanished. I was tragically unable to remember that I should probably get a screenshot.
The book it left was both a confession and a response to my book. I basically transcribed the confession bit (see Signs of its Presence) but I hope you don’t mind that I’m uncomfortable sharing the rest.
Other than the book it gave me, any evidence it ever existed was erased.
The structures in the village were gone. The beacon was rainbow colored again. The forest with all the armor stands was gone. Even the items I got from destroying its structures in the past had vanished from my chests.
I regularly went on that world until September, but nothing anomalous ever happened again. I don’t know where the Cryptid is these days but I do hope they’re happy. I hope they found some world with people there that are more accepting of it than I could be.
=The Cryptid's Appearence=
Before vanishing for good, the Cryptid appeared before me to deliver its confession. I regretfully did not remember to take any screenshots, but I do remember its appearance and even went so far as to try and redraw its skin using my limited drawing talents. My abilities are lacking, but I assure you that the skin was really this simple in design, with only a little bit of extra detail in the crown.
File:Cryptid mockup 1.png|The skin itself
File:Cryptid mockup 2.png|Me wearing the skin
File:Cryptid mockup 3.png|Me wearing the skin
=Conditions of Its Appearence=
I have made no attempt to summon this entity since. It has not reappeared. I cannot say if these conditions were necessary for it to appear in my world. I will say that it persisted through some significant shifts in the condition of the world, so there’s likely some leeway.
The world it appeared in was created in 1.19.0 with the randomly-generated seed of 9026426221307780381. The gamemode was set to survival and nothing else (except for me turning on cheats) was modified. I played sporadically on that world for a bit before the Cryptid appeared. I don’t know if that’s important.
I can’t say for certain when exactly the Cryptid appeared. Its antics were minor at first, but the first thing I recall as being anomalous was a couple weeks or so after I created it, soon after 1.19.2 was released. I played completely unmodded at the time of the Cryptid’s appearance, and it persisted when I started using mods like Sodium a little bit after 1.19.4 came out. I did use two texture packs, but one was some combination of Vanilla Tweaks (which definitely didn’t change anything in a way that could explain the Cryptid’s antics) and another one was one I made myself (that I believe I’ve since deleted).
That is all I can recall.
=Signs of Its Presence=
It should be noted that the Cryptid could very well do something not on this list. Furthermore, anything followed by an asterisk is an apparent favorite act of the Cryptid, as it did these actions repeatedly. I have also taken the liberty to recreate some of these in a superflat world; any pictures in this section are recreations I made for the sake of demonstration. This list is sourced directly from its confession. For the sake of the story, didn't discuss everything it did as the things I didn't cover were minor.
*It sheared leaves off of trees*
*It planted new trees*
*It chopped down trees*
*It edited signs*
*It placed signs*
*It placed charged respawn anchors in the end and overworld as well as beds in the nether and overworld with signs urging me to use them*
*It placed Herobrine shrines, including ones with soul torches and soul soil instead of netherrack and redstone torches*
*It swapped, and sometimes completely changed, various blocks in builds, mostly those being made of or heavily featuring colored blocks like wool. It even sometimes did this to trees*
*It constructed small wooden structures I took to calling “shacks” out of various wood types*
File:Cryptid demo shack 1.png
File:Cryptid demo shack 2.png
File:Cryptid demo shack 3.png
File:Cryptid demo shack 4.png
*It constructed the previously mentioned shacks on top of each other*
*It armed the shacks (and the occasional tree) with effects such as teleporting the me into the sky or summoning a TNT minecart 150 blocks in the sky when certain blocks were broken*
*It placed numerous armor stands with a "Night Cap" behind corners and doorways*
File:Cryptid demo night cap 1.png
File:Cryptid demo night cap 2.png
*It replaced various banners with a distinctive blue purple and green tricolor banner*
File:Cryptid demo banner 1.png
File:Cyptid demo banner 2.png
*It placed armor stands with a "Day Cap" in various places out in the open*
File:Cryptid demo day cap 1.png
File:Cryptid demo day cap 2.png
*It changed the colors of a 6 beacon setup to match the tricolor banner.
*It placed blocks in front of every doorway in a village.
*It destroyed all the light sources in a building, replaced every single air block with a light block, and eventually removed all the light blocks.
*It filled various chests and other containers with single stacks of bones*
*It put various Etho hopper clocks that automated the block replacing thing*
*It set a piece of dripstone to fall into the end portal so that it would instantly hit me when I went through.
*It rebuilt the cages and placed fake crystals on the obsidian towers of the end some time after I beat the ender dragon.
*Its final act was going through the effort of removing as much evidence of itself from the world as possible.
*It appeared before me to deliver a confession in the form of a written book that listed everything it had done and then vanished, never to be seen again.
Category:Long Pastas
Category:First Pastas
Category:Entities
Category:Players