The XXX Book of Monsters

## Spine Dragon

*In my research I have found no information regarding the creators or culture from which this creature originated, simply that they were first sighted in a gargantuan necropolis struck of all identifying marks, guarding over defaced tombs of blank marble and gold with no bodies at all interned within.*

*Their reproduction habits are unknown, though rituals have been attempted to replicate it with disastrous results each time. The reason one might want to replicate these titanic creatures are manifold as they are petty, for even beyond their size and strength, their necromantic powers are vast and would be useful to those who could control them.*

*While different specimens have been observed with different abilities (Though tagging for tracking is difficult for obvious reasons), the most consistent one is the oral spray of an osseous particulate colloid, producing hyper-animate osseous formations resembling vertebrate endoskeletons. In other words, its breath weapon, colloquially known as "Skeleton Breath"*

*They are peaceable unless provoked, and appear to "feed" by building tombs for bodies without proper graves, using their "breath" to build basic structures, and gathering further objects that correspond to the target's life. They appear to "speak" to the corpses, and in fact have been sighted in anomalous areas later discovered to be linked to their "targets," with symbology integrated into their tombs.*

*Perhaps it was the purpose of their design, perhaps it is to keep others from being forgotten like they were. More research must be done.*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon, Monsterologist and Understudy To The Librarian Of Babel.*

## Nickobruty

*This poor thing was found abandoned in an automobile plant, a hybrid of seemingly sound genetic quality and domestication. It appears to be naturally blind, and navigate by sound, as those at the Sanctuary were unfortunate to learn from the screaming.*

*It appears to have the mentality of a very large domestic cat, complete with distorted prey drive, which suggests its engineering as a pet, abandoned by an owner who treated it as a toy.*

*I can only speculate, but thus seems like the handiwork of Barlow & Barlowe. Of course their customers would be this irresponsible, of course they would. And god only knows there's probably more where this poor creature came from. But, let's hope we can find this one a good home...*

*- Xavier X. Xolomon, Monsterologist and Understudy to the Librarian of Babel*

## A Terrible Lying Pony

*There has been much exaggerated these days regarding the terror of horses, perhaps to make up for decades of underplaying such as with the malevolence of dolphins. But, this creature, this... thing  is worthy of all such exaggeration.*

*A thing of hell but not from it, a thing of diabolic hate but beyond diablerie, I dare not write its actions or abilities for fear of tainting this page, but know it speaks only lies, do not believe what it says and DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, IN ANY SENSE, ALLOW YOURSELF TO RIDE IT!*

*I have learned this in my hard way via my experiences in the Philippines (But not those Philippines), but I will emphasize, without any hesitation that, IT IS A BAD PONY, AND IT SHOULD BE ASHAMED.*

*IT WILL NOT, BUT IT SHOULD.*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Witches' Brute

*The timeline in the development of brew-based servants is uncertain, but in the current state of things, Witches Brutes are considered a fine "beginner option" compared to; say; the troublesome Bubbiali or, gods forbid, Hudges, with their robust frames of thickened slime and wrought-iron allowing for a durable servitor and a robust strength.*

*One thing that I have noticed makes them attractive beginner-laborers is their low cost of construction. In terms of price, it is simple to get the sort of legged cauldron that they require due to their common production, and most recipes do include some variety of bodily fluid, some variety of hallucinogenic fungus, and a "thickener" of some sort (Which previously had included things such as porridge and rice, but in modernity has expanded to such things as powdered gelatins and carrageenan extracts) as the core ingredients, easily within most beginners' price ranges.*

*I say "most recipes" because I have noticed a further area of attraction is their customizability. The specimen shown above is a basic model, provided for photography by a most generous student, but there are far too many varieties to list here*

*Common ones including Red Ragers; smaller ones with a blood-based construction, wheels substituting for "legs" and a body bristling with razors, or the Eyesmite, a much smaller design including an eyeball and a mostly tear-based construction; more difficult to produce but bar-none exquisite at transferring or even catalyzing hexes and blessings alike.*

*There is a reason that they are utilized even by some of the most voluminously skilled practitioners of the subtle arts, a rare thing for any "beginner" option to be sure, even if the masters tend to deploy them in numbers great enough to be called armies.*

*Though, what many practitioners  tend to be surprised by is their seeming lack of free will, at first at least. They function mainly as reflections of the caster's intentions, which may lead to a level of micromanagement that makes deploying them in numbers beyond a few difficult except for those masters. There is the possibility of them attaining free will by way of magical feedback from absorbing spells; passive feedback from a strong enough "source," or even simply reflecting the doubts of their creator.*

