Groveborne

Known Animal Species
- Chirra
A chirra is a heavy-coated pack animal, hardier than a mule for harsh, winter weather.

Biology and characteristics
The shoulder height is similar to a Companion, but the neck is so long it is head-height with a mounted human. It has large, round, dog-like, clawed feet with thick tufts of fur between toes that aid in walking across snow. Large, rabbit-like ears, set on top of the skull and fixed foward unlike a horse's. The chirra also has a rabbit-like face.

The chirra have three layers of fur to protect them from winter. The outer layer is long, coarse, and fairly waterproof. The middle layer is short and less coarse than the outer layer. The inner layer is dense, soft, fine fur that is shed annually and keeps the chirra warm during the cold months. Companions enjoy traveling with chirras in the winter as the thick, warm fur and gentle dispositions make them excellent stablemates.

Being highly adapted for cold, chirras do not do well in warmer climates. Chirras used by Heralds are bred on a northern farm, as the Collegium is too warm during summer months.

In real world terms, the chirra would most likely be compared to the South American llama, just a little smarter.
- Horses (including Warsteeds) - Battlesteeds are horses specially bred and trained by the Shin'a'in clans for as long as they have lived on the Dhorisha Plains. Bred primarily for intelligence, agility, strength and endurance were also highly prized characteristics.

In action:

The mare was laying all about her with iron-shod hooves and enormous yellow teeth; neither animal nor man was likely to escape her once she'd targeted him. She had an uncanny sense for anyone trying to get to her rider by disabling her; once she twisted and bucked like a cat on hot metal to simultaneously crush the bandit in front of her while kicking in the teeth of the one that had thought to hamstring her from the rear. She accounted for at least as many of the bandits as Tarma did. (Oathbound, Oathblood)

In description:

"They had thick necks and huge, ugly heads with broad foreheads. They looked like unpolished statues of rough granite, and were nearly as tough. They could live very handily on forage even a mule would reject; they could travel sunrise to sunset at a ground-devouring lope that was something like a wolf's tireless tracking-pace. They could be trusted with an infant, but would kill on signal or on a perceived threat. They were more intelligent... than a mule, even. In their ability to obey and to reason they more resembled a highly trained dog than a horse, for they could actually work out a simple problem on their own." (Oathbound)

The high level of intelligence and skill in a battlesteed is much of the reason the Dhorisha Plains have never been conquered. However, the mares do not breed frequently, making the breed somewhat rare. For that reason, no battlesteed has ever left the clans. They cannot be purchased at any price, and the horses themselves are too intelligent and well-trained to allow themselves to be stolen.

No stallions are ever allowed to leave the Plains for any reason. Only the mares go out with adventuring clansmen.
- Messenger Birds
- Mrran (domesticated changebeast)
- Arborn Hunting Cat - Arborn Hunting Cats are large cats used in hunting by Rethwellan nobles, much like hawks or dogs. Archduke Tindel and his wife gave an Arborn kitten and a mastiff puppy to each of Jadrek and Kethry's children, as well as their own, for a Midwinter gift.
- Dire wolf
- Grek'ka'shen
- Plainscat
- Hammer-jay
- Yip dogs
- Kadessa
- Khamsin
- Forestgyre

Known 'Boggle' Species
- Wyrsa
- Changelions
- Changewolves
- Makaar
- Colddrake - dangerous creatures living in the Pelagirs. They live in a group, called a clutch, and are ruled by a queen drake. A queen is described as:

"Less like a lizard, and more like a snake with short, stubby legs... From nose to tail it was easily as long as six carts placed end-to-end. Its equine head was the size of a wine barrel; it had row upon row of silvery needle-sharp spines along its crest and down its back, and more spines formed a frill around its neck. It snarled silently, baring teeth as long as Vanyel's hand, and white and sharp as icicles. Its wickedly curved claws had torn the earth around it... Those claws were longer than his hand, and as sharp as the teeth. Huge, deep-purple eyes like perfect cabochon amethysts..."[1]

Despite its considerable physical attributes, the colddrake's primary weapon is its power to hypnotize its prey, enthralling creatures with its mesmerizing stare. While held by a colddrake's gaze, its victims can be compelled to walk right up to the drake to be eaten.

While the queen may hunt alone, the rest of the clutch tends to hunt in a pack.

