Kioh Twan
Kioh Twan, an older transliteration of the beast now usually called Jiaoduan, is a green, deer-bodied unicorn of Chinese legend credited with a horse's tail, a single nasal horn, human speech, and the power to cross vast distances in a single day.
At a glance
- Tradition
- Chinese mythology
- Region
- China (place of origin)
- Kind
- One-horned beasts
- Trait family
- The Swift-Footed
Near this figure
Symbols
Judged against the description by a model. Meanings are our own paraphrase.
- Color bears image-domain Colour denotes expression and differentiation, carrying feeling, rank and season, evolved for survival and taken by alchemy as the sign that transformation is under way.
why
It is described as green or greenish in color, with the body of a deer, a horse's tail, and a single horn rising from the head or nose — a composite anatomy typical of the qilin type generally, distinct from the dragon-headed, scaled depictions more familiar from later Chinese art.
- Horse bears image-domain The horse denotes harnessed striving power, mount of gods, sun and sea alike, carrying the dead as psychopomp and the living into their conquests.
why
Kioh Twan, an older transliteration of the beast now usually called Jiaoduan, is a green, deer-bodied unicorn of Chinese legend credited with a horse's tail, a single nasal horn, human speech, and the power to cross vast distances in a single day.
- Unicorn is image-domain The unicorn denotes untameable solitary purity, single-horned and swift, taken alive only by the trick of a maiden's lap, and appearing where rule is virtuous.
why
Kioh Twan, an older transliteration of the beast now usually called Jiaoduan, is a green, deer-bodied unicorn of Chinese legend credited with a horse's tail, a single nasal horn, human speech, and the power to cross vast distances in a single day.
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Form
- Hybrid of multiple animals
why
with the body of a deer, a horse's tail, and a single horn rising from the head or nose
Utility powers
- Superhuman speed
why
Two abilities are consistently attached to the type: extraordinary speed, sufficient to cover an enormous distance — described in terms of many thousands of li — in a single day, and the capacity for human speech or the understanding of human language, unusual among animals in the tradition.
- Speech
why
Two abilities are consistently attached to the type: extraordinary speed, sufficient to cover an enormous distance — described in terms of many thousands of li — in a single day, and the capacity for human speech or the understanding of human language, unusual among animals in the tradition.
- Warning call
why
The best-known episode associated with the figure in Western retellings has such a beast intercepting a military campaign and addressing the commander directly, warning that Heaven was displeased by the killing already done and urging a withdrawal — a portent-and-messenger role rather than a combative one.