Lexicon:Modern/Draech

Draech
Stage	Modern CLT
Pronunciation	/ˈdɾaɪx/
Part of speech	Noun
Etymology	from middle CRT drāxē, from Proto drax
Related words	Vennek, Dorath, Vaelith

Draech — the most feared predator of the cold north.

Notes

Tall, lean and vaguely humanoid, moving on four limbs and rearing onto two to strike. Eight or nine feet upright, skeletal-looking, with elongated limbs that give an almost-human silhouette at distance. Pale gray, near white in winter. The head is long with a narrow jaw of gripping teeth, and the eyes are forward-facing and large. The forelimbs end in hands — long articulated fingers, curved claws — which serve for climbing and for the kill.

Solitary and territorial, holding fifty to eighty miles of forest or mountain.

Solitary, standing eight or nine feet when reared, lean to the point of appearing starved, pale gray to near white in winter coat. The leanness deceives; the muscle beneath is heavy. The forelimbs terminate in hands rather than paws, with long articulated fingers and curved claws for climbing and for the kill. An ambush predator that attacks from above, dropping from tree cover or rock ledge. At distance and in failing light the silhouette resembles a tall thin man standing motionless at the treeline, and many sightings begin that way and end badly. It takes the isolated. It will not trouble a Dorath herd in its ring, and instead follows a caravan for three or four days waiting for the outrider who scouted too far or the teamster who walked into the trees alone. Stormharbor’s Gothi use Draech-stories to teach children the peril of going apart from the group, and the saying traveling alone feeds the Draech is applied as often to a man who neglects his obligations as to one who neglects his road-craft. Engineered pre-Fall. A predator that hunts specifically the separated individual is a weapon aimed at people rather than an animal that evolved.