It seems there are no celestial animals. Oh, there are the souls of animals in Heaven, and the Force-stripped dehumanized souls in parts of Hell, but those aren't native celestial animals. Here are some proposed examples:
Demon Horse / Celestial Horse / Spirit Horse --
All the same horse, just from different pastures. Comes in black with occasional gold markings, white with occasional black markings, blood red with occasional black, and pale green with occasional blood red. It has brazen hooves and teeth and is supernally fast, firey but not evil.
--
Powers: disturbance-sensitive, instinctive Numinous Corpus (wings), instinctive Song of Motion, immune to fire and heat; can be trained to carry a rider off the Corporeal plane
Leohippus --
A lion-headed horse with a serpentine tail, white-&-gold, gold-&-black, or white, or black, or gold, often wreathed with heatless flame. Favored as mounts by some angels.
--
Powers: disturbance-sensitive, instinctive Song of Motion, fire-breathing, immune to fire and heat; can be trained to carry a rider off the Corporeal plane
Ammit --
Described by the Egyptians as a hippo with the head of a crocodile. A modern might call it a small sauropod with no tail, a rather short neck, and a crocodilian head. They come in gray, gray-brown, and gray-green. They are slow but powerful and tough.
--
Powers: They are energy vampires, and can drain all the Essence from a character, then start stripping Forces. They can store more Essence than their own Force-levels would normally permit, and a tame ammit can be "milked" of excess psi.
Apocalypse Locust --
A horse-sized insect as described in Revelation -- a giant locust with human face and scorpion tail. In addition to the iron teeth, it's exoskeleton is brass. The "human" face is a low-browed, bug-eyed caricature, and the mouth can open awfully wide. Fast-breeding and voraciously herbivorous, bright and long-lived only if compared to a grasshopper.
--
Powers: It is very free with its tail-sting, which does no damage but causes pain requiring an Endurance roll vs. d6 minutes of stun and drains one point of Essence.
Behemoth --
Cattle the size of blue whales (*before* enlargement), usually black with brass horns and hooves. Very rare, found in pairs if at all, and legend says there are angels charged with keeping them off Earth. Commoner legend says their meat will be served to the blessed at the victory feast of Armageddon.
--
Powers: Instinctive Song of Healing (self) and enlargement (twentyfold)
Hell Hound / Hound of Heaven / Spirit Dog --
A mastiff-like beast, glossy black, bronze, gold, or silver, with brass teeth and claws, and yellow or red eyes. Popular with magic-workers who like their familiars robust. A *great* attack dog.
--
Powers: Instinctive Song of Healing (self), disturbance-sensitive, tracking by attunement; can be taught songs of Motion
Hell Cats / Ghost Cats / Celestial Cats -- Famously black, of course, but also silvery, with brass teeth and claws, and yellow eyes. A classic familiar.
--
Powers: Instinctive Songs of Healing (self) and Motion, disturbance-sensitive; can be taught to "carry" Essence and Songs like a living relic or reliquary
Multicapital Cats --
Big cats -- lions, tigers, leopards -- with brass teeth and claws, in the habit of shapeshifting to forms with two to four heads, for attacks.
--
Powers: instinctive Song of Numinous Corpus (extra heads). They can be trained to do more heads, or to add horns or wings.
Blood-Beasts --
Giant amoebae in various shades of red. They can weigh up to a ton and reproduce by budding. They are not very "blobby" and so somewhat resemble the "rover" balloon from "The Prisoner." Like it, they are predatory. They are both blood and Essence vampires. Used as hunting beasts by both demons and angels.
--
Powers: tracking by attunement; hideously tough
Hell Hawks / Celestial Hawks--
Black with occasional gold markings, coppery or gold with occasional black markings, silver, or pale metallic blue, with brass beak and claws. They are used as hunting beasts and couriers.
--
Powers: instinctive Songs of Motion
Graveyard Greg wrote:
But where, pray tell, is the legendary Leviathan? I seem to remember hearing that Leviathan and Behemoth were going to fight it out during the End Times. Am I wrong?
Leviathan would be a perfectly appropriate addition to the celestial zoology. I didn't put it in because that list was actually written for the setting of our current campaign, which pre-dates IN. In that world, "Leviathan" is the name of the king of the fallen dragons, who plays second fiddle to the queen of the fallen dragons -- Lilith.
Lilith is also known as "Rahab," "Echidna," and "Tiamat," and she was the snake in the Garden, acting as Lucifer's agent. Leviathan is also known as "Typhon" and maybe "Samael." "Leviathan" may be a title, given to successive consorts of Lilith. In short, there are pairs of evil primordial monsters in lots of mythologies, and these two are them, in our setting.
In our mythology, there have been three ruling races of Earth, the dragons (originating in the early Mesozoic), the fays (originating in the pre-human Age of Mammals), and humans. All three have been involved, one way and another, in the eternal War of Good and Evil.
Earl
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