Madman's worldbuilding

Brief note on Notes- this is entirely for a world and canon of my own devising and is not meant to counter, alter, or display any prior existing canon if at all possible. It will not, with hope, be exactly what you’re used to, but the hope is to make a world at once recognizable and distinct. The contents will retain some of the laws of prior mythology in order to sustain this, but will also differ in some ways.

Thank you for your time. This is not a story proper, really just reference notes.

Among any world there will eventually rise those termed as creatures or monsters, and those who are, and those who are considered to be without ever it needing to be said. What is the difference between a creature and a monster? The separation is simple. A creature, no matter how large, powerful, or ancient, can only harm or end your physical body.

A monster can rend your mind, corrupt your soul, ravish your emotions, or steal your heart, whether through terror and insanity or misguided love and lust. The creature can inspire fear, of course, but for terror...? For terror, it takes a monster. And what makes a monster monstrous is its Sapient qualities.

Familiar thought, familiar desires, core wants and needs that can be empathized with and sympathized with. A convincing and conniving tongue. Belief in a cause. Longings. And it does not take magic to make a monster; there are human ones enough.

As observed by the Fantasy Panther in observation of these thoughts, “Furthermore, a creature’s intent is to survive and usually acts out of fear, whereas a monster makes a deliberate decision to cause pain and suffering.”

Now, sometimes these beings are inherently spiritually or physically harmful (or both!), and sometimes it is their actions (deliberate or accidental) that lends a being such a title. Some are cursed individuals spun into Races by the Gods of various worlds, some are mutants, some are simply terrible at interaction despite a better nature without any change from “normal” phenotypes or capabilities; some are new horrors, and others are old atrocities, and some are momentary misunderstood sorrows. Of course, not all creatures or monsters are hated either.

While for a very long time Terra had fewer of these- mostly accidents, Daemonic interference, or immigrating beasts via portals and other means- with the ending of the First Kingdom came a new era of self establishment for the occupants of this list and the initial need for Heroes in the first place, well before the Founding of the World Government.

In an effort to at least partially forestall this spread on the advice of a former adviser to the Eldest of Kings, the native Gods promised not to interfere for good or ill (though the Titans would not allow themselves to be beholden to such a vow). In the balance, most monsters still occur from either Infernals or the odd overabundance of what is termed “Free Magics” (if incorporating extra-local beings) or “Wild Magic” (if recording natives). Most of the energies are almost identical in many cases.

Proscribers from other Worldscapes recommend accommodation potions to deliberately mix species, but more often, some form of Alchemical or Magical meddling in the form of artificial insemination and flesh-molding accounts for significantly-different-progenitor half-breeds.

Those who cause the beings are seldom those who bear the things, you’ll understand.

Discovery and usage rather than desire dictate at least the first of a species most of the time, however unfairly.

Cultural practices and interbreeding can also lead to strange-beings, of course, which leads us to our first actual entrants (I’m sure you’re happy to be out of theory-land), the Dragons and half Draconian creatures.

Terran Dragons

For many millennia, the great Dragons have been considered among the pinnacle of the world’s inhabitants, even when their natures may have seemed base, primitive, or arrogant. Or all, in the worst cases. This is as much for their gifts as their prowess or feats.

It was discovered that some of those gifts could be kept, and others invoked, on killing the Dragon. And those that are, are these:

‘A Dragon’s Eyes will Hypnotize,

Its Tongue shall Tongues unlock,

And with the Ear one’s foes one Hears

While the Heart may freeze the clock.

The Teeth shall raise the dead to serve

The Scales are armored treasures

The Lungs can force a Wind to curve

While the Brain enhances pleasures.’

The Dragon.

Many forms and many evolutions or variations exist in many planes of the Multi-Verse. In some, they are the highest form of biological life one can imagine. In others, they amount to beasts mindlessly rampaging for sustenance, or as intelligent but animal mounts for a Rider to utilize. From the time spanning terrors that kidnapped princesses to the sage sleeping titans that could speak any language or defeat any foe fool enough to stand against them (save by cunning trickery indeed), there are more different versions of Dragons, it seems at times, then there have been individual humans.

This is because the Dragon is the Capital Letter Monster incarnate for those that fear it, and the Respect-Demanding-Creature of those that admire it. There may indeed be stronger monsters contrived, but no “Godzilla” impacts the collective unconscious like “Dragon”. They have played largely every role the Multi-Verse has to offer, somewhere, sometime. They are most well known as the villain.

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The Terran Dragon has many sub-sects. However, the following traits hold true of all of them, so it is these that we will first highlight upon.

Firstly, the Dragon is intelligent; it is also sapient. Not all intelligent creatures are sentient, as I’m certain you’re well aware; CERTAINLY not all sapients are intelligent. sapient, in this case, meaning that the Dragon may learn, that it may speak, that it may reason, that it may have the desire to create or destroy not for the sake of resource but for from emotion or whim. The fact that it can both reason and has copious, ample amounts of intellect holed up in its skull makes it a dangerous opponent to attempt to out-reason, out-think, out-learn, out-stratagem, or work with in endeavors of negotiable profit at high risk.

This said, the brain of the adult Dragon is rather surprisingly small, for all the centuries or millenia of thinking and memory it may hold, and certainly for the size of an adult Dragon’s skull. The largest Dragon brain ever recovered was no bigger than a large house cat- albeit a well fed, venerable old house cat of about twenty years and as many pounds, but still vastly smaller than one would expect from a life form with teeth often the size of adult humans.

It is reasoned, and has been proven often enough, that the ‘breath weapon glands’ and ‘magic annulling and dispensing” muscle glands around and behind the jaws and eyes are what fill the cavity. These, in conjunction with the Dragon’s brain, somehow manage to convert chemical data into magic, and magic into chemical data- thus permitting a Dragon to breath, or probably more aptly ‘exude’ or ‘expel’ various weapons like ice, fire, or acid. It also allows the being to ‘absorb’ magic that hits it dead on and use it like a meal, or, more slowly, sap it from an environment while seeping its own energies back in a remarkably harmless cycle. Unless it is the Dragon’s intent to cause harm.

The skull, needless to say, is also rather thick.

Moving past the matter of the brain and the cognitive capabilities, we come to the tongue. Like several other worlds’ Dragons, it, like the magic glands, is magical in nature. Any language the Dragon actually hears, it will thereafter be able to transpose its thoughts in aloud eloquently, as if having actually learned the language over the course of study or been born into knowing it. It is for this reason that Dragons, at least on Terra, are believed to possess the ability to speak all languages.

The truth is, they do not have the acclaimed ability, no matter how they may wish they did. They reproduce language, not learn it, nor know it. This makes talking to the deaf or mute nearly impossible for them, as their claws are not configured for such tasks as signing language at a person, but rather spearing the person. It is also much harder for a Dragon as it gets bigger to ‘learn’ languages because of two related details: First, the larger the Dragon, the more shocked and terrified the silence of those in its proximity. Second, it becomes hard for something the size of a hill or bigger to sneak close enough to hear a total stranger’s conversation.

This makes traveling a hassle after a few thousand years. No one likes being the stupid stranger in a strange land, particularly a vain-though-possibly-justified being like a Dragon that might just decide to stay home and sleep a few thousand years to forget its woes... or burn down the countryside responsible for them.

This brings us around slowly on our tour to the question, ‘how large do they get?’.

That really does depend on the subspecies and the lifespan of the individual in question, but they grow throughout their lives without ever ceasing to. What was once believed to be the smallest Dragon ever recorded, at the size of a newborn human baby at the time of its death, was later found out to be the largest and most ancient micro-Dragon to ever exist. Its younger kin are usually the size of the parasites that feed on the interiors of fleas. However, most Dragons starting life at around the size of a large canine (the animal, not the tooth), one may reasonably expect it to reach double digit ‘stories’ in count if nothing aborts its life. Triple is not unreasonable as an expectation either.

Moving on.

Dragons are scaled mammalians in nature- heavily scaled and armored like a rhino or an armadillo, though the patterning is more akin to the snake, gives birth to eggs but feeds the young with milk like a platypus, and, like the bat, is a warm-blooded flier. The wing structure is also somewhat similar to that of the bat, though a great deal larger and more durable. Their warm blood, even in the case of ice Dragons, make it almost impossible for the environments to affect the sleep of the Dragon in question.

The scales of the Dragon are highly valuable. They are more vivid and iridescent than gemstones, and extremely hard and durable- which makes shedding a painful process that can take up to a week during adolescence before the flexible under scales develop. The fire Dragons have been known to sleep contentedly in molten lava with their protection, provided their wings were above the point of the sparking and bubbling volcanic fluids. Artillery breaks upon them, let alone swords and spears.

No one is particularly sure about the origins of a different Dragon trait, which is that they are often seen to ‘glow’. Originally this was blamed on them ‘radiating magic’ or ‘shining in the fading sunlight’, which they do on occasion, though it is not the cause. The trait in question has been traced to an electrical occurrence of a chemical nature called ‘bio-luminescence’, which really only means ‘biological glow’ or ‘living light’. Whatever the reason is, it makes Dragons extremely visible, particularly in the darkness.

The color usually reflects that of their scales and their sub-species; the blues are especially pretty, by all reports.

Finally, in briefer synopsis, the following traits determine the sub-species of Dragons- “Ice”, “Water”, “Fire”, “Earth”, “Acid”, “Wind”. “Light” or “Darkness” are actually inherent qualities determined by a Dragon’s religious dispositions, but many Dragons don’t choose to believe in greater powers even if they meet them, so most do not utilize their full range of breath weapons. Generally, a Red will be a Fire, a White will be an Ice, a Blue will be a Water, a Green will be an Earth, so on and so forth, but thanks to interbreeding, magical interference, and the fact the Dragon CAN learn different magics and breath weapons if they so desire, one might well see a Red Wind or a Blue Fire.

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Addressing questions from scholars and students of Il Draconis Compendium Comprehensi, we turn to the diet of the Dragon.

Dragons are omnivorous. This, considering that from a strictly literal scientific standpoint, is not entirely surprising. All animals are omnivorous. Bovine and rodentia like rabbits eat insects. Felines and canines ingest grain, and may eat vegetation if they wish. “Carnivore” and “Herbivore” refer not to the creature’s actual capability, but its general capability and eating standards; that being said, too much meat for a rabbit or too little for a cat will harm them, of course. The same could be said for the ‘omnivorous’ human.

Indeed, if there is something that actually limits an animal’s diet, it tends to be processed scientifically or magically altered food, caffeine, or chocolate, all of which are poisons to smaller individual life forms.

However! The original question was as to the Dragon’s diet, and Dragon’s make no secret of the fact that they like meat. How the omnivorous carnivores like their meat is a matter of individual basis.

Oddly, the Fire Dragons tend toward liking their meat raw, wriggling, possibly even unchewed sometimes. Wind Dragons like a well cooked meal. Earth Dragons just chew and go about their way.

These are of course stereotypes, and exceptions exist to every rule.

The sort of meat they’re inclined to prefer also varies, from the eight legged Under-dark menaces that try to enter a Dragon’s lair from below in some cases, to the four legged equine or bovine or cattle or woods types like wolves and deer, to the two legged like Elves and Humans. They tend not to like Dwarves as much- too gritty- Illithids much (too slimy), or Vampires Phoenix Lycans- it’s hardly any fun to eat something that keeps regenerating inside you and giving you indigestion.

Water Dragons, not to be cliché, tend to like fish. If giant squids and whales count as fish. Their meals can be quite large and luxurious. Entire schools- even Academic Districts!- of fish might be devoured at a time, but in exchange, the Dragons safeguard the fish from other predators that might kill them off ‘to keep the numbers balanced’ or for profit.

A different question was, “Can they shape-shift?”.

This is something of a yes and know, or a no and know not. Much like “Can they write?” or “Can they perform intrinsic and intensive ballet?”, it is up to the individual to acquire the knowledge and skill of how to do so and utilize their talents. While many Dragons that are more magically inclined can either create the illusion of themselves in a smaller, generally bipedal form, or go further still and actually turn into a skinned individual at will of varying Races, many more do not. It is just as difficult to want to see from a different perspective as it is to learn to use claws and eyes far too large for the task to read and write, or to perform in accordance with a lesser being’s structures and movements.

Part of what gives a Dragon its haughty air is that it can, if it so wishes, learns, and applies itself.

Considering all sapient beings could make the same boast, one might expect the Dragon to tone down its attitude... or glare reproachfully at the Humans of many worlds that have the exact same attitude on this matter as the Dragon. cough Moving on again!

As to preferred habitat, we are inclined to say “cave” in this generality, simply because it sums up many options swiftly. Whether it is the bleak spires or a forested mountain or the light-less Under-dark with stalactites or a sea-shelled sandy beach with holes above and below the water line, Dragons are naturally attracted to caves. They don’t like sleeping in the open under the elements, despite their armor, not when they could have a place to store their possessions and a relatively warm and dry enclosure instead. They will go natural if they’ve no cave, but having a ‘base’ to operate from is simply a natural tendency.

In answer to age, much like Humans or Elves, Dragons do not become adults when their growth cycle is through with adolescence or when they become sexually capable of procreation and reproduction.

Instead, a Dragon is termed an adult at the end of their first century of existence, when they’ve become an ‘antique’ by some Human cultures’ references. They become an Elder at the end of their tenth millennium, and ‘ancient’ at a million years.

They may, however, begin to harness their magic and be technically capable of reproducing at the ages of ten-to-fifteen, depending on how early or late a bloomer the little mammal-lizard is.

Finally, to the questions, “Is there a Dragon conclave or some sort of connected Dragon culture? Do they always live alone?”, which are in fact both relevant and good, the response of the few Dragons willing to actually disclose these matters to scientists and wizards taking the time to study them has traditionally been to open an eye wider and yawn, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” However, young Dragons at sea or in forests have been observed hunting with and learning from parents in packs on occasion, and when Dracomancers work with Dragons they do tend to cluster into communities of families and structured units.