*For any ethical practitioner, this should be little need to worry, given they by all accounts appear to still have great devotion to the work they were created for with sapience, and if treated well may even be more of an asset with their ability to make independent decisions and serve as a proxy for working with less-sapient Bruts; which is often done by those casters with large-scale groupings of them to make management viable.*

*However, if one is habitually cruel to others, one should not be surprised to find one's self a component in an "ascension" of one. But, that is a story for another time...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Hex Tank

*In the heat of war, the grave of the battlefield is a womb to monsters, and thus the Hex Tanks are one of those birthed from that tragedy.*

*They are perhaps the most prolific and versatile of the designs produced in the various Witch Wars, which is perhaps why they thrive the best of all those living things produced in the Forge-Swamps even as the battlefields grow cold and the victors have built castles in the fallout.*

*Their construction is simple, metal, wax, organic brew, taken and placed in their "Swamps" of origin, omnivorous in browsing and versatile in construction, they have become perhaps either a part of the local ecology or a pest depending on how one asks. My personal exological-ecological studies have found few if any negative impacts on the local populace, though my interest in emergent ecologies and the emergent subspecies in particular may bias me towards this.*

*They gather materials both for regeneration and for the sake of their abilities via "tendrils" in the "cauldron" upon their heads, relating to their operation as designed. They consume materials  to brew in the cauldron, then cast the spells from the candle, this is well documented as far back as their original blueprints.*

*For the longest time this was considered to be a reaction of mere survival, a simple drive towards self-preservation as designed, but in my studies I have seen I have seen varieties of emergent behavior far greater than previously recorded, preferred spells, interactions with other organisms that seemingly would have no other value than simple "play", deliberate consumption of specific materials seemingly to alter their construction for the sake of "decoration,"*

*I have even seen multiple positive interactions between tanks occupying the same territory, through the war-common medium of "witchlight" spells. My research in this area has been speculative, but results appear to lean towards them even adopting strategies of acquiring resources from the other observed tanks, almost as if they are learning.*

*The one nicknamed "Big Ethel" was perhaps the most fascinating, one of the largest in size with a black paint job existing on a small city in the Borderlands. The city appeared to treat it as something of a "pet," having widened the roads for it and creating public "feeding" stations for the entity, and "Ethel" in turn appeared to actively "patrol" the city for the threats common to those locales in the Borderland region, perhaps accounting for the city's far larger scale than others I had observed.*

*There is also one caveat to these ecological observations, the observed phenomenon of the "microswamps," miniaturized areas of ecology with properties not dissimilar from the Forge-Swamps. While this has been attributed to the thaumaturgical and bio hazardous chemical concentrations common to those areas, my observations have shown tanks gathering in these areas, "pouring" some of their brew into these areas.*

*This could be a boon for areas previously thought uninhabitable, a form of "healing" if you will, though we must take care that other; potentially ecohazardous elements from the Witch Wars do not join them...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Blastudine

*Sometimes, a creature is awesome in its strangeness and complexity. But, sometimes it is beautiful in its great simplicity and longevity, the base for a multitude of forms. And so it goes for the great Gun-Turtles, a simple breed that has lasted long and spread wide, like the shark or the beetle or the humble scrimglaws of the many Manna Plains.*

*It is simple, a hard armored shell, cannonades to attack at a distance, and a leisurely pace to pursue its prey. You don't need speed when you have distance and armor, and most usually have some method to take on the smaller attackers. A simple template, but so widespread that you don't notice how widespread it is until one points it out to you.*

*While there are many variants, some very strange and some I feel I would just bore you with, the Blastudine here is perhaps a Lazarus Taxon, one early; simple lineage we had thought deceased, but in the sandy dunes between the Goblin city in the Saguaro's realm and your own Sonoran Desert, we found them surviving.*

*It is, perhaps, fascinating to watch them hunt the simple Tally-Tolds and fight back the vicious Osseous Piranhoids, so simply and so normally. They do not know they were once considered extinct, nor do they know fear or the dread of history weighing down upon them. They simply exist.*

*We should, perhaps, let more things stay that way, living in their own peace...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon, Monsterologist and Understudy To The Librarian Of Babel.*

## Occoltos

*I try concern myself less with the politics of hierarchy than most would think, if only for the sake of keeping myself sane, but like a fly to a pitcher-plant, I find myself fascinated with ithe ecologies of the thinking and the thoughtless. And, in the case of this individual I speak of, an unusual aberration in their hierarchy.*

