Sleipnir

Like most of Maylar's true monsters, Sleipnir was created to "test" people. Sometimes Sleipnir tested Maylar's faithful to make sure they were strong and sometimes Sleipnir tested Maylar's enemies to remove weakness from them.   Like most spirits, if slain, Sleipnir would then be ressurected in the Aetherial Realm and eventually returned to the mortal plane, so neither Sleipnir nor Maylar himself were particularly upset if someone bested Sleipnir. Once a person or group proves they are strong, Maylar is usually satisfied and leaves them alone...for a time.   When Sleipnir was not in battle, Sleipnir roamed. Being an eight-legged spirit horse with an inborn with a desire to seek worthy challenges, Sleipnir roamed the length and breadth of Scarterra. Sleipnir was believed to be able to run up sheer surfaces and run on the surface of water.   It is not known if Sleipnir was created to aid lost tribe of Moriaclar elves or if Sleipnir was merely adopted by the Moriaclar later. The Moriaclar were a nation of elves during the Second Age that worshiped Maylar above the rest of the Nine and they had a strong horse riding tradition, so it was only a matter of time before the two became linked.   Sleipnir became a sort of mascot for the Moriaclar and most Moriaclar priests and priestesses of Maylar incorporated images, sculptures and carvings of Sleipnir into their personal holy symbols and temple decorations.   When the Second Unmaking struck, Maylar rewarded the faith shown to him by the Moriaclar and sent Sleipnir to them to battle the Void demon armies and allow some Moriaclar to escape with their lives and souls intact.   After the Moriaclar were forced to abandon their towns and farms, most of the army of the Void left the Moriaclar homeland to pursue the survivors, but Sleipnir remained there to engage Void Demon stragglers. Sleipnir engaged the Void Demons and their undead minions with a series of hit-and-run attacks using the largest Maylar temple as a home base to heal between engagements.   The Void Demons didn't have the numbers to engage Sleipnir on his home turf (since the Maylar temple made Sleipnir stronger), so they opted for the next best thing. The local Void Demon leader knew the general limitations of spirits of the Nine, and hatched a plan. It ordered its minions to gather as much as salt as they could and created a thick perimeter of salt around the temple, trapping Sleipnir inside his own place of refuge.   Sleipnir was a spirit created to roam and was now trapped in a relatively small space. Languishing there for countless centuries has driven Sleipnir insane. The city Sleipnir once defended is now in ruins and lies underground and forgotten, a short distance below an unassuming remote prairie in the frontier region of what is now known as the land of Kantoc.   If the salt perimeter is broken and a Sleipnir sized gap is made, Sleipnir can escape but he is so maddened by imprionment that he is likely to attack his would-be liberators. Though if he is slain by said liberators, his essence will return to Aetherial Realm he can finally begin healing and Maylar would owe said liberators a favor.