Perry the Shark-Duck

Lifworðig is known as the city of a thousand gods. This is not because its population is particularly devout or religious, but because the experiments in Godcrafting performed by the Clarati sorcerer Illuminata left the boundaries between fiction and reality razor-thin around the city. Even passing thoughts might manifest briefly as a tiny god, only to dissipate as soon as their single "believer" shifts their attention elsewhere. Sometimes, however, an idea takes hold and gains a life of its own. Such is the case with Perry the Shark-Duck.

Nobody knows who first imagined this strange hybrid. To all appearances, it simply was there one day, and all the children of Lifworðig knew about it. They had initially named the creature "Peril," but as it swam around the waters of the lower Severin, the name quickly changed to Perry.

Perry is the size and shape of a large duck, but has grey sharkskin rather than feathers, red eyes, and a beak filled with large, sharp teeth. He is rarely seen out of the water, and the children assure each other that this is because Perry has no legs; while he has wings, he prefers to stay wet. Sometimes he will use his wings in sudden, short flights just above the water's surface, but he never leaves the confines of the River Severin.

Perry is an accomplished diver, able to slide underwater for long periods. He often pursues fish larger than himself and emerges with them in his beak, waving them about triumphantly before swallowing them whole - somehow engulfing the entire creature without discomfort despite the difference in size. The children claim that his stomach is bigger than he is, and if he could get to them, he could swallow people whole too.

But when all is said and done, Perry has become beloved by the city and its children. They often toss scraps of food to Perry from the shore, who responds with strange barking-quacks of joy as he sizes them up; he will eat anything, it seems, except lettuce. Perry hates lettuce. Some have advocated for Perry to receive a shrine in the Temple of Small Gods and have petitioned the King of Play for one; the King has replied that Perry is more popular than half the large gods in the city and, if anything, deserves a temple of his very own.

In the meantime, the citizens of Lifworðig often take a moment during their day to gaze out over the river, watch the antics of the strange Shark-Duck that lives there, and marvel at how whimsical and strange the world can be sometimes.