The more well known Dragons, and those with Riders, tend towards the solitary.

This could of course be because a singular individual name requires less time to scream then those of several…

Now, a male Dragon is also often called a Drake, and a female Dragon was (in Wa) called a Feng- Huan. In most cultures, however, a male Dragon can be referred to as a Dragon, and a female Dragon can be referred to as a Dragon, without the gender exclusive interpretations. Some contend Dragon is the female term and Drake the male term, but that depends more on the Dragons questioned than the scholars’ beliefs.

The Drakukin, the Dracokin, the Dragon-Kin, the Drag-Spawn, and the

Dragon Born

-All applicable titles to any of the following three entries-

Drakuer

Drakuer, not to be confused with the utterly different * Draugr * (which are of course a variant of Undead), are the results of interbreeding with an already-amalgam Race. If one should see a winged Naga with a breath weapon and a gift for tongues, this is a Drakuer. If one should find a scaled Hippogriff with claws and a reptilian tail, this is a Drakuer. If one should be interrogated by a Sphinx of perhaps less than feline characteristics but reticent of its nature, it might very well be a Drakuer. A Centaur with a mean jaw and razor teeth miiiiight be a Drakuer, but of course, it might have just ingested the wrong potion or lived a rough bandit life too.

So on and so forth.

When you should meet a Wyrm of strange seeming components, such as, say, a Dragon with the ears of a cat and the trunk of a snake with backward goat hooves, or a Tarrasque, or a Drake made entirely of living screaming people affixed to one another by unknown undetectable means making clear unified motion and destruction despite the writhing and outreaching of its many independent parts... these are generally Drakuer.

Drakeur do not therefore meet (obviously) any standardized appearance, number of legs, or host source. They are usually the results of experimentation and seldom integrate positively into natural or societal niches. While usually a lesser threat than their Draconian progenitor, they are often a far greater direct menace because of this.

Dravir

Dravir are born of Dragons breeding with the usual stock of bipedal Races at or above five feet of height, mainly Elves and Humans and the like. The weakest of these walk around in all manner of awkwardness, unable to retract their wings, cover their scales, or sheathe their claws. Balance and weight become aggravated problems for such unfortunates, alongside sometimes severe medical complications.

Most, however, can control themselves to some degree and manage their shapes to be no more and no less than any member of their non-Draconic progenitor Race. A half-Elf as an Elf, a half-Sidhe as a Sidhe, a half-Human as a Human, etc etc. Some of the strongest can even briefly go to the other extreme and emulate the Draconic parent, though this is rare and reputedly painful if sustained too long. (The matter of required mass vs concentration- a Dragon incessantly eating is 15% likely to be a crazed Dravir instead {and 40% likely to be a Drakuer}). (The miles of the intestine and other matter count only for so much against duration).

The Dravir who come from immortal stock have a noted tendency to vanish into the Free Magic portals. These are extremely few in number and tend to be found only on colony worlds or in unknown ones (to Terra anyway). The reasons for this are only guessed at.

A Dravir’s ears and skin tones and of course height are all variable not only by parent-species but by individual parents, but each possess some manner of claw, wing, teeth, and even breath weapon. A Dravir lacking such has either lost them, is lying to your face, is unaware of its capabilities, or is not a Dravir but the lesser Vemant (which is essentially a recessive Dravir exactly like the non-Draconic parent and gifted only with the chance to produce Dravir or part-Dravir on their own attempts at bearing offspring). Some will also bear scales and horns, whether at will or otherwise.

Dravir can produce Dravir if interbreeding with other Dravir, and potentially with a normal Sapient Race. They do tend to clutches, unfortunately, and as bipeds this makes things difficult. If enough survive they often choose to live in their own little quiet enclaves to avoid deprivation among other cultures. The problems growing their population, the often (unfortunately) justified hunting-and-expulsion or Binding of Dravir in Independent cultures, and their tendencies to wealth lust and violence in the traditional Dragon manner... well it does tend to kill most young Dravir well before they can ever consider recusing.

Lizard-Kobolds

Kobolds are the result of Draconic breeding with tunneling sorts and the Littler Races, but the first and most populous group of Kobolds are actually outworlders and and came as something of a shock to natives. Dravir experimentation came as a direct result of the Kobold Arrival. One of the largest differences between this and other groups is that out-world Kobolds are derived from Repto-Avians only, whereas homegrown Kobolds are descended from Terran Dragons instead and therefore of Reptomammalian avian stock.

To simply this, both are supposed to be winged lizards- though Kobolds of either type have only the genes for this, not the actual part- but the later generations are milk drinkers and the Terran females therefore have the appropriate physical equipment for it, while the traditional out-world females do not.

Or to be even more blunt the difference is mainly calcium deposit, warmth of blood, a little hair difference, and boobs or lack thereof.

Thank you, laymen experts. |D

Dravir did not receive this classification consideration because all Dravir mentioned prior are native stock, and therefore (even if the parent race was a reptiloid with a Dragon) all repto-mammalian avians.

Unlike Dravir, Kobolds lack any manner of wing, and their scales are soft though ablative- they are built for digging and at extreme temperatures. Their teeth are solely for flesh, unlike the omnivorous Dravir, and their claws are more blunted to allow for tunneling. All but their strongest shamans lack any form of shape-shifting and however unfortunately most Kobolds lack the intelligence to communicate- a far cry from a Parent reputed to be able to speak to anything.

Some, however, do bear breath weapons, and it is not unheard of for a Kobold born directly from Dragon rather than Kobold stock to be almost as large as a Dravir and born with much closer physical characteristics to... well, a non-Kobold posing some actual Draconic threat, really. These are usually regarded as champions and the founders of new bloodlines for the vicious little lizards. Did we mention the creepy worship of Dragons as gods, by the by? No? Yeah there’s that too.

The fast breeding Kobolds surpass Humans and Orcs (respectively, not combined) and rival Elves in number. If they weren’t eaten by almost every other monster (perhaps one of the reasons they hate everything, one supposes?) Kobolds would be both a significantly greater threat and menace than Dragons, Drakuer, and Dravir all unified together, despite extremely lesser individual capabilities physically and mentally. The Under-dark, unlike the surface lands, is therefore much more of a war-zone than is usually seen in lands claimed by the World Government- the 83% claim held by this institution extending ocean-and-down-to-core as well, of course.

They are happily cowardly, though sadly sadistic, and attack only with overwhelming odds... though they have this more often than stronger species than would be happily admitted by anyone else.

Large angry things who are giant but are not Giants and will eat you

Ogres

Huge, hideous manlike monsters that devour sapient Races, most often known for ingesting children, though many are fond of bathing in rot and ruin that would prove toxic to any less vile race. Though they are not Daemons they are inhumanly large with disproportionately large heads, abundant hair, unusual skin tones- most often puce and purple, but grays and greens are not unheard of- upon terrifyingly strong bodies, and absolutely voracious appetites. One Ogre can empty an unprepared citadel on its own, or take down a prepared small town.

This would be bad enough if they were not immensely clever to boot and riddle masters, but unfortunately, they are currently winning the Terran weapons race by an Ogress’ stride. They are not huge angry naked terrors in the night; they are instead well armed, better armored wrathful genocides in the dark. An Ogre’s crossbow would be a ballista by the standards of normal peoples and the explosive quarrels have been known to open armored decks in naval conflict.

And this would be bad enough, if they were not also shapeshifters, fully capable of assuming the forms of men and beasts quite lesser and less... foul... than themselves. A popular early tale depicts a talking cat outwitting an Ogre by use of this ability, but even more unfortunately, Ogres have taken heed of the tale and no longer suffer anyone who realizes their presence to live.

Their meals are gruesome, their torture more so, and their gratuitous breeding sex is so nauseatingly awful that witnesses have begged to be ripped limb from limb rather than be forced to witness any further.

A request more than occasionally answered, as an Ogress may become hungry from her exertions.

Fortunately for anything and everyone outside of a full Dragon classification, Ogres are hampered by their own pleasures and have very, very little virility. To such a degree that Fay look like rabbits in comparison. A new member of the Race is born perhaps once in nine hundred years, and so Ogres have had to bide their time and whet their plans- there are only thirty in the world today, goes the guess.

Seven are female.

Oni

Oni are a quite magical, quite hungry ‘Wa’ variant of Ogre that in fact began as cannibalistic Humans transformed by their crimes- and there are quite more than normal Ogres even after the Event. Oni is derived from a word meaning ‘invisible’ or ‘concealed’, and the shape-shifting Ogres hide among their former kin before devouring them in many cases. Their true form is revealed during attacks.

Depictions of Oni vary widely but usually portray them as hideous, gigantic ogre-like creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads. They are humanoid for the most part, but occasionally, they are shown with unnatural features such as odd numbers of eyes or extra fingers and toes. Their skin may be any number of colors, but red and blue are particularly common.

Many became skilled warriors by necessity, as Wa was filled with spirits and monsters to be found nowhere else. And the Sapients tough enough to survive these things. Though not possessed of mechanical and technical genius like the mainland Ogres and their cruel crafts, the proficiency of Oni as blades-men and archers surpasses that of the usual Wood Elf, and at their heights lead to utter devastation of the ancient fashion.

A few are reputed to have survived Wa’s destruction.

Trolls

Most of these creatures are actually immigrants, both the gargantuan brutes made in mockery of the guardians of nature in other worlds, and the lithe intelligent re-generators of yet others. The true terror comes from interbreeding- Hill Trolls as big as houses smart enough to do math and mean enough to grow five arms for every one hand cut off.

They are all susceptible to fire and, fortunately, it kills their regeneration. A ‘normal’ Troll also cannot transform, nor does it have horns to go with the claws and teeth. They are not known to be particularly great arms-men or usually any better at planning than (and usually worse than) the average untrained subterranean Orc (we are all aware a trained Orc is a different story entirely, but, well, that’s a different story entirely!). They cannot, like Ogres, melt armor with their breath or knock phalanx’ over with a scream. They also do not bear Ogre weapons or Ogre hide.

What they do have is near immortality and a nature impervious to almost all non-burning wounds, though lethal blows should still normally kill them if bisected or beheaded. Shy of this, hacking one to bits normally renders only several somewhat smaller Trolls growing back into full sized creatures each.

At the Mountain Troll sizes, this is not something one can afford at all if one wishes to survive.

Most Trolls have been driven underground.

Jotuns

Jotuns- the species, not the Alliance- are sometimes called Northern Trolls, but it has yet to be proven that on any occasion other than ritual that they ingest sapient flesh (though as this is recorded, that is why they appear here). We know that they are immensely skilled, immensely powerful mentally, magically, and physically, immortal, and generally confident that they can meet Gods and Demi-Gods on equal terms in-or-out of conflict. We know that they regenerate and have a rich, if secretive, culture, and that while some call them as hideous as any troll some call them absolutely beautiful.

They are believed to be capable of shape-shifting.

It is actually very rare that a Jotun, of the species, accompanies a Jotun war party, of the political affiliation- only on the very largest and most significant of the North-land raids does this occur. Men and Orcs and Centaurs make up the primary forces, and any true Jotun accompanying is meant not to command (which is the role of the Khans) but to dispatch a target that would not succumb to these.

Some say Jotuns walked the world the day the Titans and the Elder Gods were born, the earliest to colonize. Some say Jotuns came to visit while even these were still in Mother Life’s womb. They are not Fae; they are to Fae what Fae are to Halflings.

The most ancient of aliens and mysteries.

Cyclops

The Cyclops Cyclopes are large scaled and wholesale immigrants, mostly a nation made up of artisans, shepherds, and crafts-folk. They tend to be isolationist and insular. While usually peaceful if left to themselves, the one eyed giants (not Giants) do in fact make and use weapons of war, and some are known to cage and eat smaller Sapients for intruding on their properties.

They are large enough to devour two and a half men in a single meal, usually ripping the limbs apart and downing the flesh with other substances. Shepherds usually with bread and milk, carpenters with berries and fruits of the severed trees, etc etc. While not large enough to ingest a man whole, they are certainly big enough to kill him with a few chews.

By Human standards, as these are whom the one eyed multi-meter beings most resemble, the majority of these beings are coarse and homely at best. A few are truly hideous, and a few are scattered hither and yon that Humans would consider gorgeous in either gender, but most are simply a very roughshod variant of plain. This does not, of course, matter to them, as they don’t approve intrusion for any reason, let alone to judge their attractiveness.

Some thus like to depict them all as warmongers and flesh gluttons; unlike the Trolls, Oni, or Ogres, this is not in fact collectively true, though certainly small groups and individuals have been guilty of these practices.

Horses, Horse-Men, and Riders

Vatalea, Vetala, and Hippocampi

The man-eating horses called Hippocampi were bred by the living blood-drinkers called Vatalea, born of battle-mad warrior women turned into vicious cannibals by brutality and the worship of Vetala- spirits that inhabit corpses and charnel grounds, winged skeletons that eat flesh and blood. A Vetala is Undead, a Vatalea is not, and a Hippocampi is not. Claiming that blood is life as their hostile ghostly vampiric mentors instructed, Vatalea have evolved to fangs over centuries of tainted magic and cultural practices, though curiously none have ever been known to become Vetala themselves.

Both Hippocampi and Vatalea boast larger muscles, greater vitality, and more beauty (however twisted) than their origin species... which lets them kill and feed more, and make more Vetala through their twisted murder sprees, in a vicious cycle.

Despite this both living species lack supernatural powers or prowess besides those abilities that host and support their gruesome diets. There is no shape-shifting nor special dominion nor regeneration, and while their strength is massive, an actual Vetala or Vampire would best them hand over ripped off fist in every field. They are also not susceptible to the more mystic and holy means of weakening Undead and fairly resistant to most physical means of killing someone, with an unholy amount of nerve-response detachment and muscle tolerance besides their vigor.

