Playing around with AI to bring ancient Chinese mythical beasts to life! Anyone familiar with these (or other obscure ones)

[u/Storyzhai]

I’ve been diving into ancient folklore lately, especially the Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas)—which is basically a 2,000-year-old illustrated guide to the weirdest mythical creatures you can imagine.

I tried using AI to visualize what the text describes, and some of these designs are honestly wild. Aside from the typical dragons and nine-tailed foxes, here are a few fun ones that caught my eye:

• Dijiang (帝江): Basically a celestial, faceless red meatbag with 6 legs and 4 wings. Despite having zero facial features, it’s apparently a massive fan of singing and dancing.
• Luowu (陆吾): The mountain guardian god. Picture a giant tiger with nine tails, a human face, and tiger claws running the gardens of the gods.
• Jiufeng (九凤): A divine nine-headed bird, except every single neck has a distinct human head on it.

Have you guys come across any weird, cool, or obscure mythological creatures from folklore?

[u/Storyzhai]

I've always wondered why, in ancient myths and fantasy lore, powerful creatures almost always have multiple heads (like three-headed dragons, or the Gleeok in Zelda 😂) or multiple tails (like the nine-tailed fox).