Barghest

When Ryu'ichi Dyson made landfall in the area that would become Dyson's Landing he was amazed with two things:

1. The ruins
2. An animal he thought was the spitting image of an extinct species back on Earth.

That animal was the Tasmanian tiger or Thylacine. Here on Lazarus though the species that Dyson encountered were decidedly larger than that native to the Tasmanian highlands and it had a distinct feature not apparent with the Tasmanian tiger. Dyson noted that these creatures had hands on their forelegs, yet they were structured in such a way that they could run on four limbs as well as on two.

Records report that Dyson was profoundly disturbed by this. The other feature of this unique beast was its ability like a hyena to laugh. The laughter of these beasts was chilling. Dyson dubbed them barghests, they were more akin to some monster from nightmare and old school role playing games than the Tasmanian tiger of his home world.

Though time would demonstrate that these Barghests did have two features in common with the Tasmanian tiger. They were marsupials and they had jaws that could extend extremely wide, giving them a truly vicious bite. It has also been recently discovered that the Northern Barghests also have venom sacs in their jaws enabling them to deliver a paralysis venom when they bite someone.

Like most predator species Barghests appear to be small in number in relation to their prey. They usually operate in packs of five to seven. Never anything larger and they will eat domestic livestock as well as native species. No one has reported a Barghest attacking a person, though they have been known to attack canines guarding livestock.