Tailypo
Image from The Tailypo: A Ghost Story © Joanna Galdone and Paul Galdone. Accessed here
[You want to know what scares the monster maker? Here you go. My mom read this book to my sister and I as a bedtime story when we were around 5 and 6. And we couldn’t get to sleep all night. No version I could find online was nearly as creepy as the original picture book, so with the picture book I went.]
Tailypo CR 3 NE Magical Beast Stalking forth from the darkness is a beast that combines the features of a wolf, an ape and a big cat. Its paws bear some resemblance to human hands and its face is dominated by staring, owlish eyes and tall ears with tufts like a bobcat’s. A long and furry tail waves in the air behind it.
Bestial backwoods predators, the hybrid creatures known as tailypos are far more cunning than their appearance would indicate. Their hunting strategy is unusual in that it involves a sacrifice of their own body parts, like a lizard shedding its tail. Any creature that takes the bait is stalked unceasingly by the tailypo, who strikes when its target is most vulnerable. They prefer to hunt sentient prey for the challenge, and their nimble paws allow them to open doors and use tools in order to terrorize and kill a victim.
Tailypos are territorial and drive away or kill other predators in their ranges, such as big cats, wolves and bears. Tailypos spend most of their lives in solitude, only meeting with others of their own kind in order to mate and raise offspring. A female tailypo will give birth to a litter of two to six cubs, which grow to maturity over the course of a year. Tailypo cubs are prized for their tracking abilities and can fetch up to 2,000 gp on the open market, but such purchases are highly risky due to the tailypo’s cunning and evil disposition. A tailypo grows to eight feet long, with about half of that length being tail.
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