(Excerpt from “Beasts of Frost and Shadow,” a wandering skald’s notes)
The Nottvulpin, or “Night-Fox,” is a creature seldom seen except in the blue hours before dawn. Its pelt is dark as the sea’s deepest trench, patterned with pale streaks that shimmer faintly under moonlight. Hunters speak of watching one move across the snows and losing sight of it in an instant, as though it had stepped sideways into the dark itself.
In form it resembles the fox, but taller, leaner, its limbs too long, its eyes reflecting no light at all. Tracks found in the morning show three toes instead of four, each pad marked with frost, even upon bare stone.
They are no mere predators. The Nottvulpin are whispered to be messengers between the mortal world and the realms below the ice. Alfar Tribe skalds tell that their cries are omens — a warning of death when heard near a homestead, a promise of safe passage when heard on the open road. Among the Goliath Tribe, it is said that to hunt one is to invite your own soul to be tracked in turn.
Curiously, no bones have ever been found. Nottvulpin slain in desperation are said to unravel into black snow, leaving behind only a faint scent of pine and iron. Some claim they are not flesh at all, but the memory of foxes long since consumed by Helheim’s dark waters.
Whether spirit or beast, the Nottvulpin endure in story and superstition alike. And perhaps that is their truest nature: not to live, nor to die, but to remind us that the night has secrets it will never share.