*The ecologies of hell are fascinating as they are depressing, that such life could thrive in such a place of bitterness, but so too that the life is treated with such cruelty as they treat each other, and perhaps mirrors it, and is so often destroyed, wiped from history while those few preservers try to pick up the crumbs. In worlds where they treat people; whether they be soul or demon; horribly, so they treat the world.*

*And, that is why our subject has decided to leave. They are, or at least were, a lesser postmaster of hell, as most demons have a title, usually empty and mocking as was theirs. They did try to fulfill their duty, by way of delivering mail, with aspirations of being some Greater Usher of the occult.*

*But, in Hell, they value public services as much as they can screw them, and they almost always shoot the messenger, so it was a job they worked with vigor and light towards, but without hope. Until they simply decided to keep running until they saw where it got them. Which was, in fact, outside of hell. A rare feat without intended summoning, but sometimes it really is that easy.*

*I have been speaking to them upon the prospects of finding them a means of engagement with this strange new world they find themselves, with their abilities to summon things beyond the veils of the fixed.*

*The impossible becomes plausible, and the plausible becomes possible, and they do take mention they always leave an interesting "bonus" with those packages they deliver. They are a walking hyper-liminal space as it were.*

*Huh, perhaps that's why they were able to walk out of hell like that. I'd bet Stingy Jack might find their company interesting...*

'**-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel'**

## Hellsome Ob-Walker

*I found out about this one from friend of the Xavier Occoltos, this abhorrence against good creature creation delegated from the "finest" in hellish creature-manufacturing by those bastards Barlow and Barlowe.*

*Its psionic powers are destructive, sure, but the "brain" is a big stupid target, and I mean that literally, it can only use those powers with the stupid cabinet they put into it, otherwise it has the brainpower of a potato-clock. It's slow, they didn't give the damn thing a mouth for "style" points, but you don't want to know where you have to shove things to "feed" it.*

*To all I can see they've made a creature to sell to rich idiots which they can produce cheaply and claim is a war-steed from the bowels of hell. They're usually evil bastards; and my sworn arch-enemies to boot; but jesus chriminy, this is just mundane, they're not even being clever!*

*To think they'd be so fucking sloppy in addition to their crimes against life. God, that poor catalogue goblin must be exhausted trying to do a fucking writeup on any "good points" this thing might have. At least it looks intimidating, but genius-criminy they didn't even bother to give it a name that made any sense....*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## M-Cannon Alienator

*There is something exciting about finding a potential new ecology that has lain unrecorded by conventional records for aeons, though I feel unsure I may do it justice in these writings. I will try my best, however.*

*This unknown species I have called the M-Cannon Alienator by virtue of, well, the mysterious M patterns left by the blast of its cannon. The strange step-pyramids they call home appear to only be scorched in a fine layer of ash, but the surrounding geological formations appear to be far more powerfully effected, as noticed by the many M-patterned scars that appear almost as zig-zags.*

*The seemingly osseous cranial protuberance has; on closer inspection, appeared to engage in organic undulation, though the rest of their structure appears to be of "organic steel," placing their origin at an even 65% that they are artificial.*

*These odds are further increased by virtue of the fact that I have never seen them directly "eating," but rather stepping into a green "slime pool," of which there are multiple observed analogues in the literature observed that further suggest an origin as "guardians" of this artificial structure.*

*The potential for tomb-borne-ecologies in this place is fascinating, but I leave the place of their origin blank, because there is likely a damned good reason as to why they keep security so tight, and further discoveries are pending due to the immense difficulty in ameliorating their intense firepower and tendency to use it...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Abandoned Skrapy

*So, I made the mistake of attending an auction for Barlow and Barlowe, out of bile and curiosity. Most of the usual dime-a-dozen "prestige" models of creature were for sale, as were the usual gaggle of rich idiots willing to fork over unawares for the refuse of cruelties.*

*But, I did some spying in the rented WcMansion they "rented" for this occasion and in one of its abandoned crannies, I found this sad beast. It was apparently a "failed experiment," they had created it in experimentation for a servitor motivated by pain and totally dependent on its users, but it was a bit too robust.*

*From the creature's testament, what I could tell, its necessary robustness kept it from the dependence and pain-integration desired, and the magics tied to its bells for its service purposes were perhaps more suited for self-preservation than its creators planned.*

*Supposedly, according to the creature's testament, it was to be given away as a "party favor" after the auction to the highest bidder, to hunt for sport or perhaps as pets. Or meat. I hate Barlow and Barlowe so much.*

*Needless to say, we have escaped, but, I lie in wait for the inevitable retribution. The bastards do not like their property being taken without payment even if it were to be given for free, for it is the one principle they seem to have...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Hunter Operix