A deluded woman once tried to domesticate a colddrake using music to calm it. It didn't work out.
- Basilisk - Basilisks are creatures left over from the Mage Wars. They are "stupid, incredibly dangerous, and ravenous carnivores who would eat anything that couldn't run away from them." (Winds of Fate) No one wants to kill a basilisk if they don't have to. In addition to being very difficult to kill, they also fulfill a specific niche in the ecosystem. Basilisks are primarily scavengers, and are the only creatures that will eat a dead wyrsa or colddrake.
- Snow bear
- Blood Beast
- Lodella -
- Changerat - A changerat is a type of creature created by rats being caught in a Changecircle during the Mage Storms. A changebeast, they are more cunning and vicious than normal rats, and swarm by the hundreds. They were a serious problem in the cities of the Eastern Empire following the Storms.
Snow Demon - A snow demon is a very nasty creature that eats people, and can be very difficult to kill. It can apparently disguise itself as a human with white hair and icy eyes. It uses this disguise to get close to its victims. Once escape is impossible, it reveals its fangs and claws. The Shin'a'in have a song ("Snow Beast") about a snow demon who ate half a clan. A Kal'enedral finally killed it, dying in the process. The Kal'enedral in question became one of Tarma's teachers, and claimed it was a very painful death. According to Tarma,[1] this was during an unusually cold winter about four generations before.
- Hobgoblin - Hobgoblin was the term in common usage in the Eastern Empire following the modern-day Mage Storms to refer to Changechildren. Their very existence was outlawed, and those not protected by the privileges of money and rank could be pressed into imperial service as slaves or executed on the spot. Living on the run, combined with the changes themselves, caused most hobgoblins to lose their humanity and become monsters.

Groveborne Specific Boggles/Spirits/Animals
- Vamp-boggles: Human corpses caught in Change circles with animals
- Changeboar - Wild boar caught in Changecircles
- Venomplant - Large, semi sentient plant that spits acid when agitated
- Orpheum - Mist wraith maidens that lure men into bogs where they eat then eat them, rudimentary Dreamwalkers
- Wrodusa - Wyrsa caught in a Change circle and modified with other animals
- Dhoocun - Plainscat caught in a Change circle and merged with the Dhorisha plains, becoming half plant. Ambush
- Songscale - giant snake creature that sings via rudimentary Mindspeech and lures people to their death
- Grasshoof - scaled water horse that drowns people via some sort of Empathy
- Glustyworp - a bumpy and rough-skinned water creature, four yards in length and resembling a stump overgrown with algae. With ten paws and jaws like cut-saws, they live in swamplands
- Lesser Fiend - The beast likely resembles a deer but its size resembles more a barn. Fiends also have a third eye which they use to hypnotize its opponents.
- Devourer - Small, lightly built deerlike Changebeasts with vicious appetites and are adapted to prairie living. Hunt in packs. Not a great threat individually
- Níðhöggr - Giant dragonlike creature awakened from the Northern Wastes; nearly impossible to kill. Must be sealed.
- Evewraith - ghosts of maidens who who were murdered by their lovers on Midsummer's Eve and maintain a connection to the place where they died. They draw victims into their dance circle and kill them.
- Temple Grim - Animal spirit, usually a canine or feline but can be any animal, that protects sacred land
- Mylings - the phantasmal incarnations of the souls of children that had been forced to roam the earth until they could persuade someone (or otherwise cause enough of a ruckus to make their wishes known) to bury them properly. Often found along the border with Hardorn
- Valravyn - Originating from ravens who consume the bodies of the dead on the battlefield, as capable of turning into the form of a knight after consuming the heart of a child, and, alternately, as half-wolf and half-raven creatures. Actively hunt children and are mostly known in ghost stories to keep kids in their homes at night.
- Mayberry Worm - Subterranean changebeast of unknown origin. Swallows it's prey whole when they fall into one of it's holes. First identified by a Field Herald in the north of Valdemar.
- Wentiko - Human Changechild that is known to invoke feelings of insatiable greed/hunger, the desire to cannibalize other humans, as well as the propensity to commit murder in those that fall under its influence.
- Dire fox - Unlike dire wolves, dire fox are smaller than their cousins but faster, smarter and with rudimentary Magic which they use to camouflage themselves like Changelions
- Manticore - It has the head of a human, the body of a lion and a tail of venomous spines similar to porcupine quills, while other depictions have it with the tail of a scorpion.
- Undine - Generally benevolent water-affiliated female Changechildren, seen as positive blessings and are usually welcomed to live in local rivers and lakes but left alone.
- Lesser Coatl - Flying serpent with feathered wings and bright, colorful scales.
- River Guardian - Powerful telekinetic beings that resemble long, scaled eels with equine or canine heads, horns and thick manes running the length of their bodies. Four legs along their serpentine length that resemble eagles. Rudimentary weatherworkers, they have been treated as local deities by rural farmers in the past. Guardians caught in the Storms became enraged and a blight upon their former homes.