Magician-priests of Knotsman culture-faith. A Bailiff will have back-turned limbs and bent bones, a ripple-work of raspberry knot-gourds breaching the skin like fruit pressing against slick robes. They are known to trade in souls and will carry 5 minor Phylacteries and Magic Jars. The Phylacteries hold the enslaved souls of those who tried to escape their debt to the Knotsmen by suicide. Bailiffs talk in strangulated gasps and come carrying chests and folders of papers, binders of accounting and receipts. They and are assisted by usurers. Instinct: to claim flesh-debt

• Heal you, at a price
• Curse a creature to list the value of their possessions (including body parts)
• Take ownership of your body

These poor pale slaves were caught. As legitimate Gordianite spawn, they are allowed atonement for betrayal. They carry one great knot outside the gut. The upper intestine has been teased out through careful surgery. A loop is pulled outside the skin. Experts tie it unbreakably. No food can be digested until the knot creator slips his work. He will do this at the end of each watch if the Usurer has done well. A different Knotsman ties the knot each day in patterns only they know. If they die, the Usurer must starve. Instinct: to survive

• Save their tie-master

Young men with no children, or shamed old men whose children fled. They weep from armour-pressure on their knots. The Knights are one of the few Veins travellers to wear heavy armour. The barbed quarrels of their metal crossbows carry ultra-thin fishing wire. Instinct: to serve

• Obscure vision with smoke bombs

These are adult male Knotsmen with living children in the clan. They have not yet been crippled by twists of flesh. They make up the expeditions you are likely to meet. The ones sent out on child-hunts in the dark. Instinct: to kidnap

• Break bones
• Capture with barbed nets and clawed chains

“The Walkers are mysterious but not entirely unknown. Their absence in the historical texts suggests they are a relatively young phenomena, just outside of living memory. They are easily recognized as tall and narrow tetrahedra piercing a round mass of gristle and chitin from which four legs sprout. That and the smell of ozon that accompanies them. They have been observed from afar by adventurous entrepreneurs seeking the fabled mineral resources of the Expanse, seemingly extracting Rare Metals with bolts of lightning launched from the forward vertex of the main body. When agitated, they are known to have decimated entire expeditions with dozens of simultaneous strikes. Only one poor soul tells of ever seeing a group of them, possibly the only to ever survive the enocunter. I have very simple advice if you seek tor fortune in the sands of the Expanse: If you are challenged for your prize in the wastes, concede.”
- Unknown author of “The New World Atlas: Wonders and Danger of the Remnant of the World, 5th ed.”

Instinct: to Deconstruct and Hoard Resources

• Strike all Foes with the Eye
• Deconstruct with Bolts of Magic
• Wake the others, open their eyes

A 7 foot tall humanoid made of a series of banded metal. As it moves the bands shift and warp allowing it to instantly face any opponent even when surrounded. As it warps you can see it is hollow on the inside and it's internal side is covered in strange overlapping barcode-eqsue writing. Instinct: To Deny Entry

• Strike at two foes at once

A series of tendrils erupt from an almost spherical body. Using these tendrils the Darkling moves with a skittering, jerky, speed. Their color is a uniform off-black, the color of a TV left on but with nothing on screen. Darklings live in a hive of 20-30 individuals built around one "queen" which is a larger stationary Darkling. It is rooted in place but can fade from place to place via it's shadow travel. It can reach through shadows to attack with it's extra long tendrils. Instinct: -To Drag Back to the Nest

• Teleport self through shadows
• Teleport-leap onto a foe out of a shadow behind them
• Communicate with the hive through shadows
• Can only hurt a living creature when it can touch bare skin.

Instinct: Absorb

• Swarm

Instinct: To eat

• Absorb

An ancient red dragon, as large as a small hamlet, was once the scourge of the people of Sumar. He wreaked havoc on the land of people only being defeated and held prisoner by the combined might of humans, elves, and dwarves. Woe to the people of Sumar were he ever to break free. Instinct: To destroy

• Strike fear into someone
• Belch fire