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'Kushtaka' (Land Otter Man) Designed by Nick Alan Foote DETAILS - Measures 11" x 14" - Signed, open edition print. - Printed on 100lb. high-
Hello! Please enjoy this preview of my book featuring some lovely player species.
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Support me! Lewinston Illustration. Offering art commissions; D&D homebrew and material from my 5E setting of Gloryanna!
HAIRY DEVILS- ALASKA
Stepping into the dense rainforest of Southeastern Alaska, one can’t helping feeling a strange sort of presence, as if something unknown and unseen were watching from the trees. Is this sensation merely a construct of the mind? The human tendency to anthropomorphize nature? Or is it possible there are ancient spirits and unknown beasts lurking among the dripping spruces and shadowy hemlocks?
Around 1900 a gold prospector named Harry D. Colp wrote a story of an alleged encounter between one of his companions and a pack of unknown entities in the Alaskan wilderness. Colp had been lodging with the man, Charlie, along with a few other prospectors in a shack near the city of Wrangell. Charlie had heard about a deposit of gold-bearing quartz in the nearby Thomas Bay area. Packing three months of supplies, he set off alone to investigate the site, only to return less than a month later badly shaken and with neither supplies nor gold.
Charlie told Colp that upon arriving in Thomas Bay, he’d gone in search of a half-moon shaped lake where the gold could supposedly be found. After several days of searching, he finally locating the body of water at the foot of a glacier. He had only just gotten his bearings when he was horrified to see a pack of hairy “devils” swarming towards him from the shore.
Charlie described these beings as looking halfway between men and monkeys. They were “entirely sexless, their bodies covered with long, coarse hair, except where the scabs and running sores had replaced it.” The stench of the creatures made Charlie ill, and their screams and cries made him delirious. The beings chased him all the way back to Thomas Bay, where he passed out and woke up hours later floating in his canoe in the middle of the water.
Several decades after Harry Colp’s death, his daughter, Virginia, published the manuscript of the story under the title “The Strangest Story Ever Told”. Over the years this tale has become a popular piece of folklore in Southeastern Alaska.
Some have suggested that the beings Charlie encountered may have been kushtaka- shape-shifting otter-men from the folklore of the Tlingit people. Stories depict these creatures as malevolent tricksters who lure fishermen and hunters into the wilderness, only to drown them or transform them into more otter-men. They are often used as boogeymen to scare children aware from the dangers of the ocean. Yet, like shapeshifters in many cultures, kushtaka can be mercurial in behavior, and may occasionally save lost travelers from dying in the freezing cold (often, again, by turning them into kushtaka themselves). In at least one tale recorded by the Smithsonian Institute, an otter-man is depicted as the reborn spirit of a dead man who returns to aid his impoverished family.
While Harry Colp never refers to the creatures in his story as kushtaka, the otter-men have become closely linked with “The Strangest Story Ever Told” in Alaskan folklore.
Other people have allegedly also seen the hairy devils around Thomas Bay, though Colp’s story is the only one widely known. These sightings have led locals to dub the area “Devil’s Country”. Thomas Bay is also known as the “Bay of Death” by the Tlingit people because of a landslide in the 1700s that wiped out a village.
SOURCES
Full text of "The Strangest Story Ever Told", from bigfootencounters.com
A story about a more benevolent encounter with a kushtaka
An interesting possible explanation for the Thomas Bay devils, from Tara Neilson's Alaska For Real blog
An article from the Juneau Empire with more details about Harry Colp
"Kushtaka", a short film created by Cameron Currin about the monstrous Otter-Men
Kushtaka
“Otter Sapiens” © Carlos Elufi, accessed at his deviantArt here
[Commissioned by @werebear95. The kushtaka is a shapeshifter and bogey from the Tlingit culture. Funnily enough, between when I received this commission and when I wrote it, Paizo came out with a new bestiary, Pathfinder 2nd Edition Bestiary 3, that has its own version of the kushtaka in it. I understand a lot of their choices (except making it Small--I’ve seen references to the kushtaka being 6 to 8 feet tall), but I thought it was more interesting to make their ability to turn other people into kushtakas less malicious and more just part of their life cycle. I thought it odd that there were no rules for the PF2e version about how a kushtaka turns someone else into a kushtaka. Especially considering how many fussy, precisely detailed rules exist in PF2e as a whole.