Attempts at stabbing, poisoning, and hanging a Vatalea to merely find it wandering about as normal later have given rise to the inevitable implications of course, but these are untrue. They are simply very tough bastards. Some have become legends because of this.

Negrabyrd a famed male who set into piracy, took seventeen cutlass slashes-and-stabs, eight lethal bullet wounds, and one mild case of being set on fire when authorities came to call. He kept fighting for another nine hours until beheaded from decapitated from behind. The story goes that like a chicken with its head cut off his body kept running about viciously assaulting everything in its circular path for another two minutes before the blood finally finished left his body, and he collapsed stone dead. In death he slew his killer and seven men more... or so says the ghost tale.

This is a little obvious for them, however.

Their preferred method, however, is to capture, season, fatten, and drain unsuspecting beings near their camps. They toss the flesh and meat to their Hippocampi to dispose of when sure every drop of claret is eked from the marrow, and the monster equines leave no trace that there ever was a victim. In times before the World Government they were occasionally bold enough to even attack small villages instead of lying in wait in the wilderness for solitary stragglers.

In such cases Vetala were rapidly produced by desecrating the entire site and torturing the meals to bits first so that the angry dead would enter the graves already in place, which the oldest Undead would exhort to murdering mayhem instead of revenge while they were still in shock from the experience.

This of course flooded their ranks and swelled their destructive capability. Which caused even more devastation by the blood cult.

However, their own forces were sometimes decimated or even annihilated if one of these villages had a worse monster than themselves, or if one of their Vetala masters (or creations) turned on them, or if the village simply had enough (or skilled enough) forces to hold out. They thus had to act carefully, and it was far less common than one might fear. It is also quite easier to starve out a Vatalea than a normal being, as the same tainted magic forces the living cultists to drink blood of course.

Now, they have been driven into the remaining wild-and-Independent States, and at any indication in the united nation are purged during resurgence.

Some creatures are born when magic or science go awry, and some are made for higher purposes and fall.

Centaurs

Centaurs are immigrants from many realms, but connected in most cases originally to “Earth” and variant worlds discovered therefrom or feeding therefrom. Half Sapient and half equine, usually with the body of a horse up until where the neck would be and then a human-or-Elven torso replacing it completely upwards, they are known for their academic and martial pursuits.

It doesn’t matter that the Centaur is born on of very different world’s stock- all of the horse-folk can make fauns and fillies with any of the other horse-folk.

Zebras have been seen as bottom halves instead, leading to speculation of the rule being rather of Half Sapients and half Ungulates, which could explain half deer as well.

They have to eat for both bellies, wherever their origin, and breeding is a matter of some... interesting applications. Supposedly many of the Jotun Alliance (not the Jotun Race) have interbred with non- Centaur members without issue, but these are widely regarded as drinking or horror stories. A Human Khan that can keep a Centaur satisfied is ever so mildly terrifying for that alone.

Archery tends to be a noted strong suit along with their size, and most will not condescend to be ridden.

Hippogriffs

Flying horses, often mislabeled pegasi, after the Pegasus or Paegazeus. Winged horses. Sometimes, holy winged horses. Sometimes, talking winged horses. Sometimes, holy talking winged horses. But the point we really must impart here, is winged horses.

Golems and Constructs

Golems

The Golem was an artificially anthropomorphic but animate religious construct made of dust, clay, stone, or metal, and charged to defend. Though generally bipedal, many are amorphic and unformed, lacking most basic details and any congruency to living features. The first was name as such- literally translated, “My unfinished form”- as opposed to the Ad-am that made it, or “the Man of Dust”.

They are billed largely as automatons that follow every order without question and exactly as instructed, incapable of independent actions or desires.

Unfortunately there is of course the small problem of the source of the energies that animate them.

Many are made with spirits of those who were killed, and go insane eventually. Others of that sort simply grow to desire more than violence as they develop past automation to sapience in the long years.

Others still want, just want, without any knowledge or reason for desire and break.

At any point a Golem becomes self-aware or sapient, whether broken or not- but usually because they have broken- it is called instead an Unfinished Man, in tribute to the source name and the acknowledgment that (however rudimentary) it is now a person.

Golems do not retain genders.

It is mostly Dwarves who make, sell, and use Golems these days, and because Golems are not entitled to speak opinions (or often even built to speak) most Dwarves genuinely believe Golems are simply automatons. The massive made men do not perform almost any of the functions or desires necessary for a biological’s homeostasis or reproduction, tend to make excellent (if mindless) anti-magic weapons and occasionally are even grafted with crystals that generate such, and until (or unless) they break can defend a populace from almost any physical foe.

Golems are also the definitive weapon of choice against Undead if a settlement has them, with no chance whatsoever of infection and more than enough strength-and-speed to dispatch most lesser threats... and to distract most greater ones.

• Flesh * Golems, on the other hand, tend to be of standard Racial sizes and solely made-and-used by perverted magic deviants. They can be made for a variety of purposes and functions, some of which emulate true biologicals, some of which neither the real living OR Undead can accommodate, but are not terribly useful as guards or servants for most tasks. Whether they need to feed or are capable of pain depends entirely on how completely their crafter made them to be. They are interesting but tend to be annoyingly mindless, unless designed with personalities.

Of Wild Spirits

Far more potent are the Wild Spirits, usually nature spirits gone awry with their examples torn down in front of them. Of the Greater Spirits the Gods are reclusive, the Kami are almost extinct after the destruction of the Land of Wa, the Djinn are either enslaved or in hiding for the most part, and the Fae are... well, fey, wood, mad. The more peaceful remnants of these lesser spiritual embodiments remaining generally remain with their kin- things like Elementals, Naiads, Dryads, Taleeo and Asalain.

Elementals

A prime example are the Elementals in fact. Those gone wild don’t remain in their roles or stations out there. They grow hostile and territorial.

A massive, apparently limbed forest fire swatting a house out of existence is more than likely an angry Elemental. A mudslide that screams curses as it smothers a caravan is more than likely an wrathful Elemental. A wave lifting and splintering a flagship in waters manifested as a hand, thousands of tons of materials splitting between the clenching fingers, is either Mnemonides’ Bellatrix on a bad day or very possibly a crazed Elemental.

So on and so forth.

A still flame that does not appear to burn the bush it rests upon is very visibly different from all that, no? Or snow that swerves gently out of your path rather than pulling you under. Rain that sings in the sunlight and dances in the puddles…

Yes, the difference between the ambient Elementals and the hostile ones is marked indeed- but more have to be enslaved or dispatched every year. It was not merely man and flora and fauna that needed care-taking. Poor, pitiful incarnations of nature- the Greater Spirits were necessary. Are necessary.

And then we have the other Wild sorts.

Guardians of Water, Plant, Air, and Song

As in many worlds, Naiads and Undine are water spirits, and Dryads are tree spirits, both here born of Mother Life in the Fifth, final, and continuously growing generation grouping of spirits. Their powers, weaknesses, and natures are intrinsic to their assignment. Most trees and plants bear both sexual organs and their spirits do also, and most Naiads are feminine but of either normal gender, and most Undine are as gender-less as the water they project from.

Because they can harm these three sorts are often conscripted by necessity to safeguard nature spirits who cannot or should not commit violence themselves.

They are aided in this by a limited form of telepathy when their sources are linked, and of course many bodies of water are directly linked, and many trees grow from the water and waterfront, and many plants mingle roots or even directly graft together. Indeed some networks can see together in hundreds of places at once!

And the forests are usually watching, whether benevolently, indifferently, or with hostility.

The marked difference between a {Spriggan; Drumaling; Ent; Lichen} and a Dryad is that the former four caretaker species are their physical plants and often self-mobile, thereby collectively called “Tree-Walkers” or any number of variations on the title, and Dryads are instead spirits that manifest from a physical plants as a bipedal if treeish distinctly separate individual- though they can appear as part of their plant, too. Or, in one case, the tree moves, and in the other case, the tree stays still while a spirit moves and marks the world for it.

The Asalain fulfill a similar role with dirt to that of the Dryads and Naiads, though many have ceased to manifest- not dead, you understand, but embarrassingly confused about how to look and act in the midst of farming and roadwork. If ever you should hear an odd squat gender-less fellow flattening your field with ‘his’ clothes rolled up all the wrong way and an arm moved perhaps to the middle of the yard opposite, you’ve probably accidentally rearranged an Asalain’s grounds. But Asalain have learned to cope most of the time; almost everything moves and alters dirt.

Mydea fill this role in swamps and bogs, though they tend to be larger and far more interested in sucking down intruders.

Neither are responsible for the ground eating people in the Shambalaa woods, however.

Oddest and sweetest of all are the Taleoo, reputedly spirits of sound and music that serve in similar roles to the other inhabitation-guardians, but there are no recorded cases of a Taleeoo harming anyone in any way through all of history. Rather, they tend to inspire dreams and actions and desires opposite to a being’s intentions in them, and without need for violence might turn a thief into a fervent guardian, a would-be rapist into a lifelong chastity priest, a woodsman to a gardener, a soldier to a shepherd.

Though invisible themselves they are regarded and revered as beautiful.

When singing in the Dwarven lyrium they have even been known to cause heroism and charity, and with such wonder that the afflicted Dwarves hardly even grumble about it.

Sadly there are only seven of these, though there were ever only seven and apparently there will only ever be seven. Their leader begins and ends every height and depth of their songs, the sole figure to serve twice in every scaling attempt, and it is called “Doe” while the others are “Rey”, “Mei”, “Fah”, “So”, “La”, and “Ti”. They ride the waves of sound across, above, and under the known world, both the songs in the deep and the arias in the air. Even Aridimes has never been able to predict where they would next appear.

For all this, though they have been only beneficial themselves, they are included here because crazed beings longing to hear them have sacrificed and slaughtered in desperate attempts to summon and Bind them. Minstrels who never had the chance have been known to suicide knowing that they missed epitome of their craft. It is terrible to struggle at making something of worth and knowing that there is something out there, living glorious incarnate music, that never fails to touch a heart or change a life.

Of Strange-beings

Luminya

The Luminya are a bipedal people of light, originating from nothing, eating nothing, serving no role but their own; to a point they are the fastest beings on planet, provided there is not shadow or darkness to block their progress. So long as there are hydrogen traces in their reach they can refresh their existence, though they will expire without aid if stuck too long without a means to refresh. Not starve; starving implies both hunger and duration.

They will simply wink from existence.

They speak in colors on their own but can illuminate specific word-scrawls on surfaces to communicate with non-Luminya, and tend to serve as messengers for this capability. They reach a height of seven feet and split into seven separate one-foot young-ling Luminya when at the height of their cycle, should nothing befoul them before then. They are gender-less and most cannot focus enough to damage anything.

They only make this list in fact because of one Y’ll’oAo’ll’Y, who recently became the Masque Y.

“Her”- we have never been able to discern gender among them or a need for it with their asexual reproduction, but the report from them is definitely a “Her”- crime was to focus her arm into a beam and cleave a man in half. There was no resistance. One moment he was a whole armored Knight yelling at her with shield in hand, and the next two cauterized stumps lay there smoking, the very bone cleaved instantly through without a give. And suddenly the local light-folk became an object of great scrutiny indeed.

Y’ll’oAo’ll’Y has proven ‘her’ entire body to have the same strange cleaving, burning-sword or perhaps light-plasma-saber like effect when concentrated enough. The Luminya became more than feared when her latest test had Y confront no fewer than three Ogres, whom she elected to simply leap through.

They died of the six foot silhouette burnt through their torsos without even enough time to try to roar.

Only the most polished mirrors and the thickest barriers may stop her, other than potent darkness.

(It is whispered that C might not be able to kill Y, whereas Y would be be able to dispatch the Vampire as many times as she regenerated. Unless, of course, the resourceful C had her umbrella, or had dug into the ground in animal wise, or covered the Luminya in a canopy of shadows from a multitude of her forms, or they met in a dark alley in a moonless night. Actually, Y wins if there is already light present in most of those Y does, given the shade-fear.)

Y is desperate to learn a way to spit ‘her’ essence, both to keep from splitting and to kill distant opponents or light the way before it, if it only could.

Al’mir’aj

Al’mir’aj are small yellow rabbits with a single horn protruding from the center of their heads, widely feared for both their aggression and their strange capabilities. One of the best known of these is swallowing beasts and men several times their own size alive and whole, with “beast” here to be read as, “on a scale from same-sized rabbit up to bloody hell nah camels”. They are also known to gore and bite without any provocation to their little bunny bodies.

Al’mir’aj have been known to ingest even armed and armored sapients without hesitation.

A long time ago they were sealed into a specific island in the middle of the Great Desert’s largest oasis by powerful wizards, the rodents breeding too fast and fighting too fiercely to otherwise check or exterminate even with specialized spells, and there they remain. Under-dark goblins whine that the tunnelers have gotten down there but there has been no substantiated proof of hare-y encounters in the depths of the world.

These lapine are particularly amusing to Dragons and a favorite snack of Ogres, who are too big to fear harm.

Of Fae and Fai and Free Magic

Fey

But then there are the Free magics so unknowable to us that they are named such- fey, meaning wild, crazy, and capricious. This became the Fae, and the Fai for “Fair Folk” was chosen by their lighter hearted members later, one of several key designators of their moral stances- the darker residents of stories reside in the Faerie Realm and the lighter in the outside world. Fairies mostly live in the Black Forest and smaller woodlands.

They are harder to study than outworlders. They are in fact the least understood of all magical peoples and one of the world’s greater mysteries, though unlike Jotuns they are native. They are found in countless varieties (of which you get only a few, Panda, or this would be longer still by a great deal!), sizes, and types, and Faerie itself emulates all environments of the real Terra.

