Barghest

Height:  4 + feet at the shoulder

Length: 

Weight:

Lifespan:

Habitat:  Forests and moors of Sevilla and Moktur

Diet:  Carnivorous

Nearest Relation:  Mastiffs

Seven hundred years ago, the Barghest was famed as a Sevillan hunting hound. Vaguely mastiff-like in appearance, they were bred to an extraordinary size, standing over four feet tall at the shoulder. Though originally used only in the hunt, they quickly gained popularity as a guard dog and even as a war-beast. The secrets of their breeding and the exclusive rights to create such a union were held by the Ensarosi noble family, House Pena. For three hundred years the Penas enjoyed wealth, fame and the jealousy of lesser houses. But in 1246, the Emperor Victus Moro, demanded that the Penas give over the family secret so that the emperor could raise his own Barghest legion. When the Penas refused, the Emperor declared them traitors and sent the army to burn their house.

The last scion of House Pena, Roderigo Pena, escaped to Finnbog, where, as a last act of spite against the country that had destroyed his home, he sold the secret breeding spells and all the remaining Barghests in the kennels to the Fimiri tribes. The wretched trollfolk soon lost control of the beasts, which did not respond well to the savagery of their new masters. They ran feral in the woods of Moktur, and within two hundred years had become a virtual plague, becoming a top predator in many of the ecosystems across Sevilla.

Today, their numbers have been culled significantly, but they remain a threat to any passerby who go into the woods, or cross the moors without caution, and a reminder of the depth of the Penas treachery.

Today's Barghests look like large mastiffs, but their fangs have grown larger, their coats shaggier and their temperment more ornery and intractable. Barghest live in family packs of about fifteen adults and perhaps twenty to thirty pups and adolescents. Often times adolescents are driven from the pack and live on their own into early adult hood, looking for a mate. These Omega-males often grow to be larger and more ferocious than their bretheren.

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