Styxys- the Guardian of the Crypt

Submission for the 2015 Creature Cabal

Nobody truly knows where this creature come from. It resides in the tomb of a legendary warrior, whose prowess, wisdom, and dexterity in battle made him a ferocious enemy. There are manuscripts of nations falling at his hand, but none mention his name anymore. Strategists and sages alike asked for his secrets, but he was ever resilient to answer. His closest allies even reported him practicing strange rituals in isolation in tongues never heard before nor since. When he died, as all men do, he was placed in a seplechure in an unnamed mountain, allegedly where his first battle was won.
Then, the legends get stranger. As a collection of family and friends collected days later to mourn, they were all attacked by a monster, unprecedented and unprovoked. Only two members, the warrior's son and daughter, survived and escaped. Everyone else was mauled. As the only two people alive who knew where the crypt was, they destroyed the entrance and kept its location from the world, so that no man may suffer the same fate.

Rendered in Photoshop