☙ Notes from the Margin of the Known ❧
By Professor Emil Wulfgard, Archivum Obscurum
“One does not catalogue monsters to banish fear—but to give it a name, and thus a margin.”
The learned often scoff at such things.
They speak of myth, of folklore, of peasant fears and dream-rot.
But in Vulgaria, we record what walks.
And if we cannot yet understand it, we observe it.
If we cannot slay it, we chart its lair.
If we cannot name it… we listen, until it whispers one.
This brief guide offers not an encyclopedia, but a cautionary sketchbook—a sampling of those horrors, hauntings, and hesitations known to plague the marches of our twilight realm.
✠ Known Categories of Threat
Beasts — natural forms made unnatural. Familiars that hunger wrongly. Wolves that walk upright. Bears that mimic voices. Horses that return from war… riderless, but not alone.
Phantasms — spirits, echoes, shadows with motive. Not all ghosts drift; some hunt. Some mimic. Some bind themselves to bloodlines and bricks.
Men Made Wrong — heretics, shapeshifters, revenants. Those once human, but warped by oath, obsession, or occult sin.
The Neverborn — those entities not of this world or any other—unwritten, misremembered, or birthed from collective dread.
Sympathetics — objects, constructs, cursed things. Books that move in closed rooms. Bells that summon storms. Dolls whose eyes never dry.
✠ Notable Specimens
The Gutter-Wight of Schattenburg
Seen climbing cathedral gutters in rain. Its cry resembles that of a starving infant. Never photographed. Always wet.
The Iron Bride of Zatterfels
A specter wrapped in barbed veils and rusted wedding bands. Appears before betrayal or war. May serve as an omen—or a curse.
The Hollow Men of Haltenkrähe
Blank-eyed figures found standing in the fields. Perfectly still. Disappear if touched—but the ground beneath is scorched.
The Gold-Sick Goat of Kollmilz
Said to haunt the ruins of a Roman treasury, bleating in Latin. Always appears one coin before a man turns to greed.
✠ A Warning, and a Blessing
This guide is incomplete.
May it always be.
The monsters of Vulgaria change, not because they grow, but because we forget. They thrive in neglect, in disuse, in the cracks of modernity. But when we speak their names—when we mark their tracks—we deny them that veil.
To name a monster is to bear witness.
To remember it is to endure it.
And to share its tale… is to warn others.
Go carefully, Knight.
And keep your candle dry.
