Creatures in The Sword of Truth

In the fictional universe of Terry Goodkind's "The Sword of Truth" series, there are a number of magical or non-magical creatures, many of which are dangerous.

Dragon

Dragons in "The Sword of Truth" series have magic. It is believed that dragons use their magic to aid in their flight. Before the boundaries went down, many people in Westland believed that dragons were only legends, just old tales.

There are many different kinds of dragons, distinguished by their color, including gray, green, red, and a few others. The gray ones are the smallest and are rather shy. The green are a lot bigger. The smartest and biggest ones are the red ones. Some people of the Midlands keep gray dragons as pets, and for hunting. However, no one keeps green dragons as pets. They are rather dumb, have bad tempers, and can be quite dangerous. The red ones are something altogether different. They will fry you and eat you in a blink, and they are very smart. However, red dragons will normally only hunt people if they are hungry enough, or angry enough, since humans don't make much of a meal for them. Red dragons are fiercely independent, take no sides in human affairs (and couldn't care less), and would rather die than be subjugated. They would put up a strong fight against any who attempted to capture or harm them.

Despite all this, Darken Rahl was able to subjugate a red dragon, Scarlet, by stealing her only egg. He used her to move quickly throughout the New World. Richard helped her get her egg back, and for that she became his friend, and has helped him several times later, both as a ride and with firepower (literally). She frequently teased that she might still eat him.

Not long after the Chimes appeared, Richard came across a red dragon skeleton. He lingered for a while thinking of Scarlet, when Nicci said it's possible all dragons died when the Chimes appeared.

The taint left by the Chimes ("Soul of the Fire") is slowly corrupting and destroying all magic, and combined with the tainted Chainfire Event, Richard is the only one that can even remember that dragons actually existed. All others have forgotten they existed. Near the end of "Confessor", though, it's revealed that both Scarlet and her son, Gregory, are alive.

Gar

A gar is a large, aggressive predator that can be found throughout the New World, originating from D'Hara. Gars stand on two feet, like a man, and come in two varieties - long-tailed and short-tailed. Long-tailed gars are about a head taller than a tall man and weigh about three times as much. Short-tailed gars are more fierce, larger, and much more intelligent than their long-tailed cousins.

Fur covers their great bodies everywhere except their chest and stomach, which are covered with a smooth, glossy, pinkish and taut skin that ripples with corded muscles underneath. They have large wings with thin membranes which they keep folded behind their back when not flying. They have glowing, green eyes and short, rounded ears. They have astonishing speed and often move in a shuffling, side-ways motion. The speech of a gar is a series of grunts, sounding similar to a wild boar. They often throw back their head and hiss into the air in order to frighten and draw out their prey. Their breath is hot and their teeth are as big as human fingers.

Short-tailed gars were originally created by wizards of the New World during the Great War 3000 years prior to the series' start. The gars were created as a way to combat the mriswith being made by the Old World. The gars are able to sense the presence of mriswith, even when they are invisible.

Blood flies

Blood flies are native to the land of D'Hara and are always found near gars. They are tiny flying insects that gars use to flush out their prey. The tiny bite of a blood fly is fairly painful and can draw blood.

Blood flies and gars have a symbiotic relationship. Gars use blood flies to hunt, along with their keen senses. The flies flush out the quarry so the gar can grab it. The gars then smear part of the animal on their pink-skinned chest and stomach for the flies to feast. Short-tailed gars count and keep track of their flies, an example of their superior intelligence.

Gratch

Gratch is a gar stumbled upon by Richard Rahl when Gratch's mother attacks Richard, supposedly for a meal. Richard is forced to kill Gratch's mother in self-defense, but cannot bring himself to kill Gratch. Once Richard leaves baby Gratch to fend for himself, Richard believes Gratch to be gone for good. Later, however, Gratch reappears and seems to be following Richard in his mother's stead. Richard then secretly cares for and feeds the young gar while he undergoes training as a wizard. Richard continues this care until Gratch has grown to a respectable age, and in the meantime, Richard and Gratch become very close friends. Eventually, Richard is forced to send Gratch away for fear of the gar's life (for fear of his loved one, Kahlan) but the two are reunited later and fight alongside each other until Gratch finds another gar that he loves. Because Gratch is a short-tailed gar, he has respectable intelligence and is able to communicate with Richard and Richard's friends. People often refer to Gratch as Richard's pet, but Richard says Gratch is his friend. Gratch does numerous things for Richard, such as delivering a letter and flying Zedd around. Gratch loves food and wrestling with a passion.

Mriswith

Mriswith are former wizards that were transformed by use of Additive and Subtractive magic, and thus gave up conventional use of their gift. They were first created during the Great Wizard War, 3000 years earlier, and were used by the wizards from the Old World.

For use as weapons against the wizards of New World, they are serpent like creatures that wear a cloak that can make them or other wizards with both sides (Additive and Subtractive) of the gift blend entirely with their surroundings. This cloak also makes the wearer undetectable by those with only the Additive side of the gift but can still be detected by wizards with the Subtractive side, making everyone vulnerable to attack. Mriswith carry a three-bladed knife, called a yabree, in each hand to disembowel their victims, who never see them coming. They are lightning quick, fierce, and relentless in killing.

Richard Rahl kept a cloak from a mriswith he killed, and after discovering how to use it, wore it and used it constantly. Towards the end of "Blood of the Fold", Richard was offered yabree by other mriswith, but rejected them before he lost control and became a mriswith himself.

They are native to the Hagen Woods, which is also said to have been a training ground to a special kind of wizard (a war wizard). New mriswith are hatched from huge, leathery eggs laid and tended by the huge, red, dragon-like queen, who was unintentionally set loose by Richard. The gars were constructed to combat these mriswith and are extremely effective in their task; the two kinds of creatures seem to house a primal rage against each other.

Night wisp

Night wisps are creatures of magic. They are the size of a small bottle and have a tiny voice. Few have ever seen a night wisp. A night wisp can not be seen during the day, only at night. A night wisp can not live many days away from their home and others of their kind before they lose all their strength and die. Night wisps emit a tiny flare of warm light that gives everything around them a silvery cast, but dims as they grow weaker and changes to an intense pink glow when touched by a Confessor. They have the ability to hover, fly, and spin through the air.

har

Shar was a night wisp who served as a guide to Kahlan Amnell through the boundary. Shar sacrificed her life to help Kahlan cross the boundary and stop Darken Rahl, who threatened to destroy all magical creatures within the Midlands. Her last wish was that she would be touched by Kahlan's power in order to be relieved from the pain night wisps go through when separated from their kind for so long. She also gave Richard his first test to find the book written by a previous War Wizard which he failed.

Ghazi

Ghazi was a night wisp that left her kind, and stayed at Richard Cypher's house. Richard's mother later died trying to get Ghazi out of the fire that was started by an angry man, believing that Richard's father, George Cypher, had cheated him. The angry man smashed a lamp, liting the house on fire. Richard's mother's screams at being burned alive brought the man back to his sense, and tried, with Richard's father, unsuccessfully, to save her. It is unknown at what happened to Ghazi, but it is a distinct possibliblity that Ghazi died in the fire that consumed the house.