Pestilence

Submission for the 2016 Creature Cabal
Throughout history, several facts have been warped to appear more credible, to support one's cause, or simply because of mistranslation. Such is the history of the medieval medicine wear, started at the beginning of the black plague surge in the early 1300's and continuing through the renaissance. The morbid beaked mask and wand setup is said to have been to protect the doctors, with the loose spaces filled with herbs to prevent themselves from the worst of the disease.
Or so it was said to protect the truth.
Older pages still record a fell creature, neither bird nor beast, hiding in the shadows of several villages. Without fail, those same villages found themselves ravaged by the plague a matter of days later. Shrouded in black mist, it can only be assumed that the virus went to and from different hosts along this immaterial cloak. It wasn't until 1312 when one doctor, upon seeing this creature, hoped that replicating its gruesome features would grant him some control over the new sickness.
The results of this experiment were... up to interpretation.

Rendered in Ink, edited in Photoshop