Lexicon:Modern/Stoendh

Stoendh
Stage	Modern CLT
Pronunciation	/ˈstɔɪnð/
Part of speech	Noun
Etymology	from middle CRT stōndē, from Proto stond
Related words	Yaem Roed, Clearhold, Draebaech

Stoendh — the armored beast that holds the mountain passes.

Notes

A massive quadruped built like an enormous bear, though with a broader flatter skull, shorter snout and heavier forelimbs. Twelve to eighteen hundred pounds. The hide is thick and gray-brown and in older animals is textured almost like stone, so one resting among boulders is genuinely hard to pick out.

It is not clever, and this matters. It does not stalk and does not plan — it claims ground and attacks what enters. Caravan masters rely on that: Stoendh territories are known and mapped, and outriders announce a caravan with drums and horns to give the animal the option of withdrawing. Most take it.

Enormous, slow, and plated across the back and flanks in overlapping bone that no weapon carried by a traveler will trouble. It does not hunt so much as occupy. A Stoendh that has taken a pass simply remains in it, and the pass is closed until it moves. Clearhold’s cavalry are the only force in the world with a settled doctrine for dealing with one, and the doctrine is largely about waiting.