Also, coming back to something I’ve complained about a number of times, there are cryptozoology sites that claim that the kushtaka is an “Alaskan Bigfoot”. Because right, Bigfoot can swim, turn into an otter, mimic voices and turn people into new Bigfoots. Classic Bigfoot power set.]
Kushtaka CR 5 CN Fey This creature resembles a bipedal otter the size of a man. They have webbed claws on their hands and feet, and a thick tail.
Kushtakas are fey creatures of icy waters, with traits of both otters and humans. Like otters, they are predatory, feeding on fish, shellfish and small land prey. Because of their unusual reproductive cycle, they do not realize that baby animals are the same type as adults—this extends to humanoids, and kushtakas consider babies a delicacy.
Kushtakas are ambush predators, and usually attack from hiding or invisibility. They use illusions and mimicked voices to separate enemies, then open combat with a mighty roar, panicking and scattering lesser foes. Kushtakas are vainglorious and arrogant, and like to fight only the strongest, bravest opponents. This arrogance evaporates if they are confronted with either fire or dogs, both of which can penetrate their defenses and terrify them. A kushtaka will usually fight to the death unless fire, dogs or both are used against them.
Kushtakas are parasitic on humanoids in a strange way—all kushtakas were once humanoids themselves, and transforming a humanoid is the only way they can reproduce. Kushtakas go out of their way to rescue the stranded, starving and freezing, which begin to slowly change into new kushtakas once the hospitality is accepted. Kushtakas often maintain villages where they keep their semi-captives, often reassuring them with soothing illusions and plenty of rest and relaxation. Someone transformed into a kushtaka is forever lost barring powerful magical intervention, but the kushtaka don’t understand why friends and loved ones are so upset to have lost one of their own—after all, the new kushtaka will never feel cold, live forever and always have plenty of company.
Kushtakas are immortal unless slain by violence. They can assume the form of river or sea otters, giant monstrous otters, and humanoids. They favor appearances in humanoid form that resemble their former lives, but are not beholden to them.
Kushtaka from Native American folklore.
Physically, Kushtaka are shape-shifters capable of assuming human form, the form of an otter and potentially other forms. In some accounts, a Kushtaka is able to assume the form of any species of otter; in others, only one. Accounts of their behaviour seem to conflict with one another. In some stories, Kushtaka are cruel creatures who take delight in tricking poor Tlingit sailors to their deaths. In others, they are friendly and helpful, frequently saving the lost from death by freezing. In many stories, the Kushtaka save the lost individual by distracting them with curiously otter-like illusions of their family and friends as they transform their subject into a fellow Kushtaka, thus allowing him to survive in the cold. Naturally, this is counted a mixed blessing.
However, Kushtaka legends are not always pleasant. In some legends it is said the Kushtaka will imitate the cries of a baby or the screams of a woman to lure victims to the river. Once there, the Kushtaka either kills the person and tears them to shreds or will turn them into another Kushtaka.
Legends have it Kushtaka can be warded off through copper, urine, dogs, and in some stories, fire.
It is also said that the Kushtaka emit a high pitched, three part whistle in the pattern of low-high-low.
Follow @mecthology for more folklore and legends. DM for pic credit or removal. https://www.instagram.com/p/CWqiXWMokcB/?utm_medium=tumblr
Kushtaka
According to legends, the Kushtaka are a species of large, hairy humanoid figures that have otter-like facial features in most depictions. Basically, imagine a Bigfoot-Otter mashup and you’ve got the basic idea. Kushtaka also have the ability to shape-shift, though how extensive that ability varies from story to story. In some variations of the legend, Kushtaka can only shift between its Bigfoot-Otter form and a human form. In other variations, it is able to shift freely between many forms. Some more sensational claims describe it as being more like a demon that a flesh-and-bone cryptid. It has a distinctive call that is described as a high-low-high whistling pattern.
Creepy Cryptids: Kushtaka
My side of an otter-themed art trade with Surri(FA)/DeniedArtist(dA)! Otters usually love the rain... right? Maybe if you're not a secret otter-person...