Both claim only their own wild natures, not any actual moral alignment as mortals would understand, though it is true that Fae relish cruelty more and Fai bask in kindness. But these are entirely decided by an individual’s point of view. Some would view a broken bird and, honestly, a Fai might break its neck to spare it suffering while the Fae might feed it and take care of it for months without fixing the wing but providing it life and pleasure amongst the suffering. Granted, most Fai would instead try to care-take and most Fae would try to vivisect and use it, but this is simply an analogy.

The two Fey subspecies are both known for their cunning and sense of humor, and for delight in trickery.

Three major types of magics do they bear for themselves, and are famed for, and these are: +Illusions

+Dimensional

+Biological

These are however interpreted in different ways. A Sidhe’s dimensional magics let it create miniature worlds called “Planes” or “Realms”, such as the great Land of Fae itself, though usually smaller. A Pixie’s dimensional magics, on the other hand, let it alter the size and proportions of beings and objects instead. And a Dullahan’s dimensional magics allow it to travel through obstacles like walls, time, people, and traditional magic barriers, even to violate the Home laws- which usually make houses sanctuaries against all but the scariest Undead or Fae.

Each type of Fey interprets these differently, with many magics, and many rituals, but almost all powers- transformations, elemental assaults, flight, good fortune or ill- are born and borne of these three simple classifications.

A Fey cannot lie without losing its identity. This is due to illusions (mostly glamours) being their first and most instinctive power in every case, and while they can change reality for everyone else, if they force themselves to believe a full untruth of their own they can no longer maintain their sense of self.

They fade, becoming nothing more than the ghost of the mockery of an apparition.

Contrary to this barrier on magical and non-magical dealing discouraging deception, this makes it a far greater pleasure to most Fae and Fai- they must learn to use the truth to lie, to omit, and to hint in misleading ways, and can often be far more adept at it than even an imaginative liar. It has also led to complex policies twisted and interpreted often enough to their own ends. If there’s one thing Fae at least adore, it is a game of thrones, toppled kingdoms and broken hearts drowning in dramatics and subtle intrigue.

These usually only tangentially affect the outer world but as a move can still have effects centuries after the play are considered dangerously unstable for everyone else and a source of great concern.

Fey will always exactly follow the letter of any promise made, but the results are usually delivered with great irony, and anyone who expects differently ought consult “Working with Devils, Fey, and Jinn 101: DON’T”, by Sir Malavor Crossworthy.

Clurichants

Clurichants, not to be confused with Claurichauns, are makers and shapers, those who construct and those who teach. This is their nature and their purpose- not to guard, nor nor to keep, nor care for, but to begin and to advance. They stand on all thresholds and on all things called old when meaning abandoned, and at all gates in all called new- for better or worse.

Their work alone is testament to their existence, notes slipped from invisible hands, tools left scattered, walls and cities built without a footprint.

No one talks to the Clurichants and no one can.

Non-Lizard Kobolds

A variant of House-Fae, generally helpful, if ugly; like unto Gnomes in appearance but more harmless in diet; notorious merchants.

Dullahan, the Bridge of Wild and Death

Dullahans are headless. Although the Dullahan has no head upon its shoulders, he carries it with him, either on the saddle-brow of his horse or upraised in his right hand. The head is the color and texture of stale dough or moldy cheese, and quite smooth. A hideous, idiotic grin splits the face from ear to ear, and the eyes, which are small and black, dart about like malignant flies. The entire head glows with the phosphorescence of decaying matter and the creature may use it as a lantern to guide its way along the darkened lane-ways and the countryside. Wherever the Dullahan stops, a mortal dies.

The Dullahan is possessed of supernatural sight. By holding his severed head aloft, he can see for vast distances across the countryside, even on the darkest night. Using this power, she can spy the house of a dying person, no matter where it lies. Those who watch from their windows to see him pass are rewarded for their pains by having a basin of blood thrown in their faces, or by being struck blind in one eye.

A Dullahan is usually mounted on a black steed, which thunders through the night. She uses a human spine as a whip. The horse sends out sparks and flames from its nostrils as it charges forth. In some parts of the more developed countries, the Dullahan drives a black coach known as the coach-a-bower (from the Ire-ish coiste bodhar, meaning ‘deaf or silent coach’). This is drawn by six black horses, and travels so fast that the friction created by its movement often sets on fire the bushes along the sides of the road. All gates fly open to let rider and coach through, no matter how firmly they are locked, so no one is truly safe from the attentions of this Faery.

This strange Fae is born what others would consider Undead and is a close servant of real Death, considered a potential source of the other variants, and has a limited power of speech. Its disembodied head is permitted to speak just once on each journey it undertakes, and then has only the ability to call the name of the person whose death it heralds. A Dullahan will stop its snorting horse before the door of a house and shout the name of the person about to die, drawing forth the soul at the call. He may also stop at the very spot where a person will die. On nights of Ire-ish feast days, it is advisable to stay at home with the curtains drawn; while many of the Land of Ire’s creatures are deadly, this one is most active at such times.

Unlike the Banshee, the Dullahan does not pursue specific families and its call is a summoning of the soul of a dying person rather than a death warning. There is no real defense against the Dullahan because he is death’s herald. However, an artifact made of gold may frighten her away, for Dullahan’s appear to have an irrational fear of this precious metal.

Apparition

Directly related are the Apparitions- memories of things that were, and things that are, and things that may yet be... and worst, things that might have been. They are difficult to study, not appearing in patterns or at will, in far different durations and on different subjects, and often only on cracked portions of reality.

Most are scenes and stories.

There is a known living Sapient one, with a will and capable of actions.

It feeds on the terror of the flesh half the time, and upon the meat-Races themselves the other half of the time. An illusion or something one merely believes oneself to see is a “bogey”, and something one rejects as false has thus become “bogus”; but the Bogey Man has made all nightmare very real for some of its victims. This being something of an overly generalized statement, allow us to clarify- the Bogey Man has eaten hardened Daemon Princes of the darkest Abysses with its dread efforts, caused Powers and Principalities to abandon their roles and divinity both to spare their lives, laid low crowns and kingdoms in terrors that swallowed lands.

Some claim Death themselves fear to approach to claim the victims’ souls, lest this abominable apparition manage their end as well. Children have been taken in broad daylight and once a Giant was reported to almost survive being subsumed with a great deal of effort in the night. But the Bogey Man thrives most not upon the home-world in the Terra of Perilious Alpha, but through the Free Magic portals, with colonies trying to face the fear of the unknown and in the worlds from which many monsters immigrated.

Boggarts

Ancient, mischievous illusion spirits believed to be lesser and less harmful Bogey Men, and perhaps even baby apparitions or Bogey Folk. Jokesters, pranksters, and bringers of (admittedly occasionally cruel) humor, they are not known to be malicious or malevolent and do not incite harm deliberately. An out of control little session might still kill a fragile living being, of course.

There are also such examples as Duende, various Yokai, Sprites, Dokkebi, Kelpie, Sidhe, Mesuline, Pixies, Paxies, Merrow, Brownies, Morgen, Nakki, Selkies, Sylphs, Undine, Aossi, Vodyanoi, Baenshrae, Bwg, Boggils, and more- do some research into your own cultures’ Fey if you have time and submit them for approval, kiddies! (I am genuinely surprised if any sane being made it this far) Races not included but similar are:

Leprechauns and Claurichauns (not to be confused with Claurichants), who can lie, but share many of the same abilities and natures; some have even whispered that the first Ogre was a mutated Claurichaun and if one is ever too terribly enraged again it might unlock the full potential, but this is largely the stuff of barroom laughter. If they could really use biological abilities for such most of the men of Ire would probably abuse it more often, if only to ingest even more drink. One never knows though.

Amalgamation Creatures

Amalgamated creatures were mentioned prior. Most of these are immigrants (and Centaurs technically fall under this category on both counts) or experiments, alchemical or magical (under which fall Drakeur). Some very, very few are natives.

Of the natives, most originated in the Kingdom of Wa in the Japans, in the overabundance of Wild Magic that Kami generated. This also brought about a number of the world’s more magical beasts and many Henge (or shape-shifters).

Nāga

Nāga is Sanskrit for “Cobra” but more often denotates the snake in general, and in most fantasy high or low denotates a snake person. These are often shape shifters who can wholly or partially become snakes, but in many cases, are akin to the Lamia of other cultures in that they are at all times half snake and half Sapient (these also tend to significantly larger in proportion than their general species to match the trunk but meh). Unlike the Naga of the Japons and the Land of Wa, a Nāga is not a snake with the head of a woman, though some Nāga may in fact become such.

They are often known to eat folk whole, but the Sapient half need not be carnivorous predators.

Tanuki

A Tanuki is a raccoon dog native to Wa, or was, and a shape-shifter besides in that Land of Little Gods.

They are remembered for having ridiculously sized testes in their natural and Human forms, and for having great irreverence in a very tradition-and-respect steeped culture. Jokester and prankster sort.

Inu

More properly Inugami, unless an Inuyasha, and either way a dog shapeshifter what becomes something. The one becomes people and the other a demon. Honestly much the same as a Tanuki, but more canid (clearly) and with more emphasis on teeth, not genital arrangements. Used as a colloquial term it also includes part beings with dog attributes and actual Lycanthropes of some varieties.

Unfortunately, Inu are largely considered ghost tales and demons, despite lighter hearted interpretations; they are usually born when an animal dies of cruelty or abuse, and that animal’s spirit takes over the master’s form, changing it physically and mentally in an act of post-death vengeance.

Oddly, despite these origins, fully non-ghost Inu were reported as a breeding species on Wa before KABOOOMMMMMMMGHHTORRAOGHOHPPAWWAAAAAAAAAAH-Boom happened.

Neko

And the Bakeneko or Nekomata is a full cat of much the same description as the former, but of feline features!

Hebi

Because Wa’s Naga tend to be of the snake body type, their Hebi take on the traditional Sanskrit Naga role... though in much the same description as the former, but of snake features! ; Mujina:

Read the former three and replace with: Badgers!

Tsuchigomo:

Read the former entry and follow its instructions as to the prior three for it, but with Spiders! Notice:

A Drider is half Drow.

For all other half or partial spider freaks, consult the Tsuchigomo.

Kitsune

Li’l fox godlings of much the same descriptions as the former, but, with the addition of having powers measurable to number of tails.

Alchemically created Monotreme fellas include the-

Griffin

Griffin, a two hearted massive beast with the front half of a giant eagle that could eat a man, and the back half of a lion;

Leogriff

Leogriff, a two hearted massive beast with the wingless front half of a giant lion that could eat a man, and the back half of an eagle;

Chimera

Chimera, a beast with the heads of a ram lion and dragon respectively, the body of an armored bear, and with a dual headed snake for a tail;

Manticore

Manticore, a lion with iron wings, the head of a man, a rail shooting poisoned iron stinger, and gods awful breath;

Androsphinx

The Sphinx, or truthfully rather the Andro-Sphinx in this case, was a massive forty-foot-tall amalgam with the head and upper body of a stunningly beautiful golden-haired woman, the lower body of a strong and muscular lioness, and the wings of a magnificent golden eagle. Her skin, from her face to her arms to her ample chest, was a luscious golden brown hue that glistened ever slightly with the glow of eternal youth. Her hands were at once feminine and feline, her fingernails sharpened to claw-like points. Just below her navel, her golden brown skin transitioned to the light golden fur that covered her waist and back and powerful feline legs. Her tail swished gently, at times appearing to have a mind of its own. Massive wings lay folded atop her back, occasionally stretching or flexing as she walked.

From a safe distance, she was a beautiful and majestic wonder to behold. Up close, however, The Sphinx could be seen for the cunning, voracious, and extremely efficient predator she was, though usually not for very long.

Out-lander Spirits who get No Description Whatsoever are:

Infernals Daemons

Succubi, Incubi, Sincubi, Imps, Du’sien, Eidolon, Hellbeasts, Drevak, Hellions, Kuri, Rahab, Raum, Whax, Shax, Vetis, Vermithrall, Demons, Devils, Archdemons, Archdevils, Great Demons, Great Devils, Princes of a Hell or Abyss, Demonic Over-Deity;

Heavenly Hosts

Angels, Archangels, Cerubim, Seraphim, Gregoli, Nephilim, Powers Dominions Principalities Virtues, Ophanim, Demi-God, Lesser God, Greater God, Prince of Gods, Non-Terran Over Deities The origins and intents of Terra’s Angels are entirely unknown, but they are a formidable force indeed.

Abandon preconceptions of singing choirs or cherubs; they will help you not a wit here. Abandon also any context of mercy or weakness.

No one commands the Angels simply by will; they have free will as much or more than anyone. The same is true of those of Earth; how could they choose to follow Lucifer and become Demons- or, even, how could Lucifer choose to betray- if they had not the right to choose? Sometimes the choices can be devastating.

It is of these and their like it is written that they had to warn, “DO NOT BE AFRAID, FOR...”... for they are intimidating, powerful, and you are royally screwed if they’re visiting you without a good message for you.

The Djinn are nature spirits when all is said and done. They make things better.

The Angels?

War spirits. Like the Valkyries. But merely like, not akin to.

Flaming swords, burning coals and scrolls in their mouths, incandescent luminescent eyes, and even more massive in presence than in stature, though their stature is great indeed. Robes and armor so blinding as to scorch and literally blind. The singing of their throats shakes fortress walls, the trumpets of their armies split continents asunder at the volume and force, and the sound of their drums of war mark the deaths of entire ecosystems or stars.

An Angel does not appear lightly. Their battles are mostly confined to the Celestial Expanse, the Heavens, and the myriad paths of the Multi-Verse; fighting on a inhabited planet occurs only in desperate straights. They don’t bother with the Undead or the wicked born of flesh, much of the time; their battle is with the equally eternal and omnipresent Demons that are or were their brethren.

