"We thought it a lost beast of burden at first. Its head rose above the reeds with horns that made it look like a ram. But rams have two eyes. And this one had three... It rattled my blood. I told the lad to run, but he froze, staring into that... eye. I don't know what it showed him, but he dropped the torch and followed it into the dark. I ran. Fables forgive me, I ran."
Horned Monarch
{ Commonly known as 'faun' }
Horned monarchs, often called fauns, are large beasts found deep in murky swamps or dense forests within the Midlands and Southern Reach. Though a rare sight, their existence is far from myth; they’ve earned a reputation for ravaging minor villages and savagely hunting livestock. An adult faun is just about over three meters tall and five meters long, with sinewy limbs corded in muscle, strong enough to rip an elk clean in half with knife-thick claws atop webbed fingers. Its head is crowned with ram-like horns, jagged and spiralling, which serve as its best weapon. Their tough, buffalo-like builds are coated with a thin layer of fur, and over their backs flows a thick mane that follows the spine into a short, slender tail. The colours of a horned monarch’s fur range from light browns to shades of gray and even white, distinctively marked with black or dark brown stripes along the rib cage and extremities. What truly sets the faun apart from other predators, however, is its third eye, embedded in the centre of its forehead. Using this unblinking organ, the faun ensnares its prey in a hypnotic trance, robbing the victim of their senses and inflicting them with confusing hallucinations.
Fauns largely lead solitary lives, only coupling together to mate and raise their offspring for around three years until adulthood, and their lifespans range from twelve to fifteen years. Males are found to be the most outwardly aggressive, while females tend to limit themselves to defending their territory. Their diet primarily consists of deer, elk, bears, horses, and other big game. Fauns don’t bear much intelligence and mainly hunt by relying on their physical capabilities for brute force. Although they only tend to turn hostile if you wander into their proximity, a horned monarch’s fine hearing skills can alert them of your presence from far away. However, they are not particularly fast creatures, tiring easily and refusing to give chase.
Written by Aguila
