Otherwise, taking inspiration from folklore of all kinds is fair game. People will call you out for trying to claim it as your wholly original creation tho
The wendigo discourse gets dumber every time, especially given the furry/general Internet artist take on the creature shares only the name. It's the tortured shade of a cannibal, not a skull deer.
This is also basically how everyone used the internet 20 years ago
You’d end up on some guy’s website about Civil War cannons, click his links page, discover a county historical society, then spend 40 minutes reading a forum for antique tractor owners
“What sort of website is this?” was half the experience
We called it surfing for a reason, now you open the same 4 apps every day
The more you read up on ant warfare the more crazy it gets. They have suicide bombers, chemical warfare, and trench warfare. There is a super colony war in California where 30 million ants die every year.