It’s unfair to call it a creature of Terra, really, because they seldom appear and certainly didn’t originate there. At the same time, they’re certainly one of the impacts on the history of its star system and main world, and much of the universe around. To Terrans, an Angel isn’t a symbol of redemption or choice or salvation or the myriad positive emotions attached to a gentle symbol; they’re quite possibly the most terrifying thing one can look at and live, bar none.

Demons at least are evil, but Angels are a completely different kind of heart-palpitating fear.

Magical Beasts and Talking Animals Who Are Not Shape-shifters, Fey, or

Amalgamated Creatures:

The Wild Hairy Haggis

The wild hairy Haggis referenced is not the foul-tasting sheep-stomach broiled meal of Scott’s Lands.

Rather, it is a cousin of the Bunyip, and a fearsome fiend. A shrieking puffy fuzzball of carnage with limbs and eyes entirely hidden in its shock of hair, dwelling on hilltops, hilltops, and mountainsides. It has not yet been determined if it is at all a sentient or sapient being, but many of its capabilities are known.

With extreme speed it can burrow and re-emerge from grounds ranging from loose sand to hard granite, digging about a spherical meter and a half around its body in all directions in about a given three-and-half seconds, and filling in the hole behind it with its furious rate of back-pushing forward barriers. Its antennae inform it of creatures in air or soil to attempt to consume, and its unseen teeth do so in what (from the bite wounds of a few survivors) is believed to be a roughly circular mouth filled with seven jagged teeth. No Haggis body has ever been recovered to prove this theory, but the varying pressures at the angles placed make it out to be seven equidistant punctures simultaneously, not chewing and turning at varying angles.

Its true power lies in its voice, or rather, its paralyzing scream, which incites the nerves of its victims to activate at each and every pressure point along the body. For a few hideous moments the body is not merely rendered to useless meat in this sonic assault but filled with more pain then the claws and teeth could ever actually render themselves. The final chews- two to a Dwarf or ‘Chaun, three to a man, four or five to a Troll- are actually a mercy, shutting down the victims’ agonized bodies one severed section at a time and allowing shock to set in.

Because the assault is not a mental reaction to a disliked noise but an active vibration, sonic dampeners and ear plugs never have and never will stop a Haggis.

It is the most terrifying little fluffy you will ever meet and has driven grown Mandragoras-and- Banshees to weep in jealousy.

Cockatrice

The Cockatrice is a beast of yore as much as lore, though found under seemingly impossible scenarios.

It is born of a rooster’s egg tended and hatched by a toad under the light of an eclipsing moon. It is called a dragon, as it has both scales and wings, but most Dragons reject this rather violently.

The trunk is serpentine, as are the wings, but it has the head and legs of a rooster. Many are its strange powers, from the breath of death to its deadly touch, but the most famous is its petrifying gaze.

Anything beheld by the darting-death eye of Cockatrice is turned on the spot to stone, and the living, thereby slain.

Few ways exist to kill it. Weasels and their kin are immune to its gaze, while fortunately the Cockatrice itself is not; ferreting it out with trained ones or using a mirror can therefore end the menace without risk of higher life (unless, of course, it is a Talking Animal, but that is neither here nor there). The cry of the father who laid it may drive it into the Deaths’ arms as well, but of no other rooster may there be such surety as its true parent, and poultry should not be considered viable as a means.

Tossing the creature’s egg over a home or religious institution may, depending on the variant of Old Law, end it before it begins.

The Henatrice is merely the female variant.

Basilisk

The Basilisk, King of Snakes, is a small white serpent of the desert caves; if you met one so large as your arm, I would be amazed indeed. In many respects he resembles the Kings of Cobras, save that his scales are more iridescent, his eyes more human, his teeth more numerous, and that on both sides his hood bears a startlingly realistic red crown. In every means that the Cockatrice is grotesque on mere appearance in its unnatural nature, the Basilisk bears a sort of lethal grace and beauty.

Their breath is not deadly, but blessed with a manner much like the tongues of Dragons; if they speak, they are understood, regardless of creature or dialect. Their gaze is not deadly as the Cockatrice’s, but rather, to look on them oneself is to turn to stone and die. All the same, all that lives nearby it withers and wastes from its sheer poison and wickedness, despite the beauty- and so potent is the agent that, stabbing it from horseback at distance with a lance, the lance, horse, and man alike would corrode and die alike from the first touch.

The Sea Serpent

“The water swirled and parted, trailing off of a massive tendril of hide stretching up from the water in a mighty spray as the creature’s tail emerged, as long as out own vessel with no sign of the head.

Rainbow pattered scales in the pattern of a coral snake glimmered in the light through the deluge of water as a massive head emerged and hissed down at us with teeth as thick as the mast, sharp as reefs, yellow with poison as the sun was bright, and gleaming as the ivory they were. The head seemed to unfold, to our shock and horror, as it puffed out a massive hood unexpectedly that blocked the light from we below it and turned the rainbows into dark swirls of grainy color as its liquid trinitrotoluene yellow eyes glowed at us, seeming to project their own harsh light through the bleak shadow it cast on our eyes and souls.

Then the great Sea Serpent, like the King Cobra its head bespoke, lunged forward at vicious lightning speed, and the ship was no more. I survived solely through chance, washed into a pack of dolphins that swam in the Serpent’s wake, and the angry reptile did not pursue the porpoises.” This was the account not of terrified and sea-suspicious superstitious sailors, but of hardy and trustworthy Sea Elves that had sailed the stretch for many years, and they had substantial- and substantiated- evidence of their encounter. There is a set reward for any being who can tame, Bind, or defeat the mighty Sea Serpent and the other singular gargantuan entities.

The Leviathan

Far in the darkest depths of the deepest abysses of the sea, there is a place where the only light there is comes from the fish that dwell there, and where strange and monstrous creatures rear heads unrecognizable and distorted to the eyes of the surface dwellers. Here, too, there dwell wonders, and the strongest souls of the oceans. Here there be monsters and the unique.

The Leviathan was, to try to place it succinctly, the single largest Orca Whale one could imagine, more than seven times the size of a blue whale.

It was not in formation one’s normal Orca Whale any more than it was normal in size, however; to begin, the typically black portions and patterns of the Orca were gold, and the whites were a gleaming silver.

In addition to the normal dorsal and swimming fins, the Leviathan bore the fins of a shark directly behind and below these, with long green bio-luminescent spines along its spine glowing through the darkness like a series of self powered lamps.

Nine rows of teeth filled its massive mouth, whiskers akin to those of a catfish but thick as the tentacles of squids, and massive whale eyes the size of houses supported by small humanoid eyes under and around them completed the display.

The Kraken

Far in the darkest depths of the deepest abysses of the sea, there is a place where the only light there is comes from the fish that dwell there, and where strange and monstrous creatures rear heads unrecognizable and distorted to the eyes of the surface dwellers. Here, too, there dwell wonders, and the strongest souls of the oceans. Here there be monsters and the unique.

Here too exists a giant squid with thirty-seven tentacles, six eyes, and a body-mass one could reasonably fit a steeple and cathedral into. Long sharp needle teeth devoured they prey it consumed and pursued in its indefatigable and voracious hunts, a sharp ‘beak’ chittered into the sea and to its many normal smaller kin incessantly, and bio-luminescent glowing lights blossomed from the suckers all over its body. The Kraken.

It was and is a massive creature with tentacles measured in fathoms rather than feet, but, more plainly, amounting to a predatory electric squid.

The Kraken was a russet red in skin tint with aqua iris-ed googling eyes, and is “the” because we desperately pray there is not actually more than one.

Behemoth

An oasis-like swamp, muddy, but dry and dry of border. A massive river tinged in green and trees around the sides, but thick, and slow, like a pond. There lurks the Behemoth.

An amphibious critter living twixt the freshwater and the marshland, at least in organic arrangement as far as we can tell, it is infinitely fouler than any mere frog or toad. It was a strange mixture with the shape of a hippopotamus, the horn of a rhinoceros, the jaws and scales of the crocodile, the tail of the beaver, and the arms of a humanoid giant. And these arms each had three thumbs upon their twisting hands. A single big, blue eye without pupil or definition blinked lazily in the middle of its forehead, and two little eyes in the usual place of the fish goggled upon the world. And shark-like teeth, though sparse, jaggedly filled its cavernous yawning maw.

It is called ‘the’ Behemoth for the reason that, firstly, its colossal immensity is such that even Giants scarcely reach its hip on tip-toes, and secondly, because it is the only member living of its kind. Some feel one is too many, and debate whether it is native or Daemonic. To keep it asleep (though those disturbing building-plus sized eyes never close), its ever feeding maw consumes such quantities of food as there are no terms for, beyond the weight of worlds in tons, and portals are housed that keep its bulk and- food alike extraneous to the world.

If it ever roused and fully entered the world its scale is such that it would not eat cities, but realms, and again- it never stops eating.

Insofar as Terra has been made aware there is no way to kill or wholly excise the Behemoth.

Phoenix (es?)

Skreeeeeeeee is the angry noise, nocturnal, smells of sweet and burnt like a campfire pit filled with charring marshmallows. Physical Appearance has been debated by separate wanderers.

“Like I said, a glorified songbird. Long, elegant wing and tail feathers. Normally jewel-like shades of yellow, orange, red, but bursts into flame while singing or angry or scared,” answers Nem O’Nides of the Lark Legion of Healers.

“High above the world in its fiery volcanic lair, the dire phoenix surveys the greenery encroaching on its carefully scorched and seared domain. It launches its massive frame into the hazy air, its fiery plumage leaving an illusion of flames streaking across the night sky. It cocks its eagle like head from side to side as it finds the best angle of approach. It tilts it’s powerful wings with flame resistant feathers and goes in for the kill. The monster’s chest expands, mixing the oxygen and an accelerant naturally secreted by the the bird. On the down stroke, the mixture is expelled forcefully and, with a snap of the steel like beak, a spark ignites it. Flame pours onto the land, scaring it to perfection. The foolish villagers have been reprimanded and the Phoenix flies sedated back to the glowing mountain,” recounts the Storyteller Annie Mia to a avid audience of children.

“What’s it look like? I told you all about what it looks like. I cited an Eagle specifically. Remember also mentioning some traits of Cormorants... But I believe I stressed that the predatory features are predominant. In that, namely talons as opposed to aquatic-adapted birdie feet,” claims Jack Novi, a well-known wanderer and jack-of-all-trades.

“Bright-orange yellow red plumage. The odd appearance of the tips of every feather being bright burning

Embers, but no real fire ever obvious... Plus an obviously intelligent look to its eyes.

Luminescent at night, but seems to be a voluntary phenomenon, as when taking up roost it doesn’t go and keep glowing like a lantern all the time. Maybe pseudo-sentient.” Jack here paused to take a swig of a substance currently unidentified. “Obviously can’t understand human speech, but seems to recognize particular words and phrases. But then, there are some really dumb dogs that can do that too.

It’s more like monkeys. Learns, clearly thinks, but not quite there. For example, trying to trap it is going to be a largely pointless affair. Since if you try anything similar to what’s been attempted before, it’ll know... And it’ll probably be pissed.”

Jack finishes, “It’s around the size of a man. It’s height. Big birdie. Wingspan to match that, which would be... rather large. Though, for its body size, the wings are relatively small. They look like they’re more for quick maneuvering and speed than the long hauls of an albatross. But obviously well-adapted to a bit of gliding too.”

“It’s a close cousin to the Quetzal bird,” answers Shula, a Amber mage at the Arcane Academia, “At least in looks. It’s a magic bird. It’s an herbivore, with a red crystal at the center of its chest, and a body and plumage made of radiant green flames and energy. Blue and white flames appear in some few places on its body, and its tail is more than twice as long as its chest and head.” “It’s like a condor, but it has wings like an albatross, and it’s massive. You could fit an Orc into its beak fine. It’s made of fire you know. Beak is fire. Wings are fire. Eggs are fire. Orange and red and white, blazing like a demon, bright as heaven. Can’t miss it,” answers Thard, a ‘Civilized Orc’. “There are rumors it can turn into a red haired woman, though...”

Lava Salamander

Lava Salamander: Red, white when hot, volcano-dwelling leathery creatures immune to combustion and volatile materials that emit fire from their breath, eat gems, and are the size of horse drawn carriages at birth. Have been mistaken by particularly stupid explorers for Dragons, despite not being sapient, winged, or inclined to meat.

@Topios ‘ Capra-Hircentipede

Created by the Alchemist Topios, this series of beasts resides in the Under-dark.

It has a massive brown, centipede like body with an insectoid-like goat head, gaping jaws, and constantly dripping poisoned saliva. The sockets of the ram-skull are filled with the faceted eyes of an tsete fly like insect but the pupils, each, of the wide-staring goat. Two long, curling horns like a ram, and many, many behooved feet perfect for crushing prey. Akin to the Rhino in height and breadth, but more to a road in length- five hundred meters long.

Sapient Races prior touched upon

Eldar Elvanhen Elfkinder Elf-folk Elvenkind Elven-folk Elves There are seven types of Elves on Terra, for starters, each with their own characteristics and appearances. The Drow, normally identified as “Dark Elves”, are not actually counted in this list. Here, at a brief explanation, shall we begin.

All share the phenotype of being tall and lean by the standards of Humans.

The first, and generally most common, are the Mountain Elves. Their hair is gray as a granite slate, their eyes as glinting and hard as marble, and their frames, while slender after the manner of Elves, are considerably more jagged and rugged than those of the others. Mountain Elves are those who most often war with those who live below the mountains, such as the Drow, Vampires, Ithillids, Illithids, Deep Fae, and various creatures of the Under-dark. The culture and lifespan of the Mountain Elves changes even less than the face of the rocks they live upon, though the gray skinned men and women are known to have been one of the latest and last made.

