MARCH REWARDS 6

draco flame

Your version of a Nuckelavee, again if you have not already done it.

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This is a Nuckelavee, one of the entities that participates in the Wild Hunt.

The Wild Hunt is a horrifying concept that exists from the times of the  great wars. There are five kinds of wild hunt which exist, each with a  different purpose and all utilized by the Fae, especially during the old wars between Man and Fae that led with the fall of King Arthur. 

Along with the Hunt of Arawn, the harlequin Hunt, the Perchta, and the Herne, they make up the different kinds of Wild Hunt. While all are terrifying, the Nuckelavee tend to be feared the most of all of the hunt. 

Nuckelavee are huge horrible creatures which appear as a large skinless humanoid torso with a massive lulling head, barely held up by it's thin neck and body. It's torso merges into the shape of a distorted skinless horse with strange fingers at the tips of it's legs instead of hooves. The arms on it's upper torso reach down far enough to reach the ground from where it stands much higher than it's horse body.

A Nuckelavee's breath is death, and a yellowish miasma seems to pour from it's mouth and nose as it breathes, the rancid odor permeating the land and causing plants to wither and die while living creatures begin to bleed, form blisters, welts, and boils, and have terrible cramps. They can project this breath as a cloud of death that withers things away, though everything they touch tends to also be subject to this. Creatures attacked by or caught in the breath of a Nuckelavee contract a deathly illness known as the Mortasheen, which causes horrible fatigue, and spreads like a plague, effecting animals like horses more than anything, causing them to grow gaunt, sickly, and die. The Nuckelavee is also known for being able to snatch up creatures with it's horrid long arms, flaying their flesh and leaving it diseased as they hang it up to dry on nearby buildings or trees, and sometimes doing so in a swift instant leaving the skinless creature in shock to shamble around bleeding until it dies.

Nuckelavee can teleport themselves through water, though they have a weakness for pure running water. Nuckelavee can emerge from mudded, polluted, stagnant, or stale water, and occasionally attempt to drag creatures they stalk into mud puddles or ponds when the creature thinks themselves to be safe. They can also choose to appear in the reflection of water when they are stalking prey. Their voices are raspy and vile, whispering terrible things. It is said that some creatures that hear their vile whispers or learn of the eldritch secrets they possess willingly subject themselves to the Mortasheen. Some have been seen consuming bodies, which seem to meld with their own, and on several occasions they have been seen regurgitating whole flayed corpses which stand and shamble toward enemies, picking up weapons or simply grasping and biting with their hands. The most terrifying of Nuckelave can wield weapons using the horse's front hands and it's own, standing bipedal in a horrific fighting style.

It is unknown where the Nuckelavee originates from, as it is a polluted and disease ridden Fae creature which emerges from water sources, wading out of the ocean and standing still for a long while as steam and fog build from it, before they lurch forward screaming and gallop into nearby towns spreading disease and death as they drag others back into the sea with them. Some believe that these fae were once elves and Kelpie, legendary water horse fae, that were somehow cursed to be melded together into a singular entity. Some attribute this to the wars held between man and the Fae long ago, and of the obscene magical weapons that threatened civilization then, while other occult scholars think that it could be from a further time when the fae battled other beings of chaos from beyond the void. There has even been mention that at least one pitch black Nuckelavee exists within the ashen lands of the black forest, twisted and strange even compared to other Nuckelavee...

Unlike other fae that participate in the wild hunt, the Nuckelavee have no dogs, and are generally unwelcome to this hunt, and in many cases other fae may turn tail and leave with the arrival of a Nuckelavee or even a small Calvary of them as all things are susceptible to the breath of the Nuckelavee, and the spoils of the hunt are often withered into disgusting plagued husks to be flayed and reanimated by the Nuckelavee.