Temple Bat
Taxonomy: Cloudkin (Bat)
Description: Bats reside within the dark places of the world, roosting in caves and other secluded locales. It is common knowledge that they are nocturnal creatures, but more dedicated research by the scholars of the realm has uncovered that they are capable of feats of extremely keen hearing and a technique called echolocation. Although most bats feed on insects and fruit, folklore has long held that some of them instead feed on blood. These specimens have obviously made their roost in ruins of the temple.
Capabilities: Much to the chagrin of this author, it was discovered by the research team that these particular bats are fully capable of the blood-draining abilities ascribed to them by folklore.
The Accused
Taxonomy: Ashkin (Wight)
Description: Dangerous creatures typically believed animated by dark sorcery, wights are skeletal undead spoken possessed by an enduring hatred of the living. These wights were, judging by their names, those who were accused of crimes against Azeyma’s law. Perhaps as part of their sentence they were condemned to undeath.
Capabilities: Wights are commonly capable of marshalling the dark aethers possessing their wretched forms and imbuing it into their blades for a strike commonly named the ‘hell slash’ by terrified peasantry. This is in reference to a common myth that the wights are ruled by some grand entity of the Seven Hells, a supposition that has no theological basis.
The Qarn Facers
Taxonomy: Soulkin (Qarn Facer)
Description: It was common practice for Belah’dian nobility to lay their tombs thick with traps, in order to prevent grave robbers from pilfering their various mortal treasures, and even their own corpses for use as folk remedies. Facers are magically automated golems which strike at those who disturb their resting places, and can apparently be deactivated by specific vocalizations. A further iteration of the facer found within Qarn is the avoirdupois, named for a system of weight measurement, clearly a reference to their role in activating the door pads of Qarn by applying their bulk to them. The final variation is the sun juror, assistants of Qarn’s adjudicator in the trials once held here.
Capabilities: The facers are capable of emitting waves of umbrally polarised aether in the form of ‘darkness’ which damages the target, likely imbued within them by the mages of the Sultanate.
The Wespes
Taxonomy: Vilekin (Wespe)
Description: These fearsome creatures were imported to Eorzea from the New World after hiding in the hulls of trading ships. Two forms of wespe were found in Qarn, the first of which was a fairly standard native species of bee simply named ‘temple bees’. There are also a species of dung-dwelling creatures, named dung wespes, deeper within the complex.
Capabilities: The wespes of Qarn are capable of using a technique common to their species appropriately called the ‘final sting’. This takes the form of a creature converting the totality of their life-sustaining aether into a poison which the target is then struck with to calamitous effect.
Teratotaur
Taxonomy: Voidsent (Taurus)
Description: Seventh rank voidsent within the voidal hierarchy, taurus are mostly notable for being a favorite of voidsent summoners throughout history. Slain livestock have been popular sacrifices for as long as history can recall, and taurus prefer such sacraments as their hosts on the Source, creating an easy coincidence where such rituals will commonly bring forth taurus voidsent. This creature was likely summoned in just such a ritual, perhaps unwittingly devoted to Azeyma and bound here as a guardian.
Etymology Notes: The teratotaur is named for a real life dinosaur, the teratosaurus. The ‘terato’ segment of this name translates to monster in Latin, which certainly describes voidsent.
Capabilities: The Teratotaur was a fearsome combatant according to those who slew it, capable of ‘mowing’ down its foes with its large claws while emitting toxic breath, and emitting a terrible, ‘frightful roar’ that shook a target and disrupted their defensive efforts. It was also seemingly capable of releasing a rapid array of claw-blows upon a target, in a move named ‘triclip’ by those who faced it. The foremost technique of the horror, however, was its ability to release a wide ‘mortal ray’ of umbral aether that kindles a fatal malignancy throughout its target, spelling certain doom if they were not able to cleanse themselves. Thankfully, a number of plates that cleanse such foulness were installed within the room, likely intended to allow its destruction should it break free of its bindings.
Death Claw
Taxonomy: Vilekin (Mantis)
Description: Immigrants of Eorzea, the greater mantis actually arrived on the continent at the same time as this author’s ancestors. Lalafellin voyagers landed on Vylbrand, carrying the mantis with them unintentionally via egg sacs attached to their boats when they were still reeds yet to be woven into ship hulls. These mantis likely found their way to Qarn after its abandonment.
Capabilities: The characteristic blow of the mantis is commonly referred to as the ‘standing chine’ in reference to the butchers’ technique known as the chine, slicing meat across the backbone.
The Condemned
Taxonomy: Ashkin (Ghost)
Description: Despite folklore to the contrary, ghosts are actually fully corporeal creatures, solid to the touch. They are typically said to be bound to the mortal world due to an unfinished purpose of some form. These creatures were likely those who were put to death in Qarn’s holy trials, and may yet persist due to some intentional curse as part of their sentence.
Capabilities: These ghostly creatures were apparently capable of marshalling the negative emotions retained within their form and loosing it on their foes in a wave of ‘malice’ that not only damages their foes, but also forces them into brief silence, stemming magic.
Wall Crawler
Taxonomy: Vilekin (Yarzon)
Description: Dreadful predators, yarzon are cunning creatures that seek to immobilize their prey by spraying their joints with corrosive material before sucking their brain out via long, hollow fangs. They are a remarkably adaptable species capable of living almost anywhere, which explains why they can reside in deserts such as Qarn.
Temple Guardian
Taxonomy: Soulkin (Golem)
Description: Golems are beings of stone animated by magic, with rumors suggesting that they may be easier to animate in the path of a calamity, although any real research will demonstrate that this is not the only time they are possible to create.
Capabilities: This grand golem is capable of unleashing great waves of force and shards of earth through a ‘boulder clap’. It is also capable of causing sizeable ‘rockslides’ by stamping on the ground, sandblasting foes with pressured jets of the material, sarcastically referred to as an expression of ‘true grit’ by some particularly machoistic adventurers. It is also capable of ‘obliterating’ its foes by slamming the ground forcefully, and slamming its ‘stone skull’ into a target as a headbutt.
Temple Croc
Taxonomy: Scalekin (Crocodile)
Description: Both furred and scaled, these creatures are able to dwell both in the heat of the deserts, the bitter cold of Abalathia’s Spine and the flow of deep rivers.
Capabilities: Any individual who has fought a crocodile will tell a listener to avoid their rear, least they unleash the terrible might of their tails in a ‘caudal swipe’, named for the caudal vertebrae at the base of their tails.
The Adjudicator
Taxonomy: Soulkin (Qarn Guardian)
Description: Masterpieces of Belah’dian mages each, these constructs are most interesting for the clear ties they hold to the sublimely-crafted soulkin of the Amdapori despite Belah’dia’s origins with Mhach. This may imply some joining between the peoples of the city states in the Calamity of Water, or some form of lessons learned after the war by the survivors of Mhach. Regardless, it served as the judge and executioner of those who went before the trials of Qarn.
Capabilities: The adjudicator was capable of using the same cone of ‘darkness’ as the facers of the temple, as well as greater examples of a ‘creeping darkness’ that blanketed the entire chamber and wounded the adventurers that decommissioned it. It is also capable of summoning ‘mythril verges’ odd magical weapons that shoot forth baleful beams of aether to destroy those who come before the creature.
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