The second, though first created, supposedly, are the Forest Elves. Wood Elves are another of their titles, Tree Elves a third. Highly adaptive, intelligent, and stealthy, Forest Elves are very much at home in both the light autumn forest of the day, and the dark, murky depths of the woods by night. Forest Elves are hunters by nature, and are usually brown skinned, brown haired, and brown eyed, though variants are known that adapt to the color and even ‘design’ of the bark of the tree they live around.

White willows, black ash, Shannae’ red, and others are sub-variants of the Wood Elves, who have largely forsaken training mortals but still maintain extremely open negotiations with them.

The third are the Sand Elves. Despite their name, Sand Elves more often live on the plains than in the desert proper, but they are named such because of their golden skin, eyes of the desert’s stark blue skies, and gold hair. Once upon a time, and even now for sheltered sapients, there was an erroneous belief that ‘desert’ and ‘yellow sand everywhere’ meant the same thing. Thus “Sand Elves” stuck better than “Mostly Gold but mostly unshiny Elves”. Besides, there are cities of the Sand Elves in the desert, both this dusty variant of barrenness and the many other actual barren deserts of the world- ice wastes and the like. (This sometimes brings them into conflict with the Tundra Elves, of course.) They deal with heat a good deal better than Forest Elves and with change a good deal better than the Mountain Elves.

The fourth are the Sea Elves, who have skin of a greenish tint or as white as the face of the moon in the water’s reflection at night. Unlike the Mountain or Forest Elves, and like the Sand Elves, the nomer ‘Sea Elves’ is somewhat misleading. They do not live in the sea or ocean. They do not live upon its shores either. Better labeled ‘Sailing Elves’, Sea Elves live on the ocean, in floating Arks and cities.

Many Sea Elves never so much as set their foot on land, and because of an instinctual calling in the blood to the sea, other Races of Elves have been known to migrate as individuals and join them. While the land Elves of course eat land animals and produce, the Sea Elves eat fish, sea-poultry like gulls, shell-fish, and the weeds and carbuncles of the water. Also the occasional kraken.

The fifth are the Sky Elves. Sky Elves are blue, with green eyes, and shockingly orange hair. Sky Elves are unrelated to the Mountain Elves, and it’s uncertain where their eyries and rookeries are; it scarcely matters, because as their name implies, most of the time if they are to be found they are to be found in the sky. Whether on the backs of griffins and Rocs and great eagles and the occasional willing Dragon, or using spell-work to fly themselves, or wings from infused magi-science, or, far more recently, the rare aircraft or spacecraft, the sheer need for altitude and speed defines them. They’re frequently bored and reinvent their culture, but a massive project proposed to them by the World Government has kept them excited and occupied for the last hundred years; they are to provide the means to colonize other planets, traverse and fly through space. They like this plan. They’ve been doing their jobs well for awhile.

The sixth are the Tundra Elves. They live in the ‘black ice’ of the frozen wastes, wherever these may be; they are a scattered and unorganized people, and yet curiously uniform in their tactics and apparel.

Tundra Elves do not match their adapted environment well. Their skin, like that of the Drow descended from them, is black, and unlike Drow their hair is also black. They live in lands primarily made up of dark grays, light grays, and whites. Their clothing is thus made in said colors; it also coats them head to toe in furry gear. Tundra Elves are the only type of the seven to not have any serving the World Government or living in lands under it’s sway, but they honestly couldn’t care less one way or another.

Tundra Elves are violently xenophobic and kill anyone who enters their lands.

The seventh are the City Elves. These are considered a separate Race from their forebear six because they abandon their environments and any native customs to go create their own life separate from it.

Not quite as hated by their peoples as Vampiric Exiles are by Vampires, but City Elves are not very popular.

Having covered introductions, what of diet, and history?

If you studied the skull of a Terran Elf, which would be harder to do than you might imagine (due to their own resilience, longevity, power, and the fact that any nearby Djinn would automatically convert it into plant nutrients in their way)- but if you did, you would find that the dental structure at least was similar in all of the types to that of a Human or a Dwarf. The jaw frame is more angular and delicate than either, and the individual teeth are smaller than a Dwarf’s would be for certain, but they are nonetheless clearly designed as a mix of flora grinding and flesh tearing units. They are all technical omnivores.

Stopping the show dead for a moment, let’s slap a usual misnomer in the face. Almost all life forms are, in fact, technical omnivores- they eat from multiple categorizations of food, in differing amounts, for different bodily needs. The terms that decide what it is actually entitled in a scientific study are “preferential”- what it wants to eat- and “obligatory”- what its body demands in greater abundance. For example:

A cow will eat ants, aphids, beetles, and other insects among the grass and chaff to bolster its protein and its teeth, but a cow is also quite clearly not built to be predatory toward anything larger, and in fact its body is made to break down vegetation. Too little meat and it will become sick, but too much and it will definitely suffer some pretty unpleasant side effects. So while it is a technical omnivore, it is both a preferential and an obligatory herbivore.

A cat is more stubborn, and will eat grass for its eyes, grain on a regular basis, flowers to increase fur luster, even sometimes fruit if the individual is curious enough. Its digestive tract is for meat, but without vegetation, a cat knows it will become far less efficient as a hunter. Because it chooses to attack and eat vegetation and meat alike, it is a technical and preferential omnivore, but it is an obligatory carnivore for certain in the build of its digestive organs and will almost infinitely prefer meat. Too much grain and flora will also sicken the poor feline’s system, and most cats are lactose intolerant despite popular cultural hype.

Returning to the matter at hand.

Elves are often known as vegetarians and this may be true for individuals who discover other sources of protein, but culturally they are and have been preferential as well as technical omnivores, though unlike humans they are also obligatory herbivores. This means even their hunters and greatest bloodshedders eat 70% vegetation to every 30% meat, and as they clean and use every part of every kill, there are very few animals that die to feed their communities. They also learned to salt and preserve a kill early on, as otherwise the Jinn teaching them language simply converted every kill (unintentionally) into sod-stuffs that the peeved Elves could not consume.

Salt is a traditional counter to deterioration or magical dis-and-re-assembly. It is used to prevent Undead with looser shapes (transformer types, Vampires, whatnot) access to something or someone, to enhance those that need worry about rot (Ghouls, Zombies, whatnot), to prevent a field from bearing harvest, to prevent meat from going (or being turned into something else), and even (though less in the more advanced eras) to help clean and treat injuries. It is a valuable resource.

The Sea Elves have several different types of salt, but most do not actually fit the nutrient needs of this Sodium Chloride. For this, the Mountain Elves are actually the most fortunate of the several peoples, and usually supply them. Naturally, Forest Elves and surprisingly Sand Elves would scarcely find any halite to make Sodium Nitrate in their own domains, and thus are greatly indebted to their kin. As for Tundra Elves, scholars don’t know.

Fish from streams, rivers, and the ocean play a pivotal role in almost all diets of the Eldar except the Sand or Tundra. The first weapons of the world were designed for deer and squirrels, however, and the Forest Elves still hunt them to this day. Bread made of nuts or brine or bale are equally abundant by which you refer to.

And of course fruit is treasured.

Culturally they are proud. The first woken physical immortals, save through grief or injury- age could not claim them, nor disease, if there even was disease. The first people taught language by their older spirit-and-physical kin. The first people to invent and innovate beyond their words, to bring music and art into the world, and please all the world with their offerings.

The first to invent killing and weapons, but not, they are proud to say, the first to wage war.

Dwarves beat them to ‘first to smithy’, to their eternal regret.

Once established in an area they tend to roam it but not to migrate. Prior events have made many leery of establishing even their own cities, and it is easier to wander than to choose attachment to a structure that might fail them. A pity, for their works used to amaze the surface world, and the Drow still build spires such as one wishes one might see.

Humans

Variant is the key word to the Human.

Leaving aside half-Humans, amalgamations, and experiments, Humans come primarily in shades of the colors pink, yellow, red, and brown. The actual pigmentation depends as much on environmental exposure as genetics, and can vary through several shades for even the same individual, let alone the general ethnicity. Their fur-and-or-hair extends through a wide array of coloration, generally of ‘brunettes’, ‘blondes’, ‘gingers auburn’, ‘graying’, and ‘raven’ varieties. Facial patterns and hair are also-

thump Out! Now! They’re reading it, and they already knowww. sigh Silly Gnome. Let’s just

erase the last forty minutes of those descriptions and grab him…

distant Oll’ivi’ier, I didn’t mean it! Come back! I’ll pay triple!... I’ll give you lunch breaks in

The future Notes! Look, it’s just silly to tell them… rather badly, might I add… what they generally look like. Just focus on something else. Alright? sounds of trotting and disappearance into the nether respectively The role of Humans is questionable, given the extensive recreation and outright destruction of many historical accounts, but the commonly ascribed one is that the average individual was to a point ignorant of metaphysical activities and individuals. Moreover, many acts and peoples of even simple magical nature were concealed or more often obscured to the vision of their fellows; why this should be, and why apparently most other races did not share this altered vision, is as yet unknown. It should be noted that some could see their wider world- the other world, some claim- to varying degrees and established quite a grand tradition of stories and practices based upon it.

It was claimed that these sages, mages, heroes, and or freaks had “The Sight”, the term that their descendants still use to describe the phenomena, although extra-human scholars contend that it was rather their fellows who were afflicted with “The Blindness”- a seemingly obvious but subtly significant point, as it would therefore make those with the Sight members of the world’s greater majority, and only the singular shuttered Race excluded.

At some point, usually within the century that ‘The World Government’ was declared, the Founder somehow induced a mass-evolutionary change in the Human Race, the most obvious result of which was that every newborn member thenceforward was ‘gifted’ with the Sight.

The reason for this is contended, but given the wide array of services Human laborers provide- and the fact that of all Races, they are the most transitory and prone to transition or transformation transfiguration in migratory patterns, cultures, and actual physical nature (IE, best base for altering magically or physically, for whatever reason)- it’s most often ascribed a matter of cold imperious practicality more than empathy or kindness. Disregarding the Jotuns and focusing solely on the Pangaeic residents for now (or else the following sentence would be outright fabrication) the Founder achieved the remarkable task of both uniting the Humans and eliminating their previous cultural identities, bringing a united front into a then-fractured world.

Despite many Human shortcomings- fewer numbers than many neighboring Races, fewer natural and unnatural abilities, shorter lifespan, less environmental adaptations, formerly ‘The Blindness’- this imposed solidarity, alongside their willingness to sacrifice (quite a bit greater than those beings with centuries of emotion tied into their cares) helped them adjust and even prosper in this new world order.

They also made ideal patsies and puppets for government positions, as most would be dead of age or other causes before an Elven baby left its youth. Their tendency toward change- both their gift and their curse, some feel- also left them to them works of that nature.

Unfortunately, many settlements are not recorded on maps. In some cases, a town will undergo as many as four name alterations during the time it takes to finish a full census of the territories, and others may treble in size, be abandoned, or be destroyed- as examples, not recurring instances. Some nationals, like the wandering tribes or entertainer caravans, couldn’t truly be recorded even if all of the villages were! It should be noted even so that some mixed-culture locations are well known and static, at least as far as name and location. Heliopolis is one such, though the World Capital really ought to be, don’cha’think. Moneio is another, after some seven decades of rule by an Undead figure and neighbors of nonhuman persuasion both living and post-living; despite being still considered a village in size, Moneio is a famed example of whole-hearted cooperation, and a rather proud one. The Human-only City-State of Karristice is almost the opposite- one of the few places anywhere, even including the Jotun alliances, where not a single other Race is represented.

Karristice is a principle of some degree of shame to everyone but Karristice, but a provision of the early interactions was that if they so chose Humans could abandon the strange new world they’d been thrust into. Those that choose to forsake the company of the strange magics of the Wyrd, at least those of Human stock, may retreat to Karristice and a simpler existence as long as they please.

It is a city of the willingly intolerant or ignorant, the afraid, and those who choose blindness to ignore that which they can’t bear. It is a place of bigotry and bias, but for tolerance to exist, it must be abided.

Truthfully, it may be required for more than just abstract reasons of morality, mortality, and treaties.

Not every culture respects Humanity. Experiments and feeding on them is, in fact, the highest of all such examples, to an unfortunate extent.

Many consider the Human to be a sort of Template, being the most recent of the natural Races, and again the most prone to be altered into anything else. Whether for a specific Race yet to come, or simply as a love-song to evolution, the opinions differ. A good chunk of the world’s undead are definitely former Human stock, as are some of the more interesting examples of magical mischief gone awry.

Not all of the inhabitants of the Pangaea are World-Government, either, of course. Independents like the Fae, Ithillids, and (formerly, now, due to a Human) once the Vampires all have their own opinions and general policies. Sometimes, these make a village disappear.

Humans have fought back, fairly successfully on the whole, since before they could even See what their foes were or what they were doing. A matter of some pride. Most of the Masques over time were also Human, or former Human in some cases, a fact they haven’t forgotten.

If the Founder was not responsible for the invention of modern Binding, its universally accepted that the Humans were, though as with every major change it usually is attributed to the absent Founder.

They also established the Ceremonial Guards for the Gods- but why is unknown. It is known certain weapons are claimed capable of ending the existence of a deity, but whether this has been previously proven and forgotten is unknown.

Orcs, Crorcs, Goblins

When thinking about civilized sapient species, the Orc is not the first name that comes to mind. This is because there are no such things as civilized Orcs, only Orcs given technology in some cases, whereupon they immediately claim a different physical appearance and even fiercer demeanor, as seen with the Uruk, the Urgal, the Orcristim, and the Ork. Or so most of the Multi-verse holds, and for most of the Multi-verse, this is in fact true.

As per usual, with Terra, it is a bit different.

