Creatures in The Sword of Truth
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In the fictional universe of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, there are a number of magical or non-magical creatures, many of which are dangerous.
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[edit] Calthrop
A Calthrop is a nightmareish creature, with fur and claws and fangs, a creature of snarl and snap with a gaping maw that lives in the Midlands. Its earsplitting cry is deep, savage, and vicious and its mouth stretches wide with every roar. Its furious glowing red eyes are set deep in its skull. It has huge sharp, wet, snapping teeth. It has a blunt snout, corded muscles, and amazing strength. It is twice the size of a man.
A Calthrop has power in the night, and will wait until then to kill. During the day it can take the form of a human in order to deceive other humans whom it preys on. In Wizard's First Rule, Richard and Kahlan encountered one disguised as an old man with a white beard and a large round belly that jiggled under his dark brown robes as he laughed. He had white hair parted neatly down the middle, and long curly eyebrows and drooping lids shading his brown eyes. He had a jolly round face wrinkled with a wide smile. He called himself "Old John" and tried to trick them into believing that he was sent by Zedd, ostensibly to capture them to bring them to Darken Rahl. A disguised Calthrop apparently has no substance to its apparent form, passing through cobwebs and by branches without disturbing them and leaving no tracks.
[edit] Dragon
Dragons in the Sword of Truth series have magic. It is believed that dragons use their magic to aid in their flight. Before the boundaries went down, many people in Westland believed that dragons were only legends, just old tales.
There are many different kinds of dragons, distinguished by their color, including gray, green, red, and a few others. The gray ones are the smallest and are rather shy. The green are a lot bigger. The smartest and biggest ones are the red ones. Some people of the Midlands keep gray dragons as pets, and for hunting. However, no one keeps green dragons as pets. They are rather dumb, have bad tempers, and can be quite dangerous. The red ones are something altogether different. They will fry you and eat you in a blink, and they are very smart. However, red dragons will normally only hunt people if they are hungry enough, or angry enough, since humans don't make much of a meal for them. Red dragons are fiercely independent, take no sides in human affairs (and couldn't care less), and would rather die than be subjugated. They would put up a strong fight against any who attempted to capture or harm them.
Despite all this, Darken Rahl was able to subjugate a red dragon, Scarlet, by stealing her only egg. He used her to move quickly throughout the New World. Richard helped her get her egg back, and for that she became his friend, and has helped him several times later, both as a ride and with firepower (literally). She frequently teased that she might still eat him.
The taint left by the Chimes (Soul of the Fire) is slowly corrupting and destroying all magic, and combined with the tainted Chainfire Event, Richard is the only one that can even remember that dragons actually existed. All others believe that they are only myth.
[edit] Gar
A gar is a large, aggressive predator that can be found throughout the New World, originating from D'Hara. Gars stand on two feet, like a man, and come in two varieties - long-tailed and short-tailed. Long-tailed gars are about a head taller than a tall man and weigh about 3 times as much (short-tailed gars are considerably larger). Short-tailed gars are more fierce, larger, and much more intelligent than their long-tailed cousins.
Fur covers their great bodies everywhere except their chest and stomach, which are covered with a smooth, glossy, pinkish and taut skin that ripples with corded muscles underneath. They have large wings with thin membranes which they keep folded behind their back when not flying. They have glowing, green eyes and short, rounded ears. They have astonishing speed and often move in a shuffling, side-ways motion. The speech of a gar is a series of grunts, sounding similar to a wild boar. They often throw back their head and hiss into the air in order to frighten and draw out their prey. Their breath is hot and their teeth are as big as human fingers.
Gars were originally created by wizards of the New World during the Wizard War 3000 years prior to the series' start. These wizards had both Additive and Subtractive sides of the gift, allowing them to change fellow wizards into gars. This was done by adding to favourable traits, and removing ones not wanted or required. The gars were created as a way to combat the mriswith being made by the Old World. The gars are able to sense the presence of mriswith, even when they are invisible.
Gars use blood flies to hunt, along with their keen senses. The flies flush out the quarry so the gar can grab it. The gars then smear part of the animal on their pink-skinned chest and stomach for the flies to feast. Short-tailed gars are considered more intelligent than long-tailed gars, as they keep track of and count their flies.
