Bogfisher

Bogfishers are animals that inhabit southern Ferelden.

Background[]

Bogfishers favor dark, moist habitats like caves, swamps or marshes. Although their appearance has given them a somewhat monstrous reputation, they are shy creatures that only hunt eels, frogs, and fish.^[1]

I accompanied Marquis d'Archambon upon this expedition reluctantly, although d'Archambon insisted that an exploration to show me the truth and beauty of the world might assuage the consternation with which I observed it.
As we entered the caves, the cold and brackish water dripping incessantly, we came upon a hulking beast whose great flapping paws slapped the stone. In countenance it was broad, its flaps of hide hanging loose across its bristled back. D'Archambon drove it away, laughing at its clumsiness, heedless of the declinate fangs protruding at unknowable angles from its distended maw. He said the beast, or "bogfisher" as the locals called it, was a failing vestige in the land of men, fit to be tamed or slain.
That night, we camped beside an underground lake, its rippling waves a susurrus of inhuman whispers. The sepulchral emptiness of the starless night was vast, our own fire pitiful in its sullen rebellion against the unending dark.
The bogfisher slipped from the lake, its flapping paws perfectly equipped to propel it through the water; its spiny maw closed upon d'Archambon. Then the marquis was gone, his frantic thrashing all we could see in the frenzied white water as the bogfisher pulled him under.
That night, I knew that this is not the land of men. The lightless torpid waters are not tamed; men are but ants crawling witlessly across a lily pad in a pond. Most think the emerald land bound to their tiny will. Those few who peer over the edge and see the leviathans, pale bellied, scales shimmering in colors with no name, swimming beneath them, can only scurry away, trying in vain to articulate the vast and uncaring terrors that awaits. What my eyes have seen, my limited mind may never comprehend, but I shall never draw near dark water again. The bogfisher has taught me well.
—From An Anatomie of Various Terrible Beasts by Baron Havard-Pierre d'Amortisan^[2]

The bogfisher likes hiding in dark places and water. Master does not like baths.
—Footnote in the margins of the manuscript by the baron's scribe, Dunwich^[2]