TAXIDERMY

A cursed taxidermy, given life many years ago through black magic but lacking what makes living creatures function. Somewhere high up in the north, among mountains buried under snow and trees black and frozen stiff, a hermit once lived in a cabin, sustaining herself through the occult arts amid such an unforgiving climate. She wired and sewed together the pelts of many deer and rabbit and wolf. This taxidermy was an attempt at constructing the folkloristic wendigo. It is massive, standing at eight feet tall, construed with the pelts of wolf, deer, and bear alike, with a canine skull you can peer into and see the moth-eaten cotton inside. Once complete, a ritual was performed to imbue it with life. The result was, an animate taxidermy. A disturbing humanoid creature with beastly stature, cloven legs but powerful abs and pectorals, arms thick and strong enough despite wear to grasp even the most resilient victims. A wendigo with instinct to eat in order to survive, but with cotton stuffing and no internal organs, incapable of digestion. It has outlived its creator by centuries. It now operates on three misguided instincts: Food is warm. Hunger is cold. It must eat. The wendigo makes no body heat of his own. He thinks he is surviving so long as he has something warm in his body, and if it isn't warm he spits it up. He used to hunt and eat raw meat, deriving strong but fleeting heat from blood, only recently did he find that his food makes heat for longer if he can swallow prey whole without killing it. The curse knits him back together, not completely but enough to keep him in shape and to bring him back to life if his threads inevitably unravel too far. Old cotton is surprisingly insulative.