Wandering Hamster Edition
A Feature by Paul Harrington and Fenrir-Lunaris

Good evening gentlemen! Welcome back to Monsterology! I am your host, Horace Alfonse Montgomery.

Each month, I will do my best to travel to the far reaches of the OHR universe to educate you, my good readers, on what sort of horrible beasts lurk in the deep reaches of space. My mission is to observe without interfering with society, so unfortunately I can't ask the natives for information. But fear not! My observation skills are keen, and I promise to bring you the truth! I have sent my reports back to my colleague on Earth, who has done his best to illustrate these wonderful animals based on my information.

This month, we are taking a look at the world of Wandering Hamster, the setting of what is possibly the most well known story in the OHR universe!

Hamsters:
Hamsters are one of the most common creatures in this world, though their resemblance to typical Earth hamsters is distant at best. They tend to be brown and have extremely short hair, and their whiskers look more like fine, gentlemanly mustaches. They walk on two legs, and have extremely large heads. Seriously, the noggins on these things are ridiculous. Their bodies are slender, and are actually smaller than their massive craniums. How can they even walk around? Their leg muscles must be exceptionally strong. They are fairly docile by nature, but some of these guys are real jerks.

Plips:
Like many worlds, this one also features weak, slime-type monsters. How come these sort of things are everywhere? Perhaps they colonized the galaxy long before the rest of us were even here. Deep, scary stuff. But anyway, back to the Plips; These blob-monsters have large eyes and larger mouths. One of these guys could swallow you whole, if they weren't so slow and lazy. They also have long, thin tails with some sort of ball at the top. In the past, these tails may have been used for battering enemies, but at the speed these things move that would be fairly useless. You've got nothing to fear from them. They can be tamed and kept as pets, if you're some kind of weirdo who wants a pet that sticks to everything.

Lode-Rat:
What we have here may be a first; a rat/slime hybrid. How do these abominations keep happening? Every world I go to has unnatural cross-breeds that look, at best, unhealthy. Either the genetic engineers of these worlds are really incompetent, or the gods have a really twisted sense of humor. These monsters look cute from afar, but once you get close, BAM. No eyes! No limbs! Gadzooks was I ever shocked when I finally got a good look at them. They have pear-shaped bodies, spiky tails, and a whole lot of teeth. They're incredibly aggressive, and their large ears imply that they use sound to find their prey rather than sight. You know, because of the no eyes thing. Lordy.


Trolls:
The mountains of this world are full of many types of trolls. Some are short, roundish creatures that, like the Hamsters, are mostly head. They've got ugly, toothy mouths, large noses, and a bad sense of fashion. They also look a bit moldy, to be honest. Others are more human shaped, but share their cousins' abominable sense of fashion. They seem to wear what look like plastic trash-bags for clothing, and clearly never clean their hair. These guys may have been human once, but they missed the train to civilization. I once saw one chewing on a rock.

Potted Cactus:
The strangest, and most evasive, creature I found on this world. What I thought was actually just a cactus in a nice, simple pot actually turned out to be an intelligent being! It fled as soon as I got even remotely close, but what I could see was this; The "pot" appeared to have chipped, flaking paint, but these may actually be scales. The cactus part looks like any other cactus, and may be a disguise used to lure prey in search of shade or perhaps a home. It elevated slightly from the ground as it skittered away, suggesting that under the pot there are a series of tiny, but powerful, legs. I wish to learn more about this fascinating specimen, but alas, I cannot find another.

Imprawn:
Imprawn are red, floating monsters that kind of look like a child's Spider-man balloon. Their eyes bear a resemblance to those of the great Earth hero. They have numerous, tiny legs, which resemble those of a non-superhero spider. These guys impress me; while not the most ferocious monster I've encountered, the Imprawn possess a sense of quiet dignity, a sense of justice. They also have long, cork-screw tails that can be used for both combat and for relaxing on as a sturdy red stem.



NetherWog:
A huge, toothy monster which seems like some sort of a cross between a bipedal alligator and a sponge. Their soft, porous bodies often seem to have smaller creatures stuck in them. NetherWogs then pluck these creatures from their own grotesque yellow mass using their long, twig-thick arms, and shove them into their gigantic mouths. These guys have so many teeth they can't even contain them! Their teeth are so large and numerous that unless you get really close you can't even tell they have a lower jaw. One of the more fearsome monsters on this world.

Mugboar:
What can I even say about this thing? It's a massive predator whose legs alone are twice the height of this world's sentient mammal-people. Each leg ends in a huge, two-toed foot, each equipped with a deadly talon. What's above those legs is even worse; there's nothing we would traditionally call a torso. There are no arms. There's no head. There's just a giant, hairy sphere with a mouth that covers almost its entire front. I can't see any eyes or ears, which are likely hidden under its coarse hair. The mouth alone is unsettling enough, but somehow the fact that this thing has pouty pink lips makes it a hundred times worse. I never want to see one of these again.

Jormungandling:
This is the largest life form I've encountered on this planet! Its length rivals that of one of Earth's great whales. The Jormungandling is a swamp serpent with a penchant for eating, well, just about anything. It's pretty much the same as a common snake, only bigger than God. It can come partially onto land, just far enough to gobble up anything foolish enough to wander into this world's swampy woods. I even saw some weird mammals in heinously bright costumes (this pair of goons must have been either jesters or color blind) toss an innocent hamster to one of these things! I can only assume this is part of some dark, cultish ritual that I want no part of. I'm not sticking around any longer to find out!



This world's worn me out. So many of the creatures here look so cute and harmless, but they're all out for blood! Of course, seeing those last three might make that "cute" statement seem a bit silly. The swamps here are teeming with ruthless abominations.

That's all for this month. Tune in next time, when we explore another strange and frightening world! Which will it be? It's a secret to everybody!