*So, Barlow and Barlow have indeed sent their foul agent hunting for my head for the efforts I've made in rescuing one of their creations, one of those times they placed their deepest efforts in full-throated efficiency..*

*I will admit, it is a powerfully engineered effort with its immense speed both on air and land, powerful weapons for blasting holes in things and great muscles for shoving potential prisoners in its maw for transport, and a carapace of Unyielding Gold. I might almost admire its construction if it were not for a foul purpose, and I would pity it if I had time.*

*But, it is too late for them to take this creature, I have sent its quarry to a sanctuary where not even the claws of the hunter desire to tread, and I stand in wait so this hunter may not tread a single step more. So now, I wait...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Xavier X. Xolomon

*Hi. It's me, The Living Record, from The Record Of Forever, apologies I've been away so long. Poor Xavier's tuckered out from fighting that... thing from last night. I thought they should get some rest, so I'm writing this for them.*

*Oh, you didn't know? They're a book too. Both of us are, as befits the creations of a librarian, We can project ourselves for the sake of action, we can write in ourselves without ink, but we're mostly just words between covers.*

*They're a good deal older than me, by some millennia. But, even older siblings can get tuckered out, so in their place I offer a statement from their mission, Happy Halloween, and may you all have a good rest with many monsters.*

*God knows you're going to need it for what's to come...*

*-The Living Record.*

## Bubblescape Stalker

*The stalker is fascinating in that; in its environment of origin it is by far the weakest of its clade, a small scavenger picking the bones already picked clean by the other flotsam of the aether, its bone-crushingly powerful jaws only small enough to bore through to the marrow of the diamond-boned leviathans of the deep betweens.*

*and yet, outside of  such, it is a terror to behold, able to snap through walls of iron and treat itself to a feast of weaker flesh. Its slow tunneling through thick rot and marrow becomes lightning speed through solid stone to reach the feast of humanoids; the semispatial displacement it uses to hide from predators now a means of avoiding all but the most wide-reaching of blows.*

*Those who manage to slay them on smaller worlds are known as heroes, and I have seen a taxidermied one as a point of pride in a small tavern, which I found more impressive for the taxidermy than the alleged circumstances of its deceasement.*

*But, aside from the more... jury-rigged means of its defeat, there have been chemical means to diffuse its powers; derived from the narcotic milk of the eye-flowers that grow in its habitat, and it has become utilized as a "prison guard" so-to-speak in the notorious sphere-prisons due to its mixture of power and commonality. Some could even be said to have been "domesticated," with more colorful "coats" on their pseudo-osseous frame and greater vocalization with sounds akin to bells.*

*As a researcher, I must confess, this has made researching the beings imprisoned in these places quite obnoxious, even as they refuse to devour me due to the relative lack of nutrients in book paper. Being carried about is not a pleasant experience; especially regarding the horrors within their saliva; of which I understand in miserable depth...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Machine Hatchetman

*The Machine and its legions are a subject best covered with the caution one would exhibit when examining creatures of radiation; though that is perhaps unfair to the Glowing Ones. The Machine is a grifter's world, very inefficient and hideous but very good at hiding that for the sake of tempting lies.*

*Their products and services can be defanged with cunning and wit, but few bother to do so, and by the time the danger is realized in the places  where The Machine puts its tendrils, it is too late. But, it is not helped by the dispersal of their Hatchetmen, monsters outside of any ecology, which I write of to warn about rather than to valorize.*

*I should not mistakenly speak of this specimen as if it were the singular model for its purpose, for The Machine makes many models for this purpose; regardless of the efficiency of such overproduction, and this is by far one of the most overproduced. Row by row the legions stand in their hypersaws, sent in groups of one or many, to silence opposition as their creeping influence grows.*

*I have seen the processing power of their Neural Globes; their pitless perception and their deathly pulse-waves, and barely dodged the juggernaut blades at full speed, their resilience to extreme amounts of force. And it is a terror, in the singular at least.*

*In the multiples; however; this model is a joke. The shared processing of their situations that the Machine; in its infinite "wisdom" has imbued them with, leads to them tripping over themselves when deployed en-masse. Which is often, because The Machine as an organized... thing is far less wise and far more petty than it pretends to be.*

*As a coda, amongst The Machine's creations they are obnoxiously above-average in terms of difficulty to reverse-engineer. I tried to have a mechanic reverse-engineer one to function without the ties to its masters, for purposes of instruction so that others might do so. They ended up smashing it with a hammer after the fifth propaganda-box...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Cuckatrice

*Before you bring it up, no, they have nothing to do with cuckoldry. They are, in fact, named after the same beast as the word derives from, the Cuckoo, for the similarities in its strategy of predation.*

