The Lamassu and the Peryton

Two creatures of the Floating Plains of Emuna

Lamassu are some of the most impressive beasts of the Emuna Province: they are the “devolution” of creatures that lived in the heavens, and like many beings with similar origins, their role in the Paradisiac Planes is unclear. Sifting through the holy texts and the words of the late archangels, it seems they were advisor of the blessed souls, helping them to navigate their celestial afterlife with words of wisdom.
Once the Collapse catapulted them into the material world, they became more animalistic: their human face was gone, with their horns trying to mimic it, growing in the shape of masks. They are still majestic, striding on air for small distances thanks to their magical pseudowings. Lamassues are solitary and shy, rarely seen in pairs. Once the mating season approaches, they carve unintelligible symbols on the rocks that work as “appointments” for potential partners. They keep their distance and avoid humans most of the time, with exceptions: following an opaque logic they may approach people, sometimes in a hostile way other times friendly.
Emuna’s inhabitants have always had a conflicting relationship with the Lammassu, going from admiration to fear and from greedy interest to almost idolatrous devotion.
The Lammassu are a throve of potential magic objects. The horn-masks, the feathers, the fur, the hooves: every part one can butcher can be easily transformed into valuable artifacts, from ascending gliders to thought-seeing devices.
But hunting the Lammassues means getting close to them, close enough to understand their mooing words. Lamassues bellows long litany that, listen closely, are aphorisms, proverbs, or insights. These sentences are sometimes deeply philosophical and other times just shallow common sense, but are nonetheless what you need to hear. Those words are often
catalyst for self-realizations and personal epiphanies and many hunters have turned their lives upside down after a hunting trip, some have even started rebellions or cults.
Eventually, the church will banish the hunt for Lammassues, forbidding everyone to go near them. But this prohibition causes the beasts to gain a certain mystique. One of the elements of the sacred is the distance from the mundane, and these creatures, so special that you can’t even approach them, become the object of more and more fascination. People eventually transgress and seek the Lammassues to receive their illuminating wisdom. There was a time when a lamassu became the mayor of a town, with all the citizens gathered anxiously near the grazing beast, waiting for directions and advice.
At this point the church would lift the ban on hunting, underlining the animal nature of the Lammassues and the profit you can earn. And the cycle starts again.
The Archangel of Life cataloged much of the life forms they could before mortality caught them, and left insight on every creature. The angels said “to pay attention to the Lammassu’s words”, a phrase that could be interpreted both as “listen carefully” and “beware”.

“Don’t wander alone or the peryton will catch you!” is a common phrase to scare children of the Angelic Unison to behave. But the Peryton is not just a bogeyman but an actual predator nesting on the floating island of Emuna.

The legends say Perytons were angelic creatures twisted into abominations by the Lord of Chaos or the Archdevils during the Cosmic War. Philologists of the Scriptures and natural philosophers concur with the myths in that the Perytons didn’t emerge organically from the Collapse but that some divine being meddled with them at some point.
The main sign of an external force shaping them is their ability to cast elaborate spells: their weird hand-antlers and devious intellects seem too complex not to be designed, as their repertoire of incantations is too sophisticated not to be taught.
The perytons nest on some of the high-floating islands untouched by humans. They soar looking for prey and dive to grab them with their talons. The shape of their massive wingspan would give them away, but they can change their shape with magic, blurring it to appear as a passing cloud or disguising it as an innocent sparrow flock. Contrary to predatory birds, the perytons don’t lift their victim but pin it to the ground, devouring them on the spot. They are messy eater, leaving carcasses and a pool of blood: this is because they use the rest of their feast as a signal to other perytons. The horrid spectacle of visceras is a way to mark their territory and attract mates.
In winter perytons settle for small prey, like rabbits or partridges, leaving the snow stained red. In spring, the males will look for bigger prey, usually calves or foals: they will create crude illusions and vague shadows to lure or scare their victims into the perfect position. The male perytons will then attack and kill, spreading the interiors of the poor beast as a macabre display. The females, clinging to the bottom of the floating island, assist and judge the grueling spectacle, choosing their partner based on their viciousness. Males can never be sure to have an audience, since perytons attached to the rocks can use their hand-antles to cast camouflaging spells. Perytons, both male and female, are extremely territorial and jealous, fighting for their mate or hunting spot to the death.
Peryton couple last three years, the time for their young to mature, and after that they become bitter rivals again. When a couple has cubs they take some prey alive to their nests, a way to teach their younglings the art of dismemberment. Perytons rarely target humans, but it has happened and some people have even been brought to their nests. The handful of them that survived did so throwing themselves off the floating islands, preferring a deth by fall than under the sadistic fangs of a peryton family.
The perytons once were beautiful winged stags, who watched over the pure of heart, showing themselves to them for encouragement and help. Now they are creatures of deceit, looking to pure hearts just to eat them.