Plaguehowl Demon

"I saw it once, near dawn, when the mists were heavy. It stood on the edge of the village, its yellow eyes burning like lanterns. I swear, it smiled at me before vanishing into the fog. We buried half the village by week's end, the other half wished they'd gone with them."

— A farmer, about surviving a plague

 

Coughing Death

  A demon that skulks in the twilight between pestilence and predation, a creature of gnashing teeth and festering ruin. It is said to prowl the borderlands where the fabric of reality is thin, loping silently on sinewy legs, its presence heralded only by a faint, acrid scent of decay and the slow, spreading rot of the land around it.   In form, a Plaguehowl is grotesquely lupine, but to call it a wolf would be a disservice to wolves everywhere. Its body is emaciated, ribs pressing against its ragged hide, which is mottled and patchy with open sores that ooze a dark, viscous ichor. Its eyes are a sickly yellow, glowing faintly in the dark, and its elongated snout is home to jagged, yellowed teeth that seem far too large for its maw.   When it moves, it moves as a shadow might, fluid and unhurried, yet with a predator's grace that hints at the speed it can summon when the hunt begins. A Plaguehowl does not simply hunt for flesh, however; it hunts vitality, hope, and the fragile threads of health that bind a community together. Its breath is a poison mist, carrying the seeds of sickness to all who inhale it. A single exhalation can wilt crops, sour milk, and blacken the lungs of the unfortunate.  

Splitting Howl

  Whispered tales tell that the arrival of a Plaguehowl is both a curse and a test. It comes not merely to destroy but to reveal. Its presence draws out the cracks in a society, forcing the healthy to abandon the sick, the brave to falter, the virtuous to fail. Entire villages have fallen not to its claws but to the fear and suspicion it sows.   There are those who have claimed to see a Plaguehowl and survived, though their stories are fragmented and fevered. They speak of a howl that splits the night; not merely a wound but a thing alive, writhing into ears and minds to carry despair as sure as its breath carries disease. Others recount visions of it standing atop a mound of the dead, its head thrown back, its haunting cry a dirge for the dying.   No one knows if a Plaguehowl can be killed. Perhaps they are less creatures and more a concept given form, an embodiment of inevitability. When brought to face one, you may realize that, sometimes, survival is not about strength but about enduring the collapse of all you hold dear.