#chichimec

“Chichimec” © Wizards of the Coast, by Larry Dixon. Accessed at the Epic Level Handbook Art Gallery here

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82, who requested the CR be brought down from 21 to 15. Why the name change? Well, the Chichimecs are a real ethnic group from Mexico, and using their name to refer to any fictional creature, let along a sadistic monster, is weird and bad. I wonder if this was an intentional reference, or an accident. The Epic Level Handbook is old enough to have been written in the early days of search engines. ]

Michichec This creature appears as a misshapen clot of feathered wings. The thing moves swiftly despite its mad flapping. A large tail emerges from the mass.

A michichec is a strange creature native to the Plane of Air. Their bodies are a small irregular mass studded with eyes, mouths, and more unusual sensory organs all barely visible beneath the clot of wings that stretch in every direction. They feed not on meat or plant matter, but on the mental energy of living things, which they sap using an appendage that is part tail, part tentacle. Michichecs are both cunning and cruel, and they delight in spreading suffering and leaving their victims alive but mentally scarred.

In combat, michichecs are forever on the move, twisting and spiraling though the air with uncanny precision. Their primary motivation is to feed, and they thus try to make slam attacks against as many opponents as possible. Michichecs have a number of magical abilities, which they use to disrupt enemy formations. They are especially fond of summoning air elementals to trap enemies in a whirlwind, then sampling the personalities each of these unfortunates like a gourmet samples fine delicacies.

Michichecs are hated by most of the denizens of the Plane of Air. Genies and giants alike fortify their strongholds against michichec incursions, and cloud dragons organize hunting parties to try and flush these monsters from their territories. Just about the only creatures that michichecs get along with are divs, which appreciate their dedication to inflicting pain and anguish.

A michichec has a diameter of about five feet. They are capable of living for centuries.

Inktober 16 ITZPAPALOTL

Obsidian butterfly, ruler of the Paradise ---

(indian) people where, originally I'm from Guanajuato, and they are 

called "Chichimecs" which means "area of milk" and they were known to be

barbaric, savages and uncivilized. The Chichimecs were separated into

tribes, Guanajuato's tribe were the "Guamares". Most of the Chichimecs are

Itzpapalotl is a goddess whose name means "Obsidian Butterfly" or "Clawed Butterfly". Miller and Taube believe it is closer to "clawed" as she, in the form depicted, as jaguar claws for hands. She is either depicted as a scary women dressed in as a warrior (She is a female warrior.) with a skull head and Mixcoatl's stripes, or as a beautiful woman, who powders her face white.

Itzpapalotl doesn't just rule over dead women and children, she is also considered "dead". As a night goddess she rules over the demonic and skeletal Tzitzimime, who devour people at solar eclipses and are said to descend from the heavens like spiders descend from their threads. She is thought to have died in childbirth, thus she is a divine cihuateteo. ("Divine women" who died in childbirth and were thought to come back as powerful malevolent spirits.)

Her nahualli (Essentially, a spirit animal or twin animal soul that shares it's soul with you.) is a deer. The codex Chimalpopoca considers her to be the mother of Mixcoatl ("cloud serpent"-god of hunting), a title that belongs to Cihuacoatl,("serpent woman") the wife of Quetzalcoatl. There are so many similarities to Cihuacoatl, that a lot of scholars consider Itzpapalotl to be the dead form of Cihuacoatl. (Although not outright stated in any Aztec source, but implied heavily. Coincidentally,  Cihuacoatl rules over the Cihuateteo.)

Since she rules over dead children, she takes the souls of infants to a heaven called Tamoanchan, which she rules over as well. Unless the child dies of a lighting or water related death, in which case s/he is ushered to Tlaloc's domain of Tlalocan.

The Aztec's pantheon was a merging of the nomadic Chichimecs and the civilization of the Toltecs, Itzpapalotl comes from the Chichimec.

Credits:

Image:

Top, Codex Borgia

Middle, Codex Magliabechiano

References: 

An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya

http://www.azteccalendar.com/god/Itzpapalotl.html

Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica

History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca