Briars are vegetation monsters, bramble-resembling and bristled. Their bodies are ivory, root-like, and covered in long thorns. These creatures are concentrated in zones with heavy flora, such as the coastal jungles and Dark Grove.

Briars pierce hides and reach vital organs with their thorns, or release a potent toxin that is secreted from their pores on their upper neck. The toxin is dangerous. When the toxin seeps into the bloodstream of a victim, it takes a few minutes to show symptoms. These symptoms include: an increasing burning sensation, known as acidic fire, flows through the bloodstream interrupting the calm nature of the organs. Causing twitching and tension. If left unhindered, the toxin can reach the heart, and causes a heartburn enough to make someone unconscious from the pain. Larger creatures are immune to this, their organs hardy enough to withstand it, but it is still a painful progress that must be waited out like a nasty cold.

Briars hunt for the weak, the ill, and the alone to satisfy their hunger. As large carnivores, their apatite is insatiable. If hungry they are no stranger to entering towns and villages.

Briars are constantly on the move, entwining themselves to flora and trees to climb up and around to get around above ground. Below ground is their preferred mode of travel, the dirt can be seen moving and shivering when a briar is beneath it.

Cavernous expanses exist underground and can be found traveling through the hallways of the archives. These round tunnels are unsafe to traverse for even the most seasoned of monster hunters.

Brair thorns can be used to create anti-venom, painkillers, and allergy medication. Their bark skin is prized for sturdy furniture and wooden statues.

They are solitary. Young briars are hatched from seed pods left behind by falling blossoms. They latch to trees and bushes and grow into thorny vines, a parasite to the plant and coiling them until their bodies are strong enough to travel alone. By then the host plant is dead and the brair has matured to go off on its own.

A sub-species of briar called the sandshuffler is adapted to tunneling through sand. Their thorns are more like quills and their mouth has another pair of jaws inside. They hunt within the Meldra region.

Windiages (win-diE-ah-Gees) are monsters originating from the half-soul ridden corpses within the Chaveri Ruins. Chaveri was an ancient city that once dominated Ptitheros, but after the Sand and Stone War, it fell into ruin and eventually collapsed underground into the massive limestone cave networks below the Honeycomb Forest. The civilians living underground did not survive forever and Edenline never returned the part of the soul they gifted to her in return for her great protection magic.

When they died, their half-souls of aura were useless to collector lindosts. Lindosts never returned to the site upon discovering the waste it was. Half-aura is still aura. The corpses rose from their plant-infested death spot, wicked and dangerous. Enough aura to sustain desperate animalistic tendencies and nothing more. Most windiages are like this. They wander in search of food, feasting on their prey to absorb its aura and suck out all the bone marrow. But they are best known for being extremely territorial over their once-Chaveri region. They become more rabid the closer to the heart of Chaveri ruins one goes, protective over their crumbled citadel and broken streets.

These monsters grow hungry and curious, making the Aurix dangerous to traverse and boundaries be set to protect the neighboring kingdoms from the savage beasts. Windiages have changed over time, as they continue to decay and grow plants on their rotting bodies, camouflaging them with each passing year. They are vicious when encountered, with no sense of reason, only a desire to kill on sight and eat the entire body for all the aura and bone marrow it contains.

Normal windiage won't attack regens unless prompted (stolen food, attacked first, etc). Regens prefer to stay away from normal windiage for the sake of their emotional and mental health.

Because windiages originate from the collapse of Chaveri, most are dragons or gryphons, with mixed genes throughout. There were still rubasyns living in Chaveri at the time, but their population was declining rapidly. Windiage lose their identifiable appearance over time, the twisted aura malforming their body from originally mossy corpses into fleshy, spined beasts.

Windiage are not recognized as a threat to one another. They live semi-solitary, no set packs but a handful in one area is common. They don't have the capacity to create a hierarchy. They don't recognize aura levels. Their diet is wildlife, which are all low aura, so them not attacking each other because of low aura wouldn't make any sense. They'll fight if their food is stolen, but that's about it.

Vindiagos are extremely hard to research. These monsters are intelligent but have no other purpose to life other than kill and taunt in the most unexpected manner they can come up with.

In their natural form they appear to have bark-like skin, similar to briars, two hind legs, a sharp face filled with splintering wood, and and spicules growing from different spinal areas of their body. They walk very lopsided and fall often. In their natural form they do not move very much.

Vindiagos spend most of their lives in false forms. They are shapeshifters, able to mimic the appearance and voice of anything biological they lay their eyes on. They use their shapeshifting capabilities to hide amongst society, becoming friends with others with a plan to eventually drag them deep into the wilderness to kill and feast.

Most vindiagos have one fatal flaw to their false forms, and that is the inside of their mouths. Their inner appearance cannot be changed, so their gums and teeth resemble bark and thorns.

Although monsters, vindiagos are intelligent and capable of forming bonds. These are often miniscule, such as truces with those who agree to help it or not expose it. Incredibly rare, they can form relationships, but they are not monsters to tread lightly with even when bonded.

No vindiago would desire to live a "normal life". They stay in a form to tear apart relationships, draw their prey into isolation, kill them, then move onto a new target.

