A Bestiary of Slavic Monsters
Alkonost
These celestial creatures are the relatives of shedu, colourful birds with human heads (sometimes they wear colourful crowns or headdresses). They live throughout all Upper Planes and can have any good alignment, however they prefer Celestia, Elysium and Arborea, as these planes have great seas, which are necessary in alkonost lifestyle. Alkonost’s singing heals its allies and removes mental conditions such as charms and madness. Meanwhile, enemies hearing this song have their mind dazzled and ill intentions suppressed. Alkonosts live in communities, but in this groups they create stable pairs.
Surprisingly, alkonosts are amphibious and can survive high pressure of the deep sea. A flock of alkonosts creates a shared nest deep at the bottom of the sea. Their eggs are adapted to high pressure and low temperature and will burst if taken to the surface. When little alkonosts are hatched, their parents guide them to the coastal waters, while feeding them milk (apparently, these things also have the glands needed). After a month of living underwater, baby alkonosts come ashore and start learning to fly and talk.
Sirin are the alkonosts who have fallen to evil or neutrality. They prefer solitude, and their singing doesn’t heal. Instead, it kills especially weak creatures and charms others. It is not known where exactly Sirin raise their young (if they even do). Seas of the Lower Planes aren’t exactly great for children. Perhaps, Sirin have a way to reach the Seventh Sea?
Korkodil
These Outlandish creatures look like four-legged reptiles with powerful dinosaur-like jaws and tough skin riddled with bony platelets. They are numerous in the Tsardom of Gold and are domesticated and used by many denizens of Outlands. Some say they came from the Cordant Plane of Pangaea and are descended from creatures known as rausuchians.
Mavka
These weird undead creatures are said to be something like a fey undead—nature spirits (most often nymphs, dryads and naiads), affected by the influence from the Negative Energy Plane. They inhabit fields, forests, rivers and lakes (in regions with a long winter, mavkas spend the winter hibernating at the bottom of the lakes and quiet rivers, and then migrate to forests in summer). As fey creatures, mavkas are vulnerable to the cold iron, and as undead, they can be turned by clerics or controlled by necromancers.
Mavka looks like a very pale, but otherwise normal (if naked or wearing only a torn dress) woman. From the front. The nasty surprise comes when you look at mavka’s back—and see her bloated and rotting innards visible through the transparent skin. Though, at second thought, it may not be the best idea to come this close to mavka. They try to lure defenseless berks, and when they come closer, mavkas attack. In battle, they strike with their bare hands, causing a tickling sensation—affected creatures lose their concentration and are slowed. Mavkas are more chaotic than evil, and their motivation for attacking living humanoids is not known. They don’t eat their flesh nor do their drain their life force (although sometimes they steal handheld items like hair combs to use them themselves). Sometimes, these creatures spare their victims, and they almost always leave children alone. At the same time, mavkas can be silly and whimsical as many fey are. They often play and dance in remote forest locations. Most fey and nature spirits, however are very suspicious of mavka and do not join them. And Slavic powers, especially Perun and the Sea Tsar are quite antagonistic to these undead.
The most puzzling thing about mavkas is how despite them being undead monsters, they seem to not be destructive to the environment. Not just that, mavkas make forests and fields around them more fertile and bountiful. The undead fey often have crayfish, catfish and other aquatic scavengers as pets. Some of them can also cast druidic spells like entangle. Finally, there’s mavka population on Arborea, and the plane properties don’t seem to hold them back. Many philosophers assess that mavkas prove that death and decay of Negative is a necessary part of nature.
Mavkas are noticeably easy to control, and many necromancers make that mistake. However, once in a year (exact week seems to be dependent on some unclear natural cycles) mavka becomes immune to any kind of controlling or charming abilities for approximately a week. There are tales of “domesticated” mavkas, who liked living amongst the civilised folk and started wandering the planes. These stories sound very unlikely, as mavkas are very distressed by living in captivity and visibly rot away pretty fast when locked away from nature.
Poludnitsa
The Midday Maiden
These creatures comes from the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Radiance. Poludnitsas look like very tall (twice as large as a goliath) blonde humanoid women in a blindingly white dress (though they can change its colours on a whim). Unlike other denizens of Radiance, they don’t consider their own plane a pinnacle of beauty. In fact, they are very interested in other planes, particularly Prime and Outer Planes. For most creatures that are not native to the Radiance or Positive Energy Plane, an encounter with Poludnitsa is started with an array of questions about them, their equipment and their homeworld. Poludnitsas are interested in everything, but most of all in colorful items like clothing. They can be somewhat helpful, as a body can convince them to “trade” questions and get some information should she need one. However, if you can’t answer poludnitsa’s question, she may take offence and attack (and as it turns out, adventurers are rarely well-informed in the matters of weaving and sewing). In combat, Poludnitsa fights using “weapons” (often things like scythes and frying pans) created from light (they can manifest them in a matter of seconds). They inflict radiant damage and force a basher to make a saving throw against spell. On a failed save an enemy is weakened and disoriented, as rays of light suddenly heat their blood, causing a sunstroke.
Poludnitsa is able to teleport to any brightly lit place she can see (directly), if she stays in the bright light herself. As vortices to Radiance are found in some stars of the Prime Material, poludnitsas use these powers to hop to inhabited planets and back again. It also means they are a nightmare (or a daymare) to fight, unless you lure one in the shadows.
Sources: Margarita and Jon Winter-Holt. This is a homebrew addition to the lore. Margarita notes: While this adaptation is heavily based on Slavic folklore and beliefs, I must warn you. The amount of actual information we have on pre-Christian Slavic deities is so minuscule that building any kind of lore out of it is impossible. However, there’s a lot of folk beliefs about things these deities are thought to represent.