Lexicon:Modern/Grimvach

Grimvach
Stage	Modern CLT
Pronunciation	/ˈgɾim.vax/
Part of speech	Noun
Etymology	from middle CRT grimvāxē, from Proto grimvak
Related words	Vennek, Wysk, Baechri

Grimvach — pack hunter of the cold north.

Notes

A heavy-built canid-like animal, roughly the size of a large mastiff but longer in the leg and rangier. Charcoal gray to near black, coarse-coated against the cold. The eyes take firelight and give it back, which is most of why Stormharbor folklore holds them to be the unquiet dead. The jaw is out of proportion to the body and built for cracking bone.

The pack tests before it commits. Two or three approach from different angles while the rest watch. If the target answers aggressively and looks sound, the pack withdraws. If it shows injury, exhaustion or panic, all of them come.

Runs in packs of six to twelve across the northern moorland and forest edge, gray-ash in coat and difficult to see against rock. It does not ambush. It follows, tires its quarry over hours, and closes when the quarry stops. The most common cause of loss among Baechri herds on open ground. A Vennek clan will not beat a Grimvach pack and no herder expects it to — what it does is make a flock expensive enough that the pack goes and finds an easier one. A herder without a Wysk troop to see them coming and Venneks to make the point does not keep a flock long.