Qualia

Name: Qualia
Meaning: the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena. ORIGIN late 17th cent.: from Latin, neuter of qualis ‘of what kind.’
Gender: Agender
Pronouns: they/them
Age: immortal???
Occupation: Cryptid

Qualia is a hunter. They live in the woods, away from all others. When others come through and they trip the snares... well, Qualia isn't picky about what they hunt. After all, humans are meat too, aren't they? But they prefer bigger, better tasting prey like elk. And killing humans always brings about so many complications when their packmakes come sniffing around to see what happened. Better to leave them alone for the most part. 

Qualia will chase any prey to the ends of the earth, sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four. When they catch their prey, they open their jaws like a noose to bite and jump back. Eventually when the prey is tired, they go for the throat and close their four jaws around it and squeeze. 

There is no known way to permanently kill Qualia. Many have tried. Some have even made them die. But they always get better. Qualia isn't going to let a silly thing like death stop them from hunting.

The humans are aware there is something in the woods. Well, not really. It's more of an urban legend that kids use to scare each other. Tales of a monster with a mouth like a noose that hunts in the night. Its really just an excuse to dare each other to go into the woods at night. And if some don't come back, well, it is the woods at night. They could have gotten lost. And the search parties never turn up a body so...

A few monster hunting teams have gone up to take videos and pictures, looking for Qualia, or as they are known by the humans, the Raven's Wood Monster. Raven's Wood, and town of Raven's Breach which it surrounds, is north. Very north. It's almost always snowing and is always cold. It's near the arctic circle, so there are periods when the sun doesn't come up for days. While Qualia can see perfectly well in this, they realize their prey cannot. And after all, the hunt wouldn't be fun without the chase, would it? So if its during these periods, they activate their glow so their prey can see them coming, and know fear.

When Qualia speaks, they always talk slowly, drawing out their sentences as though savoring the words. Their voice is raspy from disuse. Qualia uses hmm a lot in their sentences and they carefully consider every word before speaking.