To clarify things further- as Terra is a common name among worlds- it is the Terra of Perrious Alpha, in the Multi-Verse. It has been a rather long time since that was specified, and confusing matters would be confusing, wouldn’t it? At any rate, it is of this particular Terra that all of these Terran notes and stories were written. It is a sub-world of a galactic coalition called the Nuukleia Affinita; Terrans are most often seen in the roles of security and exploration in the outside ‘Verse. Officially, their space exploration has just started; unofficially speaking, they’ve been at it for a good century and a half. Which, considering most of the native Races to Terra are long-lived or immortal, really does make it “Just Started” to most of them.

The World Government controls a good eighty percent of Terra, not the whole world, despite the implications of the name. They do not recognize the wider coalition as a sovereign, more a trading partner. Terrans have traveled to other worlds on prior occasion without space travel. Portals, warped magics, summonings, holes in time and space, being brought by gods for whatever reason to accomplish whatever reason... etc. The idea comes across, yes? Of the eighty percent of the world controlled as part of the same entity, a tenth of the population are the Civilized Orc, as they have been deemed; they call themselves the Crorc. The Crorc make up two percent of all known Orcs on Terra. Most are still the same savages known and (insert emotion here) by everyone everywhere who knows of them, akin to their kin in every way.

Crorc(s) live in hand built houses of wood, stone, and clay. They wear clothing, even eye-wear, and can usually be trusted not to devour one’s young or cats, even if they are often a disagreeable sort anyway.

Their height and native ferocity, as well as the general lack of skill to enforce this natural hate, has made them excellent for manual jobs- hacking the earth to plow it, ripping trees to saw into material, guarding bank vaults where it is expected no one will ever bother to rob it. The works. Oddly, they also make good librarians, though they are the LAST Race anyone of anywhere would expect to be interested in the maintaining and safekeeping of books.

They are like lawyers; useful, but not liked.

They can live with that- they don’t like the other Races any more.

Orcs, on the other hand, generally live underground or in ruins of previous civilizations. They are compelled to destroy to honor their gods and their blood-lust. Many Orcs never remove their armor, even to maintain it. Some, who consider such armor a detriment, simply wear nothing. They are bloody bloodstained raiders, murderers, cannibals, and often (despite their beliefs) cowards. They hate their Civilized kin as much as they hate Dwarves, and the rest of the universe comes second to these. They serve no useful function, breed fast, and try to spread carnage wherever they may come.

Orc numbers are kept down often because they never make it to the surface. The Dwarves are not their only subterranean foe; the Deep Fae, the Duergar, the Ithillids, the Drow, and the majority of the Vampires also live underground, and can subdue and sometimes subsist on the creatures readily. If a significant force does escape into the wider world, adventurers, Masques, the formal army, or the local militias dispose of them. Most often the Masques.

Theirs is a sad, sad lot; most will never change, and will be born to the sword, live by the sword, and often- and as often by fighting other Orcs as any single opponent- they will die by the sword.

Their cousins, the hobgoblin and goblin, are every bit as vicious, but about half the size, and about double the cunning and intellect.

These are an interesting case.

There are no goblins technically considered civilized, but neither are they all wholly barbaric, and one could best summarize the less malevolent as makers and partakers of mischief. The ones who will willingly discuss and deal with other sapient Races surface-side will never deign, as the Crorcs do, to take a conventional job or home or place in society. Instead, they run the sporadic fairs that pop up, the circuses, the gypsy caravans, and various forms of entertainment where they can rob and torture and humiliate as they please... and receive pay and accolade for it, moreover.

Goblin clowns are not the most subtle creatures, nor their gypsies, but they do manage their role with some degree of satisfaction, and the better rings do not wind up cracked down on and slaughtered for their crimes. Of course, the better ones are not comprised wholly of goblins, and actually manage to pay for their damages and place in society while still firmly profiting. But we digress.

The species come in all manner of coloration and sizes; green, brown, and gray are predominant.

For all their vaunted lack of individual skill with a blade, they can often slaughter quite well with them, and they are exceptional archers. If there’s a seam in a suit of armor, a ring-hole, a gap, their arrows will eventually find it. Unless they’re killed first. They don’t match Elves for talent at it or for speed, but tenacity and numbers are enough to make their already notable skill in it quite lethal.

Terran Giants

Giants come in a variety of palettes and appearances, but most often resemble the Human ones for skin tone, ethnicity, eye coloration, and structural tendencies.

Giants are a slow breeding, long lived, well educated Race. Their customs rival that of Drow for complexity of society, though with the altruistic benefactor neighborly nature commonly attributed to the Hobbit-inclined Halflings of the world. That is to say, Giants and Giantesses are known for being nice, and not in the manner a feared enforcer might be called a ‘protector’.

When thinking of time, with the giants, one could feasibly see it like the old Testament- the modern stats but sans decimal points. Noah being still fertile at five hundred forty years, or modern, fifty four years; Methuselah being over nine hundred and ninety nine years, which would be ninety nine for Americans. The like.

It would take two hundred for that Giant or Giantess to be considered adult when grown.

In the same manner of extensions, ‘long’ in reference to the breeding gestation is horribly drawn out, with two hundred to two hundred seventy nine months duration- nine months by thirty one days or thirty one days each American, which is not strictly accurate. To place this in context, consider that there are twelve months in a year, and one hundred and twenty months in a decade.

‘Slow breeding’ refers to the fact they carry children longer than two decades when they can even have them- the pregnancy rate is at best 35% per attempt. And without care there may be complications.

Twenty years is a damn long time to be careful.

They are the big hearted group. Not just literally, but in the figurative, empathetic sense. They are Terra’s bleeding hearts and tree-huggers.

This brings us to the allegations of eating people alive, grinding their bones to make their bread, gutting them and serving them like shrimp popcorn. Etc. “Mudman pies”, “Marshwiggle stews”, whathaveyou.

This is… mostly… not true. Almost entirely. Certainly they don’t keep recipes for the things.

Throwing aside all consideration of the poor terrified victim and their feelings about the matter, we must first examine those of the one eating them. In order to do so, whether for Giants, Human cannibals, or any other manner of being eating another sapient being, they must either have an extreme belief that overwhelms their compunctions about the matter, not consider the victim a person, not notice that it is a living and sentient being devoured, or be so sadistic and cruel as to enjoy the thoughts of the pain and suffering brought to the victim and relations thereof for the sake of a meal upon the eater’s part. We have already established that Terran Giants, at least, are certainly not by nature sadists or cruel.

They have, in fact, rituals to the opposite; they tend to view smaller societies as something to be taken care of, pets to aid or invalids needing nurture. This rules out the extreme beliefs and many of the pagan rituals and recipes. So let us examine their rules for a ‘living and sapient being’.

In the first place, it must think, and it must prove that it can think by speaking. Giants reason that if something can speak in an understood tongue, the being must be reasonably as smart as themselves, and thus eliminated from the menu.

… Thus, they have been known to let parrots fly away alive, and to roast mimes.

No one’s perfect.

It is either the failure to speak, or not noticing that something has somehow wound up mired in a pudding, sandwich, or other food that usually gets someone eaten. Which is regrettable. It not only causes great suffering to the victim, but massive emotional trauma to the one that ate him, too, if it was discovered. Which, like sharks, it usually is discovered at the taste of blood that something was not right with the meal, and, like sharks, Giants will generally refuse to eat the rest and even flee the scene even if it should prove the scene is their home- on said unpleasant discovery.

It is akin to the thought of a PETA member suddenly discovering they had bitten a gerbil’s head off, but worse. Far worse. What if the victim had a family that will never see them again? What was their job? Their hopes? Dreams? Did they have a lover who now cries themselves to sleep nightly, not knowing the person of their affection will never return now?

It’s maddening. To even imagine their imaginings in the morbid, sordid guilt of the worst manner of desecration imaginable, and their simple love for what they’ve destroyed tarnished in the most horrid accidental way possible, is maddening. You try it.

This is NOT to say they’re harmless. Far from it. But the particular method and one of the most famous attributed them actually occurs very seldomly. Your chances are higher of winding up in another world, finding a Genie, or suddenly and inexplicably turning into a God than being eaten, at least by Giants.

This brings us to the many methods of harm available, peaceful nurturers or no.

For starters, a midget is around eighty feet in height. A tall man or woman might reach three hundred or two seventy in height. A “giant” among the Giants, like the basketball players of Earth, might be from three fifty to four hundred. Most giants are a comfortable range of one hundred to two sixty feet in height.

Needless to say, a kick from one is not something one survives. Or being stepped on by accident. But some forms of weaponry are barred because of size.

Swords have been proven to simply snap after a certain length when swung- most of the time, said length is agreed upon as twelve feet of steel, perhaps fifteen titanium, and with Elven treating techniques, possibly thirty for either. Such a small weapon would do no good even for the midgets, and certain laws of the Multi-verse and momentum are irrevocable.

Hammers, mallets, and maces, on the other hand, are favored self defense tools of the Giant, and are usually handy for building things as well; these tend to be measured in the range of ‘stories’ like buildings.

Artillery is also something Giants are known for; what would be a gargantuan Ballista, Tremiere, or catapult to another people might be a crossbow or a slingshot to one. “Hand cannons” like magnums are quite frequently Naval sea cannons, even shell guns or mortars. And Giants are known to use ‘modern’ weaponry often, as the famed of medieval cause so much destruction in their hands, and they do not often approve destruction.

Hohen, n. altitude, height, distance from bottom to top; highness, quality of being high, tallness; level, degree

Heim, n. world

Together, these words comprise the word Hohenheim- literally, ‘the giant world’, ‘the big land’, ‘the highest place’.

Hohenheim is the name of the Land of Giants, home of the race of Giants and the giant-kind. It resides, with the Black Forest, in the center of Terra’s Pangaea, and is irrevocably massive- comparing it to Asia would be unkind to Hohenheim. The population is extremely small, however, some two thousand nine hundred thirty three individuals.

They tend to be highly intelligent, adaptive, and innovative, but not necessarily inventive- thus even their more creative name for Giant-land really just meaning Giant-land.

This is something of an odd concept outside of linguistics. For example. If you introduced them to the concept of a ‘microwave’, they would be able to formulate schematics, build it, adjust their lives to it even and operate it- but they would never come up with the idea on their own. They could understand it, adjust it, improve it, but they could not actually invent it, per se.

Not for lack of imagination or of thought, either. They aren’t mindless, nor parasites, nor scavengers of technology or culture. This simply compounds the oddness of how simple they and their approach to creation can be.

Something- no one knows what, but something- is lacking in their minds, and it is not emotion, nor thought. It is believed it is simply the spark of inspiration. Perhaps it is zealous drive.

And in the end perhaps that is a good thing- if they went into extremes they could very easily devastate.

A single can of contact poison like the ‘RAID’ of the Humans of Earth could wipe out entire armies of smaller beings without a single loss to the Giants- much less more violent weapons of war. They do bear, as prior mentioned, giant weapons of their own, but these are wholly for defense.

+Stair Notes *

Take the first step. There are few things in the world that can so overawe that thought itself stills at their magnitude; among the physical things are Dwarven structures, Giant statures, and Dragons. Many things are striking, of course, but they can often be... worked through, sorted, enveloped with enough preparation and thought.

Facts exist to help to compensate. To rationalize. To comprehend. Even in the deepest pits of horror, woe, or weariness, it is words that are offered the brain- sympathies, platitudes, gestures, advice, comfort.

Things to wrap the mind around.

To understand tragedy or the nature of the world is not to condone or to forgive it, just as understanding the reason of the waterfall removes neither its magic nor its danger.

So take the first step.

The, literal, first step.

A cubit is some forty five centimeters or eighteen inches; this means, of course, that it is some foot and a half, and almost half a meter. The step?

Twenty cubits high. One hundred cubits long. Forty cubits thick.

Behind it, rising, soaring, is another. Forty cubits high. One hundred cubits long. Sixty cubits thick.

And towering beyond this- sixty cubits high, one hundred cubits long, eighty cubits thick. And so on, and so forth, cleaving the sky, gleaming through the clouds. Mithril sub-layered black marble, inlaid with obsidian, compressed and hardened with magi-science as only the greatest Dwarven Smiths and Alchemists may wield. Too dense and too heavy for any weight to break.

Individually, as pretty as they might be and as large, they’re only big shining rectangles. Admittedly the size of buildings, at the smallest, but still simple structures for all that. It is the cumulative effect that makes the Giant’s Staircase a mind blowing marvel, of all the scope and stature of both Dwarven architecture and massive scale of Honenheim’s inhabitants... and possibly the only known location in the world where the Dwarves might have crafted a little too small on their overarching goals.

Along the center track, carved carefully within so as not to trip the... larger... travelers, is a long set of stairs carved one foot long by one foot high, up for miles at the proper scale for Man and Elves. It is by far the greatest used set, as most trade and service with Honenheim is carried out by the many Races of similar size, and the Giants are generally content to remain in the one place where everything is of normal height to them.

Avoiding stepping on horses, one is told, can grow wearisome for the Giant worker or tourist outside of Honenheim. Riding those of their own size is far preferable and rather more pleasant.

Tower high and tower thick, the individual banisters of the mighty railing would each and all make formidable citadels if they had been hollowed out and fortified instead of left to support the entrance to the city. The sheer amount of re-compressed solid steel is forged from has been accused of altering planetary weight, magnetism, and even weather patterns to some degree- but even if they wished to, it would take both member Races of their construction years to undo the work of the centuries of construction. And neither appears to want to.

To the rest of the Pangaea, it seems that Honenheim is a mountain plateau surrounded by a forest so humongous that the rock is completely obscured until one is up the steps. The Giants contend that their land is a plain, complete with its own hills, on equal ground with the majority of the Black Forest’s roots- that there is a valley subsequent around where the largest trees grow from rather lower roots, but that they are hardly as high as the mountain would ascribe. Given just how small most of the world is in comparison, it isn’t likely that the two views will ever really be reconciled.

