Tag: creatures

Friday Monster- Kraken

Continuing my weekly monster post, last week I bought you something from close to home with the Trotterhead and this week I want to bring you to the open seas by releasing the Kraken.

The history of the Kraken is well established in lore from Scandinavia sailors, to Clash of the Titans where Zeus himself controlled it. It’s worth noting however that in traditional Greek mythology the Kraken itself does not appear. (Sea monsters do exist just not that one specifically)

Known to resemble a giant octopus or giant squid the power of a kraken is so immense that it easily sinks the biggest ships simply by wrapping its testicles around it and squeezing. Why it does this is also under much debate, some say it is simply a dumb creature that mistakes the boats for food,others that it simply is defending its territory.

Interesting enough the Kraken while believed to have been about a mile long with a body that could be mistaken for a body of land, it is the one mythical creature that not only could be based on a real creature, it was also based on a giant version of 2 real creatures that were thought to not exist for a time that later were proven do in fact exist.

While humans have known about octopuses (yes that is the plural of octopus, despite popular belief octopi is not. I’m as shocked as you) there the Giant Pacific octopus wasn’t really known about then.

The record for one of these is 30 feet and 600 pounds

The chances of one of these taking down a ship is obviously pretty small, though I suppose it might take down a row boat. If you have never seen something like this and it climbed up on your boat it would scare the hell out of you and to have it described to you would be pure nightmare fuel.

The second candidate and far more likely however was a creature discovered within the last decade or so and hunts whales. I am of course speaking of the giant squid.

Unfortunately this one probably didn’t live long

The giant squid is a living monster, fully capable of fighting a sperm whale,and winning. The longest giant squid was about 43 feet, while sperm whales are about 60 feet. With a ship in the 1700 and 1800’s only being about 75 feet at the most for big ones, it’s easy to see why catching sight of one of these rare things would cause the scare it has.

This is part of what makes the Kraken so scary especially back then. It wasn’t really far fetched,most people that lived by the sea probably saw an octopus or squid. They also knew fish further out into the sea were much bigger. So why couldn’t there be a massive monster out in the deep sea waiting to rip a ship apart?

The Kraken is easily one of the scariest monsters in history because it is both easy to see where it came from,and that it wasn’t too far off from the truth. I hope you enjoyed this one,best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Monster Friday-Wendigo

I have decided to do something a little different and set aside Fridays to sort of look into and discuss a different creature, monster, or supernatural entity. So if you like the series please let me know and enjoy our first entry, the Wendigo.

The story of the Wendigo goes back to the Native Americans and the people of the First Nation in Canada. One of the many stories goes like this. A hunter or group of hunters were out one winter day to get food and became lost, probably in a storm. Due to the weather, they were unable to find food or a way home and eventually became lost, hungry, and cold. Eventually, a hunter succumbed to his hunger and ate another hunter or human. This resulted in a sort of curse that made them constantly hungry and wanting nothing more than human flesh never able to get enough to eat.

How they look varies widely, some myths have them being human-like in appearance others have them being more animalistic but they are almost always much larger between 10-13 feet tall, and despite being almost skeletal in appearance because of them always starving they are much stronger and dangerous than they appear. They also traditionally have an almost demon-like appearance. Some say green skin with no fur, others say they have fur. They always seem to have large teeth and a large head and unparalleled strength, for comic fans try to imagine being a human trying to fight the incredible Hulk.

Their habitat is usually said to be the Atlantic coast and North America, most notably Canada and the upper part of the United States such as North Dakota tho it isn’t uncommon to hear stories in Pennsylvania from Appalachia. If you know, you know. If you don’t stick around and I will eventually get to it being from PA myself or you can check out TikTok, they will happily tell you about how they don’t go out at night, and if you hear voices or cries for help in the trees to definitely ignore them.

Now how do you kill a wendigo? Here is where the fun begins, the lore here is vastly different, and knowing what we do about these huge cannibal bastards none of them would be easy. Some of them are as straight-forward as grab a weapon and beat/stab/shoot them to death. Others state you will require a silver weapon. These are the easiest examples. Another example was that you need to subdue it somehow, cut out its heart and set the heart on fire. This one seems to be the most difficult because a few others I came across also require fire but they simply tell you to use something flaming to burn the heart within the creature or set the thing on fire in general. Either way, we should probably hope these things aren’t real or we at least don’t have to deal with them. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory, and just in case, happy hunting.