[edit] Blood flies
Blood flies are native to the land of D'Hara and are always found near gars. They are tiny flying insects that gars use to flush out their prey. The tiny bite of a blood fly is fairly painful and can draw blood. They have a symbiotic relationship with the gars, who smear a portion of their prey on themselves, allowing the blood flies to feast.
[edit] Gratch
Gratch is a gar, whom is stumbled upon by Richard Rahl when Gratch's mother attacks Richard, supposedly for a meal. Richard is forced to kill Gratch's mother in self-defense, but cannot bring himself to kill Gratch. Once Richard leaves baby Gratch to fend for himself, Richard believes Gratch to be gone for good. Later, however, Gratch reappears and seems to be following Richard in his mother's stead. Richard then secretly cares for and feeds the young gar while he is undergoing training as a wizard. Richard continues this care until Gratch has grown to a respectable age, and in the meantime, Richard and Gratch become very close friends. Eventually, Richard is forced to send Gratch away for fear of the gar's life, but the two are reunited later and fight alongside each other until Gratch finds another gar that he loves. Because Gratch is a short-tailed gar, he has respectable intelligence and is able to communicate with Richard and Richard's friends. People often refer to Gratch as Richard's pet, but Richard says Gratch is his friend. Gratch does numerous things for Richard, such as delivering a letter and flying Zedd around. Gratch loves food and wrestling with a passion.
[edit] Gripper
A gripper is a small hump-shaped creature that almost looks like a rock. It has gray armor bands interlocked all across its back and jagged spikes all around the bottom edge. The only known habitat of the grippers is in the King's Port, a pass through the boundary between Westland and the Midlands. It is one of the slowest creatures in the King's Port pass, slow but steady. Its armor is harder than an axe. It has many legs underneath, each with a sharp, hooked claw at the end. It makes a soft scraping sound when it walks, like claws on a rock. It moves with an odd, waddling gait, its humped body swaying from side to side as it struggles forward. Its mouth is like a leech with teeth all around. When threatened it can make a snapping and hissing sound and a clicking growl. With great trouble, but relatively quickly, it can right itself when stuck on its back.
When it reaches its prey, a gripper wraps itself around its victim so only its armor is exposed. It digs into the flesh to hold tight so it cannot be pulled off and fixes its mouth to its victim, sucking the blood out, tightening with its claws all the time. It will suck all the blood out of its victim before moving on. The only way to get a gripper off once attached is to cut off the appendage it is attached to.
[edit] Heart hound
Heart hounds are about twice the size of a wolf with large barrel chests. Their heads are somewhat flat with a large snout full of sharp teeth. They have large rounded ears with exceptional hearing. They are tan, with short fur, like that on the back of a deer. There are two distinct sounds they make. The most common is like the howl of a wolf. However, when close to a kill, the howl will be punctuated with bloodcurdling shrieks, like wild cries, cries of the need to kill, demanding and desperate. Their teeth are yellowish and are about three inches in length.
Heart hounds are beasts that were created along with the boundary. They were the boundary's watchdogs, so to speak. They could go in and out without being claimed by it, but they were tied to the underworld, and couldn't go far from the boundary. When the boundary was up, they only came out at night. As the boundary weakened, they were able to stray farther and farther from it and come out earlier and earlier in the day. When the boundary failed, they were set loose, crazed and without purpose. Although very fierce, heart hounds are afraid of water. Like most underworld beasts, carrying a bone of an underworld beast will confuse a heart hound, making them think you are one of their own.
The name "heart hound" comes from two things. The first is because it is rumored they can find a man by the sound of the beating of his heart. The other is because they come at a victim's chest, his heart, when they kill (as opposed to the throat). The heart is the first thing they will eat. If there's more than one hound, they will fight over the heart.
[edit] Mriswith
Mriswith are former wizards that were transformed by use of additive and subtractive magic, and thus gave up conventional use of their gift. They were first created during the Great Wizard War 3000 years earlier, and were used by the wizards from the Old World.
For use as weapons against the wizards of New World, they are serpent like creatures that wear a cloak that can make them or other wizards with both sides (additive and subtractive) of the gift blend entirely with their surroundings. This cloak also makes the wearer undetectable by those with the gift, making everyone vulnerable to attack. Mriswith carry a three-bladed knife called a Yabree in each hand to disembowel their victims, who never see them coming. They are lightning quick, fierce in fighting and relentless in killing.
