TOMB TAPPER

TOMB TAPPER

"Tappers are tall and humanoid, with very hard, blue-gray skin and great claws which can dig through solid rock. They are sometimes called “the Faceless” due to their featureless heads."

"Tappers have gigantic mouths in their abdomens. These jaws can crush rock, from which Tappers extract mineral sustenance."

Ed Greenwood, Dragon Magazine #41

The tomb tapper is another faceless monster, like the nitrodjinn, but this one is more akin to other creatures in folklore and mythology. It first appeared in Dragon Magazine #41 with art & text by Ed Greenwood.

The blemmyes or headless men feature in Greek mythology and were said to inhabit remote parts of the world.

Blemmys (from a 1556 map by Guillaume Le Testu), Donotsura (Rama temple in Ayodhyapattinam Kabandan) and Jiang Yinghao (Originally drawn in the 17th century by Jiang Yinghao. Reproduced in Ma Changyi (2001)

From wikipedia: "Headless men also appear in several Asian legends. Breast-eyed races (war-čašmān) are recurrent in the Zoroastrian scriptures such as the Bundahishn, the Jamasp Namag and the Drakht-i Asurig. Men with eyes in their chests are mentioned in Ibn Wasīf Shāh's Digest of Wonders (Akhbār al-zamān), in the anonymous Book of Curiosities, and by other medieval islamic geographers as Al-Qazwini and Ibn al-Wardi. They also appear in the Syriac The Marvels Found in the Great Cities and in the Piri Reis Map."

Dōnotsura & Haradashi, by Matthew Meyer.

There are also the Dōnotsura & Haradashi, two Yokai that feature faces on their abdomens.

Headless men weave their way all throughout world mythology and pop culture. I'm sure I'll return to them in the future