*You see, it is a carnivore, capable of altering its simple predatory shape to resemble an ordinary chicken, which it uses to slip into hen-houses with none the wiser. Then, one by one, it picks off the other chickens, changing back to its true form, quietly stinging them during the night, then devouring them whole to leave none the wiser.*

*One can tell them by their "eggs," with the notoriously foul innards (Which they often try to hide amongst the eggs of other chickens). It is, in fact, a clever waste disposal system for the bone and... miscellany; as they are actually more akin to placental mammals; with such being very much involved in the original creation process.*

*Said creation process is most likely an unusual derivative of the creation of the Cockatrice (Hence the other part of the name) and most likely originated amongst a mage meaning to sabotage their farmer neighbors; akin to the creation of the notorious Tilberi or Troll-Cat. Of course, the creatures bred and now they exist far and wide, though thankfully they only sabotage agriculture and not the broader ecosystem...*

*...Though, there has been a disturbing trend in years recent. namely, in those industries that farm poultry on a mass; hideous scale; full of cruelty to both person and animal alike, they have begun hunting people. They are; of course; containing of greater mass than chickens, but the seeming reason they've been able to end up doing it are disturbing.*

*Namely, nobody really values the poultry workers enough to care when they disappear. The industries that hire them consider them so disposable that their disappearance amongst their disposable livestock is unnoticed. I have heard reports of these creatures even emboldened enough to work in "packs" to both take down and consume workers in this field.*

*I've heard the process of dehumanizing these workers from people to assets as tightly managed as their livestock called "chickenization," perhaps this is the ultimate extension of such. The end step of chickenization is the reduction of human beings to meat.*

*Or pets, in other hideous scenarios. but that is for another entry...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Clockhorse

*It has become something of a "meme" in this era to speak of horses as if they are hellish abominations against all that is good but, with one... exception, I am not the sort to go for that hyperbole. But, this entity is not a horse.*

*As with many agents of The Machine, it has the appearance of life, but not its properties; complete with cheap petroleum-based faux-fur body covering, It is a simple scout for its creators; as deadly with its spotlight-eye's blazing beams and an unsettling data collector with its glaring gaze and its blinding speeds, as it is over-designed and inefficient with its multitude of redundant parts and massive energy consumption.*

*Supposedly they are considered state-of-the-art, the apex of that vast mechanical nightmare's operations in scouting for their cruel hordes. Such a... well, I can't even bring myself to say "pity" in the ironic sense then, that they are so fragile and stupid.*

*Their exposed rapidly-turning gears, while deadly as much as a mundane saw blade would be, are very much vulnerable to jamming, and their simple angry little minds cannot help but get close to attempt to use them or their metal hooves to attempt to turn into a fine coloured pulp.*

*The exercise is left to the scholar to determine the outcome thereof...*

*Wait, I'm technically the scholar here. It turns out badly for them is what I was meaning to imply. Like, most of the time. Tho, sadly, not enough for the Machine to discard them, as they are viewed as accomplishing their cruel tasks just well enough...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## The Dread Gazebo

*... OH SHIT!*

*...OH FUCK! RUN! RUN GODDAMMIT, RUN!!!!!!!*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*

## Standard Steamer

*If I am overly loquacious on the subject of The Machine's vile ecologies, know that it is not out of sympathy, but out of fear  They destroy so many of the ecologies I hold dear, and thusly, I believe they should be documented for the sake of knowledge. And also shattering the stupid things to kingdom come, that too.*

*These are simple, a model considered as robust as it is outmoded compared to other; more baroque mechanisms, but no less dangerous. While the simple "coach-gun" is not a threat to all but the most vulnerable beings (unarmored humans come to mind), the unrelenting plow of their road-rollers is deadly in more than the obvious ways.*

*Some players of games have a concept known as a "hurtbox," and that is perhaps the best concept to explain the reach of the roller, its trampling effect doesn't just reach right under the roller, but around it, on a much deeper level than you'd think.*

*I've been to the places these things have roamed and they're... dead. Nothing wholesome lives there, no wildlife, no biological vegetation, just the Machine's extractive systems and the pseudo-ecology with them. They are possible to mislead though into leveling upon themselves, as they're not particularly bright; especially given they tend to come in swarms; meaning tying them in knots is still yet easier.*

*The troubling part as a naturalist is observing the similarities in this effect to the observed; fully natural creature called the Leveler. I suppose even a monstrous; devouring force sees the values in mimicking nature. But the Leveler doesn't leave things a highway wasteland; a street of metallic monocultures and grim commercial edifices...*

*-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel*