Most fools think sailors pray to Thandres to keep em safe. They’re wrong. Thandres don’t give two shits about what happens to men on the Lake. Smart folk pray to the black god that prowls those waters. Not to get his attention, cause that’s the last thing you want. No when you pray to the Kraken you’re praying to avoid it’s notice.
That beast is two-hundred feet long and can smash a ship to tinder quick as you or I take a bite of stew. It’s fearful smart and it’s got a malicious cunning. The Kraken loves feasting on men, but it loves the terror it causes even more.
That ain’t all. Legends say the Kraken can raise a fearsome gail, strong enough to tear a sail right off a ship. It can call the lightning, to smash a mast into splinters. The beast can even control sharks, though it usually does its killing all by itself.
What does it look like? The Kraken’s got eight tentacles, like an octopus. An octopus the size of a castle. It’s got two arms too, and a nasty beak that will swallow a man whole. The thing is so hideous that some men claim you’ll go mad if you look at it.
If you fall into the water and the Kraken doesn’t eat you right off you’re still gonna die like as not. The Kraken fills the water with some sort of ink, blacker than an Orokh’s heart. The ink drains away a man’s strength, til you can’t swim. Then, if you’re lucky, you drown. If you’re not the Kraken eats ya, and you spend hours screaming inside it’s awful stomach.
Some men say the Kraken’s just a tale. You know what I tel l those fools? Don’t say the prayer and you’ll find out soon enough just how real the beast is. It can sense a non-believer from hundreds of miles away, and they say it takes special pleasure in killin such fools.
