Question about mythological creatures

[Matty]

Good afternoon peoples.

My knowledge of mythological creatures is not great but I'm looking for a class or type of creature that behaves as follows:

This creature is relatively weak physically, human level strength, but when it is insulted, taunted, verbally or psychologically mistreated the effect is opposite to intended.  Rather than crawling into a hole and dying it becomes more powerful.

As if its psyche and magical powers grow stronger rather than weaker when it is tormented.

So you cannot kill it with torture, or damage it with attacks as it feeds off the negative atmosphere that is thrown at it.

The closest I could come to was the Jachyra in the Shannara series that is fuelled by the physical injuries caused to it to becomd physically stronger.

The main difference is the creature I imagine is not powered by physical harm to itself but by mental and emotional harm done to itself by others.

[Matty]

From my journal.....the mind's eye eh?

----
Croydon Library. Imagined seeing creature. - 2019-07-02
Croydon Library. Imagined seeing creature.

As I sit in Croydon library at one of the tables near the window I sense with my mind's eye 4, possibly 5, ghost like dragon eels, translucent, green, gaseous, darting about the room.

They hover mostly slowly around the ceiling of the area where the books are. They have fins and whiskers a bit like a catfish. They glow green, an outline mostly.

One of them is more aggressive. It darts back and forth in the centre as if guarding territory. It sometimes gnashes its teeth in my direction and tilts its head.

The others are more sedate. There is a fat slow large one in the right corner, turning about slowly, possibly sleepy. But very fat.

There is a little round one chasing its tail. It looks to be a bit dopey.

There is another that is slow and often jnvisible.

Sometimes they briefly transform their shape into a vague outline of a humanoid form but they can't seem to hold that shape for long.

The ferocious one has its eye on me. It doesn't like me being here but it can't seemingly touch me. It keeps its distance, revealing angry expressions at times but in a semi frustrated way. It can't reach me, but it is both angry, hungry and slightly fearful.

For a brief moment I saw a red one, appear in the corner, but it has disappeared. Similar in form but not. Small, much like the way a male spider may be much smaller and less noticeable than the female.

I do feel safe here. But it is a curious imagination. If you think of the glowing form of the slime creature in ghostbusters it is a bit like that...without the slime.

I sense webs too. Though these creatures are more serpentlike or catfish like their are grey webs- invisible to the physical plane-forming about here. They coalesce around the bookshelves, acting as snares which people walk through.

I sense tendrils reaching forth from the pages of the newspapers being read. Gripping and pulsing in yellow glowing strands like some kind of peristalsis between the reader's mind and an entity on the page they have open.

A burp. I hear a burp as a guttural burping noise comes from one of the newspaper creatures. It then resumes with more gusto feeding on the reader's mind.

The room where the green ghostly eel writhes about has emptied. There are less people, and the ghostly eel has shrunk in size. Previously it was about 6 to 8 metres in length and 1 to 2 metres across.

It is now maybe the size of a large dog, yapping with bursts of green and flashing in and out of existence.

The large fat one seems to have mostly disappeared too. I sense the edge of a rattly tail, like a rattlesnake or child's plaything just on the edge of the red room nearby.

The noise and hubbub has died down. Whatever had been there, mostly they have retreated into various dark corners of the library.

It is now a simple cold sterile fluorescent lit library space again.

And....that is all for now.


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[DaiHard]

Not quite the same (and debatably not yet mythical!), but the gods in Discworld draw their strength from the strength of the belief of their follower(s). Presumably you could have a "god of feebleness", which would paradoxically grow more powerful the more you attributed negative attributes to it....

What you are looking for is essentially the opposite of a boggart in the Potterverse, which can be vanquished by ridicule, but becomes more powerful with fear...

:-)

D

[Matty]

Thanks DaiHard that sounds quite good.

[DaiHard]

How about Nemesis, the goddess who punishes hubris?

If you are looking for a basis of a creature of your own, you could have nemescenes, which arise and punish those who demean or degrade others (including the nemescenes themselves, I guess) - that would be pretty close to your original conception?

Best wishes,

D