Richard Rahl kept a cloak from a mriswith he killed, and after discovering how to use it, wore it and used it constantly. Towards the end of Blood of the Fold, Richard was offered yabree by other mriswith, but rejected them before he lost control and became a mriswith himself.
They are native to the Hagen woods, which is also said to have been a training ground to a special kind of wizard (a war wizard). New mriswith are hatched from huge, leathery eggs laid and tended by the huge, red, dragon-like queen, who was unintentionally set loose by Richard. The gars were constructed to combat these mriswith and are extremely effective in their task, the two seem to house a primal rage against each other.
[edit] Namble
The Namble is a large, Underworld creature possessing a humanoid body, with fur starting at its hips and thickening lower down. Its head is described as being a "horror of anger and fangs". It makes one appearance in Stone of Tears to complete a ritual meant to give a Sister of the Dark a wizard's powers. Apparently, the Namble has the ability to absorb a wizard's magic from an object known as a quillion, which stores the magic when the wizard is skinned alive, where the wizard's power "bleeds" out. The ritual consists of the Namble first absorbing the magic from the quillion and then raping a Sister of the Dark, a painful process since the Namble has a barbed phallus. Once the Sister willingly gives herself over to the Namble, she absorbs the magic.
The Namble's eyes glow orange when it holds the magic from the quillion. It has made no other appearance and it is not known whether it holds any higher intelligence, nor how it was summoned by the Sisters of the Dark.
[edit] Night wisp
Night wisps are creatures of magic. They are the size of a small bottle and have a tiny voice. Few have ever seen a night wisp. A night wisp can not be seen during the day, only at night. A night wisp can not live many days away from their home and others of their kind before they lose all their strength and die. Night wisps emit a tiny flare of warm light that gives everything around them a silvery cast, but dims as they grow weaker and changes to an intense pink glow when touched by a Confessor. They have the ability to hover, fly, and spin through the air.
[edit] Shar
Shar was a night wisp who served as a guide to Kahlan Amnell through the boundary. Shar sacrificed her life to help Kahlan cross the boundary and stop Darken Rahl, who threatened to destroy all magical creatures within the Midlands. Her last wish was that she would be touched by Kahlan's power in order to be relieved from the pain night wisps go through when separated from their kind for so long.
[edit] Shadrin
The Shadrin is a beast that lives within the cave in Fire Spring, in the Midlands. Many say the Shadrin is just a myth, others swear it is real, but very few have gone to the Shadrin's cave to find out for sure and come back alive. It is rumored that the cave goes all the way through the mountain, to the valley on the other side.
[edit] Shinga
A shinga is a creature of the underworld. It is a fearsome beast with powerful hind legs and piercing brown eyes. Steam comes from its flared nostrils. Darken Rahl had the power to summon the spirit of a young boy completely devoted to him from the underworld in the form of a Shinga, which would carry him throughout the underworld. The Shinga would come out of the sorcerer's sand in the Garden of Life in the People's Palace of D'Hara, turning as if unscrewing itself from the white sand. It would rear with a wail and float above a bottomless blackness that led into the underworld. Darken Rahl would ride astride its back and hold its neck tight as it would nuzzle its muzzle against the Master's bare chest, buck its head, and then dissolve back into the black void, corkscrewing itself down as it went.
A statue of the creature can be found on the lid of an ancient bowl in the Garden of Life.
[edit] Screeling
A screeling is an undead creature. They are squat, hunched over creatures armed with long, wicked claws instead of fingers on each hand. Its black eyes are black with a golden glitter
Screelings have a supernatural speed and strength, and can scale sheer surfaces and ceilings. The screeling laughs incessantly, even if being hacked to pieces. Screelings are unaffected by most magical attacks; setting one on fire only makes it more deadly. Weapons of any sort will damage its body, though axes are most effective.
A screeling's weakness is its vision. It only attacks people when they are standing still or are moving quickly. Anything moving at a slow, constant speed is ignored by the screeling (at least at first), causing its laughter to halt momentarily as it becomes confused. Screelings learn quickly to rely on other senses, and will eventually learn to recognize the walking people as targets.
