Calthrop

A Calthrop is a nightmareish creature, with fur and claws and fangs, a creature of snarl and snap with a gaping maw that lives in the Midlands. Its earsplitting cry is deep, savage, and vicious and its mouth stretches wide with every roar. Its furious glowing red eyes are set deep in its skull. It has huge sharp, wet, snapping teeth. It has a blunt snout, corded muscles, and amazing strength. It is twice the size of a man.

A Calthrop has power in the night, and will wait until then to kill. During the day it can take the form of a human in order to deceive other humans whom it preys on. In Wizard's First Rule, Richard and Kahlan encountered one disguised as an old man with a white beard and a large round belly that jiggled under his dark brown robes as he laughed. He had white hair parted neatly down the middle, and long curly eyebrows and drooping lids shading his brown eyes. He had a jolly round face wrinkled with a wide smile. He called himself "Old John" and tried to trick them into believing that he was sent by Zedd, ostensibly to capture them to bring them to Darken Rahl. A disguised Calthrop apparently has no substance to its apparent form, passing through cobwebs and by branches without disturbing them and leaving no tracks.