Aliases: White Thorn, The Flowered Hart, Herald of Both Ways

Description:

Gigantic stag (approx. 2.5m at shoulder) with antlers sprouting white roses that bleed when detached. Coat silver-white; hooves leave living flowers in their prints. Emits faint chime-like tone when moving.

Nature and Behaviour:

Manifestation associated with transitions: birth, death, and seasonal thresholds. Appears when blood touches soil within the Reaches, or when fae and human realms align (equinox, solstice).

The Stag does not attack but exerts powerful psychic compulsion — witnesses often follow it to exhaustion, vanishing into the woods. Believed to guide souls through the Reaches toward either rebirth or oblivion.

Field Notes:

Cameras fail in its presence; light bends unnaturally. Blood samples from ground where it appeared contain foreign pollen species not catalogued on Earth.

Legends claim that those who wound it are “made to bloom where they fall” — botanical assimilation upon death.

Containment Protocols:

Observation only. No attempt at capture or pursuit. Presence marks an impending fae incursion or major life-death crossing; initiate containment sweep of nearby thresholds.