Bestiary
An incomplete list of various species. I owned multiple animal encyclopedias as a child and studying varmints was a favourite pastime. There will be a lot of random animal facts scattered throughout these pages. My goal is less to have an exhaustive compendium than it is to record a variety of interesting creatures for my own pleasure, and to perhaps spark curiousity in a passerby who will want to learn about real or mythological beings. Source links will be on the individual pages for my own future research and if you wish to study some of the real history or folklore behind any pre-existing creature.
Lengths listed are the combined measurement of the head and body excluding the tail, tail measurements may be included, and heights are measurements from the ground to the shoulders or withers. Subspecies are natural divisions, breeds and races are artificial and created through intentional interference.
- Amphibian: caecilian, frog, salamander, toad
- Arthropods: arachnids, crustaceans, insects
- Beastfolk: merfolk, satyrs, taurs, therianthropes
- Birds
- Caniforms: bear, coyote, dog, fox, jackal, otter, racoon, seal, weasel, wolf
- Chimera, Gryphon, Hippogryph, Manticore, Sphinx
- Dragon, Gargoyle, Hydra, Tarasque
- Fairies: banshee, bogle, djinni, gytrash, hag witch, nymph, pixie
- Feliforms: purring cat, roaring cat, fossa, hyena, mongoose, wildcat
- Fishes
- Ghouls: ghost, succubus, vampire, zombie
- Insectivores: bat, hedgehog, mole, shrew, solenodon, tenrec
- Kurach
- Lizards: alligator, anole, crocodile, dinosaur, gecko, sand worm
- Marsupials: bandicoot, kangaroo, koala, opossum, wallaby, wombat
- Mollusks: clam, kraken, octopus, oyster, scallop, slug, snail, squid
- Monotremes: echidna, platypus
- Paenungulates: aardvark, dugong, elephant, hyrax, mammoth, mastodon, manatee, shrew, tenrec
- Pilosans: anteater, armadillo, glyptodon, kumbway, pangolin, sloth, veo
- Primates: ape, dwarf, elf, giant, goblin, hominin, monkey, prosimian, troll
- Lagomorphs: rabbit, hare, jackalope, pika, skvader, wolpertinger
- Rodents: beaver, capybara, chipmunk, mouse, porcupine, rat, squirrel
- Snakes
- Turtles
- Unicorn
- Ungulates: artiodactyls (antelope, camel, caribou, cattle, giraffe, goat, llama, sheep, deer, elk, moose, swine, whale), perissodactyls (horse, donkey, pegasus, rhinoceros, tapir, zebra)
For the best online encyclopedia about mythological monsters, see Monstropedia.org
Sentience vs. Sapience
- Sentient / Sentience
- The readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferential consciousness; state of elementary or undifferential consciousness; the faculty through which the external world is apprehended. Commonly used as "able to feel emotions", but usually just "able to feel things through physical senses" and extended to "able to physically feel and react to it" with the caveat of needing a central nervous system to do so. Plants are not considered sentient by science because they react to stimuli rather than make a conscious, intentional action, even though science is finding considerable proof that plants feel pain and communicate with each other in a variety of ways including using the fungal mycelium as a supernetwork of telegraph lines and means of sharing resources.
- Sapient / Sapience
- Acutely insightful and wise; ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight. People often use "sentient" in place of "sapient" when referring to creatures that have relatively advanced reasoning skills and the ability to verbally communicate. "Sapient", no surprise, is derived from homo sapiens, the technical name for the current species of humans inhabiting Earth.
JAD is a fantasy setting where many sapient creatures exist with comparable skillsets and political power, a few of which evolved before humans. From that perspective, it would make little sense to have a human-derived term be the primary word for describing higher thinking. So, I use "intelligent" for lack of a better -ient word, and ignore the inner arguments about the definition of "intelligence" as the general understanding of animals like dolphins, elephants, apes, corvids, and other creatures advances. Many of the intelligent species have over-lapping territories and scatter their settlements throughout the land they claim as theirs. Usually there is not much competition between them, some even cohabitate, but conflict can occur over resources or just plain territorialness.
Monsters and ghouls are generally the fearsome, creepy things that go bump in the night, usually paranormal parasites and other abnormalities, but lack an organized society or proper survival desires, and may not be capable of sapient abilities other than speech.
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