You hear them scuttling inside the walls. They whisper your name, but only you can hear them. “Come with us. We need you.” You catch a glimpse of a bristly little body skittering in a dark corner, tiny claws reaching under the door. Your companions think you’re going mad. “Like you we were; like us you’ll be. Let us set you free.”
Meenlocks are horrid little humanoid creatures covered in bristly black hairs, with bulging eyes and vicious pincers for hands. Though they stand less than two feet tall, a supernatural aura of fear surrounds them, filling those who see them with panic. They communicate telepathically, typically only with whatever creature they have “marked”.
These creatures make their lairs in subterranean burrows at the bottom of a long shaft, often with a flat stone, log, or other covering camouflaging the entrance. The shaft is wide enough to accommodate a human-sized victim, but Medium-sized creatures cannot get through without squeezing. They feed exclusively on the moss and lichen that grows in their lairs.
Should the meenlocks’ lair be disturbed by a humanoid, the creatures “mark” one of the beings responsible and stealthily follow their victim. They terrorize him or her with telepathic messages and horrifying mental images, teleporting away when sighted. When their mark is at its most vulnerable, the meenlocks dart in, paralyze the victim, bind it with rope, and drag it back to their lair (it takes three meenlocks to carry a human-sized victim) and seal it behind them.
Once in their lair, the meenlocks begin the ritual by which their kind reproduces. By remaining in contact with the victim for several hours, the hapless victim slowly transforms into a new meenlock, losing their former sense of self and all former abilities. The newly born meenlock then joins its comrades in seeking out new victims. When a meenlock brood reaches six members, half of the group sets out to build a new lair elsewhere.
No one knows whence meenlocks come or what gives them their sense of purpose. Some say they are an alien plague from the depths of the Dark Tapestry or some far realm beyond the multiverse as we know it; others that they are the result of a curse from the world of the fey. In any case they are a blight upon the natural world, with no place in a sane ecosystem.
These horrific creatures range across Gladia, where they are often blamed for unexplained disappearances. They are especially common in urban areas like the city-states of Munab, where they often take up residence in sewers. Their fear-mongering ways lead them to be associated with Hinnva, though meenlocks themselves do not communicate with humanoids to make any claims of faith.
Shores of Swords 