Poor Old Spindle-Wolf

When the moon glows its least gloomiest, when even the clouds have seeped from the sullen sky, and starlight lies crisp on the moors, you might catch sight of the Spindle-Wolf.

It is huge, easily 12 feet high at its shoulders, and a good 30 feet long from snout to tail. It is seen always as a silhouette, black against the dull silver sky; long jagged muzzle, whispy scrag of tail, long thin feet sprout fro long thin legs, and its back and flanks hedgehog-bristled with weaponry. Spears and blades, arrows and daggers, the odd ballista bolt and silvered sword, all jutting awkwardly from the skin of the beast like a second suit of fur. It has but one eye, centrally set on its head, large and glassy, with which the Wolf sits and gazes wistfully at the moon.

Many have tried to destroy it, as evidenced by its wounds, many have failed, as evidenced by the tales of battles with it, many seek to be the first, as evidenced by the bright-smiling adventures in the taverns on the edges of its moorland territory. They come from all walks, all desperate to take the heart of the Wolf, which is rumoured to be purest silver, and have the properties of the storied stone of the philosophers. As far as anyone would be able to tell if they ever could ask though, all it wants is just to be left alone to contemplate the moon.

There is one and only one Spindle-Wolf, alone in all the world as far as it is known.

In battle, the Wolf's silver skin protects it from all hurt, and wrenches the weapons from the hands of their wielders to become a second skin for the wolf. Its claws flash with light as it strikes, and streaks of quicksilver seep from its claws through the air and drench wounds. The rare survivors of battles with the Spindle-Wolf rarely remain so for long. Even in the heat of the struggle, their limbs numb and their skin peels, their tongue and senses betray them. Even when the Wolf is completely surrounded, it throws its bulk around with wild abandon, trusting the many weapons that make up its shell to skewer and slice even pointed inwards as they are.

Though as much as the battle-skills of the beast are fabled and planned around and against, in its heart there is very little blood-lust to be found. It is content most nights to catch are chew a deer or two, then settle up for the night on some wide and lonely field, and gaze for hours on end at the moon.

There are some scholars amongst the most learned peoples of the world that speculate that Wolves, ubiquitous as they are, are not native to this world. They say that the long and keening cries of the wolves, their manifestation in the hearts of wicked men named Werewolves, and the specific case of the Spindle-Wolf, are evidence that perhaps, just perhaps their home is secretly that lonely silver sphere wheeling slowly through the firmament, that perhaps there, there are great grey plains of silvered plants and beasts, endlessly churning up the chalky ground, hunted forever by the great packs of Moon-Wolves that must surely dwell in such a place.

This has never been proven. The Moon resists all attempts at scrying, even from very learned seers, nor has anyone ever figured out a way to bodily transpose themselves there. The Moon remains alone and lonely, remote and distant up in the unreachable heights of the cold and empty empyrean, and so the Spindle-Wolf remains lost and forlorn, gazing at its long lost home.