Monster Monday: The Wyrdpost

For use with the Dragonbane RPG.

Today’s prompt is Message, and I couldn’t resist tying it into Monster Monday with a strange and subtle creature I call the Wyrdpost. It’s a harbinger, a courier, and maybe something more. The idea is simple: a creature that doesn’t speak, doesn’t fight, and doesn’t stay , ut leaves behind something that could change everything.

The Wyrdpost is no owl, no raven, no beast of the familiar sort. Picture a floating, furless lynx with elongated limbs and feathered ears, its eyes blank and glimmering like polished quartz. Its paws never touch the ground. It moves as if gliding just above the soil, silent even on dry leaves or gravel. It doesn’t cry out. It doesn’t interact. It simply arrives, waits, and delivers.

The delivery comes in many forms. Sometimes a scroll made of old bark. Sometimes a folded slip of parchment that smells faintly of incense and dust. Sometimes a shard of polished bone with words carved into it. The message might be in an ancient tongue or modern script. It might be addressed to no one or to one of the player characters by name. It might warn of doom, or hint at something long forgotten, or reveal a secret someone hoped would stay buried.

And then the Wyrdpost vanishes. It doesn’t fly. It doesn’t flee. It dissolves into fog, or turns the corner behind a tree and simply isn’t there anymore. There are no tracks. No signs of passage. No lingering magic that a PC can easily detect. Just the message. Just the weight of what it said.

As a Game Master, I love inserting creatures like this because they shift the tone of a scene. A Wyrdpost doesn’t create an immediate threat, but it signals that something bigger is at play. It’s an omen in creature form, but it can also serve as a flexible narrative tool. You can use it to foreshadow major events. You can tie it to a PC’s backstory. You can build a mystery around who or what is sending these creatures across the world to deliver hand-picked knowledge to your party.

WYRDPOST
Description: A spectral, floating courier that delivers messages from unknown powers.
Ferocity: 0
Size: Small
Movement: 12 meters (floats silently)
Armor: 0
HP: 8* Ethereal, can only be affected by magic.
Resistances: Physical attacks, Mind control. Undead: See Ghost in the Dragonbane Core Rulebook.

MONSTER ATTACKS
Wyrdposts do not engage in combat unless provoked. Even then, they prefer to vanish into the veil.

Special Traits:
Message Bearer: Once per day, the Wyrdpost delivers a magical message to a PC. The message may be a prophecy, a hidden truth, a spell, a fragment of a map, or a cryptic warning.
Ethereal Drift: Cannot be targeted by physical attacks unless the weapon is enchanted or magical in nature.
Vanish: After delivering its message, the Wyrdpost disappears from the physical world. It cannot be followed or tracked.

The Wyrdpost is meant to add a touch of the surreal. Something that walks the line between the magical and the divine, the planned and the fated. And whether your players chase its origins or let it remain an unsolved riddle, it’s bound to leave an impression.

That’s it for this Monster Monday and today’s RPGaDay entry. Let your messages matter. Let your monsters surprise.

Thank you for being here with me today. I appreciate you. Keep it real, but please strive for positivity, too. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy in your life.