It is an ancient folktale that ptithian genetic lines with powerful plant magic have vindiago blood in their family.

Basilisks can mimic the form of anything, but unlike the beast it is often confused for: the vindiago, a basilisk can only become monsterous, powerful variations of whatever it has shifted into. It always looks... off.

They are not intelligent, have insatiable hunger and are near impossible to kill. These beasts only come out on the night of darkness, when both moons are new and the world is drenched in midnight black. They break into homes, devouring children from their bedsides and escaping before anyone could notice. By morning they vanish, never found in the woods, only leaving behind a trail of blood and bones from their last meal.

Basilisk hunters seek vengence. On the night of two new moons, the hunters seek out the screaming howl of the monster and go after it, a mirror carried with them. A basilisk must be distracted to be killed, otherwise it will immediately shapeshift into a mere leaf on the forest floor to avoid its demise.

When a mirror is place before a basilisk, they become dazed, confused, it is then they can be slain. Despite this, a basilisk never leaves without hitch. Its killer will pay the price for messing with it in such a way. If a hunter manages to slay a basilisk, the Basilisk's Call curse will burden them to become a werebeast, forced to turn on the same new moon nights. If instead, they are killed in their quest, the Basilisk's Call curse will burden them with eternal hunger, same as it, turning them into a near-dead monster called the Cannibal (if the basilisk chose to leave the hunter's corpse rather than eat it).

The terrors of the deep. Seatechs are the beasts that stalk to dark waters and are a reoccurring symbolization of evil and power.

These monsters are twice the size of a full grown ptithian and have thousands more sharp teeth and spines. Their bodies are stout, muscles are dense as a alligator's, and scales so tough that arrows made from the most expert of fletchers cannot penetrate their hide. All seatechs have abdominal webbed claws, a thick flat tail, and a central head with massive unhinged jaws and tiny triple-lidded eyes.

Aside from these simple common traits, every seatech looks different due to their endless growth of spare heads, limbs, tails, spines, and more. As they grow older these beasts grow more appendages, many often grow the same type over and over again, resulting in seatechs with a medusa-like body of several extra heads or taloned arms.

The cause for many of the disappearances that result out at sea. Cargo ships bringing supplies to Kilaan, or swimmers off the coast of the World's Maw, many are chocked up as prey to the seatechs once search parties turn up empty.

Although solitary hunters, they converge in areas across the deep oceans known as Abyss Mackks [mah-acks]. These areas are trenches that go deeper than any diver or oceanographer has managed to calculate. Endless holes of darkness that in some cultural stories are said to go so deep that they cycle through the dimensional aura plane and exit out into Lindoss. Some of these caverns connect to the Great Underground, a rumored system of caves built by the Cardinals for the kin of The Beginning.

Seatechs originate from the reign of the Collossals. It is rumored these monsters are the lost, cursed ancient kin who were punished by the Architects. Swavvels/Vedluns believe that becoming a seatech is the punishment for committing the most heinous of crimes.

Lurking deep within the Wurunwa redwoods, soyowas are the byproduct of Mother's punishment; a lindost so malformed it has lost its sense of self. With every death, a lindost takes the risk of their aura not compunding correctly and their state of mind completely deteriorating. They become oily, pearl-skinned creatures that wander onward forever. Each soyowas has its own aggression level, but most are neutral to other creatures around them.

Even in their sighted area, soyowas are rare. If one is encountered, allow it to go on its own way and it will not bother. They cannot be communicated with. Lindosts avoid the creatures because they cause emotional instability.

Adapted from Void-language, lindosts refer to soyowas as "Hounds". Calling regular lindosts a "hound" is an insult that means "emotionally unstable, broken, malformed, and/or useless".

Phantom Echoers are believed to be the result of an echoer dying a violent death. Phantom sightings perpetuate the belief that echoers are powerful, spirit-like animals. Stories about phantom echoers are always about one drawing a sad or clueless Ptithian deep into the forest until the poor soul becomes lost and eventually starves.

Phantoms are docile beasts. They never directly harm ptithians, but their paths of guidance tend to lead into the open jaws of other monsters. They are omens of natural disasters.

The Greater Gargyl is the dangerous cousin to the common gargyl found in cities. These giant fliers spend most of their time in the sky. They take quick dives into the ocean or rivers to pull out their fish meals. As cities developed, greater gargyls decided that the busy streets were a much more effecient hunting ground. During bustling events, the skies must be patrolled to prevent these beasts from diving in and stealing small children and pets they view as their dinner.

A terrible beast said to be the accursed output of a briar corrupted with dark, evil magic. In reality, it is closely related to the harmless talon mimic. Mokvels are rare, they dwell in deep, dark waters and in the exosphere, feeding on fantamen. Those in the atmosphere only drift down to the hearth when they grow weary from starvation and are unable to keep magically afloat. As a carnivorous auravore, similar to lindosts, they seek out prey only for the organs rich in aura. They need minimal sustenance to survive, so after one kill a mokvel will usually return to the dark skies. Mokvels look somewhat like jellyfish, with bark-skinned tentacles and a man-of-war crown.