If it weren’t for their pacific nature, strange symbiotic relationship with Dwarves, and the fact they export the majority of the continent’s sustenance, they would never have survived long enough to earn majesty carved into every block of their homeland; the smaller, quicker, more violent Races would long ago have made war until every last head bigger than a carriage was severed and staked. As it is, any attempt on them would have devastating results- grain and vegetation would drop by eighty-eight percent, and meat stocks of several varieties would fall respectively by upward of fifty percent each (one by as much as ninety-one percent). The Dwarves and their allies, too, would rally to their defense.

Not one clan.

The Hill, Mountain, Plain, Dale, City, Sky, Under-dark, Unter-Neath, Traveling, Tinker. Every Clan, of every subspecies, of every Dwarf sworn into the pact between the two. Regardless of morality or political standing, the two Races are united deeply together, deeper than even Clan hate or love of gold.

There are stories of why Dwarf and Giant are bonded so, some true, some false. Most are attempts to explain the unlikely events that caused it. Most are nowhere near as interesting as the truth.

It’s nowhere near as interesting as the real story, of course, but that’s a matter for another time.

Local Deific Arrangements

Djinn Notes

There are many spirits. Arguably the most important are the Djinni. These are the third generation of spirits, somewhere between the Elder Gods and Younger.

These beings are given so-called ‘ultimate cosmic power’, in that they have the ability to alter reality, but they are not able to exercise this at will. It is an unconscious ability, always in use, as the Djiin are to Terra what the Ents and their like are to forests. They maintain it, guard it, grow it.

Why is there no pollution on Terra?

Djiini.

Why is there seldom disease on Terra, and usually easily cured? Djinni.

Why does the ground not die, the rivers dry, the bodies molder where they fall as on other worlds? Why do the clouds continue to rain even in the desert, and the flowers grow even on the mountainsides of sheer and solid rock? Why have so many inhabitants not thoroughly corrupted and ruined the world with their machinations, machines, and magics?

Djinni, Djinni, and twice-more Djinni.

While other of the celestial beings might well be more powerful, older, or more involved as aspects, it is the Djinn that micromanage and support Terra. They are seldom thanked for it. They are also seldom seen and becoming rarer.

Djinni may have slightly selfish reasons for their care-taking. They themselves can survive on sunlight, on rain, on the aura of nature. While they can eat more conventional and unconventional foods, like sandwiches, fruit, or enemies on occasion, their normal diet is subsisted simply of experiences with living things. It stands to reason, then, that they would do everything in their power (conscious and unconscious) to keep things hale and healthy.

Though their powers alter reality’s consequences from sapient decisions, even those of simple viral or bacterial life forms, Djinn cannot utilize their powers consciously without risking their own destruction, and can hurt themselves majorly trying to defend themselves. And why, do you ask, would they need to defend themselves?

... Because of Genies.

Or, rather, the Binding magics which turn them into Genies, which are an entirely different Race (as considered by these notes).

You see, Genies retain the ultimate cosmic power of Djinn- that of the alteration of reality- but are no longer free to exercise it either unconsciously or at their own will. They can solely utilize it for the fulfillment of a Master’s command. They are slaves, eternal slaves, Bound to an object and summoned by use.

There are three wishes granted, no more, no less, and a wish constituting of wishing for more wishes simply does not get counted as a wish.

Needless to say, a Genie is seldom friendly to a Master or pleased about their state. While most are mischievous and misinterpret their Master’s orders in embarrassing or amusing ways, some Genies become downright evil and twist them to the worst outcome they can. And all Genies seek loopholes to mess with a wish. They’ve little else to do.

Vaguarity, which most people slip into unconsciously, or generality, which is common in speech, are easily manipulated weaknesses.

For instance, one might wish for ‘a hot girlfriend’ and wind up next to a woman in the process of being immolated.

Or one might wish for money, and find sharp ridged metal currency raining from the sky upon one’s person.

One might wish for immortality, and find out the hard way that eternal youth is something entirely different as one ages throughout the ages.

One might wish death upon one’s enemies, and find too late that one’s greatest enemy is often oneself.

Any generality or vaguarity may be manipulated... and often harshly.

This works against the Genie, however, should they encounter a Master willing to free them. If the wish was simply, “I wish the Genie was free”, the Genie would be free.... But still a Genie.

To properly reverse the process and revert them to Djinn, the magic on the containing item must first be polarized, and then the Genie wished free under their own name. Most Genies never bother to give their name, as names have power, and the last thing a slave for eternal life desires is less power over themselves. It can be done, however.

Even should one find a friendly Genie, it will become useless as soon as the third wish is utilized. After that, multiple experiences have been recorded. In one, the bottle simply remained inert until the Master died and her son inherited it. In another, the ring vanished the moment the last request was given, leaving the wish granted in its place. And in another still, the Master kept attempting to force open the lamp and see the Genie again... and the Genie ate him alive. One must remember, the poor things can’t eat in there. Ever.

Thus, if one is inclined to use a Genie, one must bear a few things in mind. First, be as specific as you can, and leave no loopholes to be manipulated. Generality leads to failure. Secondly, as one only has three wishes, pack as much into a wish as one can. Go into detail, and make it a process if possible to distract the Genie longer and bind the wish together better. Thirdly, remember that, enslaved or not, the Genie is, or was, a person. Kindness and affection (and bothering to feed it) generally cause a far better experience than abuse and orders.

Set B:

The year is “Now”, for to the right perception, all quantifiable times and perspectives are either now or irrelevant.

But to be less snarky, it is the year the two thousandth Djinn has been born.

This is a marker of time solely in matter of Djinni, but it will suffice as a measurement of time. The Djinn, you see, are the middling Generation of spirits here, and came twixt the Elder Gods and the Younger Gods in conception. The first Younger God was born the same day as the one thousandth Djinn was, and both have slowly populated since.

The Djinni are predictable in several measurable regards, time-wise.

Firstly, the ones we call Djinn are born of solely once source- directly from Mother Life. The children of Djinn are not counted among their number, and the Ad’Djinni are more numerous by far. But the Ad’Djinni, unlike their parents, may offer harm to others, and while often gifted with longevity are quite mortal. Rather like Elves, really. Some of them even are part Elf, but that depends entirely on whom slept with who-

Ehm.

Returning to matters of time instead of rambling, there is one Djinn born every ten years.

This means that the span of the two thousand brothers and sisters now lasts from the Eldest, Ozzymandias, who is now turning twenty thousand years old, to the newborn Y’kan’ra, who is of course a newborn. All of their deeds, alliances, loves, histories, and sufferings may be quantified inside this time. Since NON spiritual sapients were made at the time of the eight hundredth Djinn’s birth, thus creating the need for the Younger Gods to shape and govern the natures (albeit not lives) of said Races, one can then predict the courses of life and Life along the twelve thousand years since and have the entire history of Civilization on Terra.

It is quite a young world.

Of course, nature, animals, and magics existed before the Younger Gods or the coming of the many, many Races; for this, qualities of Suffering, Death, and various Elements like Water or Wind received the Titans and Elder Gods as governors and governance. How old the world extends back within the era of these two twain Generations is anyone’s guess, as they prefer not to tell. Moving on! The Djinni themselves, clearly as evidenced by the existence of Ad’Djinni, may bear young. However, even a true Djinn couple cannot breed true; the offspring is always an Ad’Djinn, a half-being. No one quite knows why. It takes the Djinn seven years to bear young, as compared to the Human nine months, and is as unpleasant a process in many regards.

Many do not wish to do it.

The Ad’Djinni usually take two, which is still uncomfortable, but nothing like Mother Life’s ten or their parent’s seven.

There are different groupings within the great Family, but they prefer not to quantify themselves, being brothers and sisters; we, however, will sort them a little.

مممممم , or Kosmo-Krator, “World-Ruler” Jinn, comprised the first hundred. They had neither element nor limitation, and could be at home in any environs. The multipurpose servant of order, as it were.

The Marid, a famous type, came after these first few. Marids are associated with water and the sea, both in their tasks and in their natures, and these Djinni are found in a variety of places. Many, like the Rain sub-type, actually live in deserts to provide relief to others and allow their contrasts to strengthen them.

Some clean the oceans or the rivers with the Naiads, the oh so helpful water spirits.

The Ifrit is a type that typically lives in buildings or abandoned buildings. Usually this sub-type employs the wind and shape-shifting to do their tasks, and are generally viewed in the manner a boggart is mischievous with tinges on the malicious or malevolent, but hardly evil most of the time. Actually, it is the Afrt, from which the term Ifrit is derived, that are the Evil, but the Afrt are few in number (technically, there are only four, actually) and are generally not mentioned, nor is their careful maintenance of the Darkness between the stars or in the depths of the oceans or within the deep dark caverns.

The Jahn are usually associated with fire, light, and energy, but these things may often take care of themselves. Instead, the Jahn often live in forests to cleanse and grow via wildfire and purging of bodies before rot and disease grow too fiercely. They are also known to ‘foster’ volcanoes and for working to alleviate various disasters of water, mud, or bloody natures.

The Quareen are largely mythic- supposedly Djinni assigned to whisper temptation and seduce souls.

It’s more commonly believed that these are either bitter escaped Genies that haven’t managed to reconvert into Djinn again, or, more widely accepted, Devils at work and happily giving someone else the blame.

Breathes

In other worlds, other Djinni and the Jinn as a collective (here including their children the Ad’Djinni) have gotten a really rather bad reputation. “Ignorant, untruthful, oppressive and treacherous” have been hurled at more than a few in the Green Isles of Sierra, or in the many Earths of the Multi-Verse, or in Abeir-Toril bla bla bla etc. etc.

Here, despite the enslavement, abuse, and often ignoring of the spirits by various communities, this is not the case. They are generally regarded as paragons. Just paragons it’s particularly easy to make use of by transforming them into a Genie and making use of them for all time.

The social organization of the Jinn community resembles that of Humans and other sapient Races they have a King, courts of law, weddings, and mourning rituals. However, the killing of a Djinn is not an easy thing, and most are alive, simply enslaved. Further, it is hard to hold a court of law when one’s numbers are spread throughout the various lands, most being more solitary types. That is to say, when they are gathered as a community, it is a community, but more often it is not.

Brief odd snippets; while it takes a hundred years to leave infancy, they grow relatively fast afterward they reach the equivalent of ‘eighteen’ or ‘maturity’ at one thousand years of age, and they generally do not show signs of aging in the millennia they live. As a general rule, ‘age’ ceases to affect them in nature at a certain point, but slavery will force the illusion of mortality on them and bring out the wrinkles, grays, gnarls, and lines. And to be a Genie is to be a slave.

Some are well treated, fed, loved.

More are not.

Fortunately, poaching of any under two hundred is too horrific even for wizards- infants and toddlers wouldn’t be that useful anyway, and someone has to shoulder the environmental burdens that were created by removing the older caretakers. The little Y’kan’ra won’t need to worry about being someone’s wishing well until he’s six hundred or older, and the newborn currently isn’t even old enough to think about it. Besides which the Ad’Djinni are starting to step up how hard and how much damage they’ll do to protect their aunts and uncles... or, in some cases, great grandparents and beyond.

Prior undisclosed tidbit-

An ‘extra’ Djinn, a twin or triplet, is referred to as a Ka by their siblings- a “soul”. This exclusion from being numbered among their people is not meant as an insult, but as a sign of how closely bound that particular generation is to one another, enough so that the ‘Djinn’ noted is often extremely passive- even restive to the point of illness- and their Ka goes wandering in their stead, learning and interacting at a furious pace most single-child-birth Jinn can never fully emulate. The driven Ka make up the bulk of, and the spirit of, what the People wished to be before their more modern plights.

Ka are also sometimes capable of becoming bodyguards for their Djinn, or replacing them on death.

Or did you really believe that we could know ‘they are hard to kill’ if none ever died? Or that two thousand beings could be born the same way invariably? Or that all two thousand counted were all two thousand that existed?

The number of Ka within the Jinn is currently undisclosed.

The Great Goddess, The Mother

Before there were the Titans, the Elder Gods, the Djinni, or the Younger Gods, there was she. She predated them. She created them.

She was their parent.

From her sprang the fathers and mothers of Races and Lineages, Species and Spirits, animal and sapient. Without her, the world of Terra would be utterly lifeless- and thus was her name given. She was called “Mother Life”.

The Parent did not answer to any other name, and seldom deigned to answer in the first place. She was busy consistently and constantly; the Djinni took after her in this manner, though as caretakers rather than creators or designers. She could be found nowhere. And everywhere.

Frankly, the mysticism confused her just as much as it likely would an outsider.

From a distance, if one could see her, Mother Life looked benign more than divine. She was always smiling, and her face was as soft in expression as her hair of many different mingling earthy browns was long. She was a figure small of stature and proportion, and treeish of size. Rather literally, given that the medium she most often used to appear was tree to tree, though the reason for her preference was unknown and undisclosed.

‘Young’ was etched into her, it seemed, as much as or more than her progeny. Almost to a disturbing degree, considering how old some of the Gods looked, but that was the way things worked. At least it wasn’t as odd as her seven irised rainbow eyes. Or the hands, the tiny, almost dainty hands, vaguely stained with dust and the fluids of organics.

Of course, if you were close enough to see the honeys and milks mixing with the bloods and the procreating oils on the fingertips of her hands, you would also be close enough to really see her face, and to see that for all the smiles she was far from happy.

In fact, the smile was something of a rictus, almost a death head’s grin, and frozen on her face. And the brilliantly colored luminous rainbow eyes, pretty as they were, were constantly crying, the tear tracks wearing done and filling the holes that might otherwise be wrinkles, giving the illusion of iridescence and a healthy glow. Always weeping, for her children and their children’s children’s children were always... suffering.

Crying, themselves, sighing, lying, denying, and dying. Dying more than anything she couldn’t stand, particularly when they did it to each other. As much joy as their love and laughter and warmth and their cares for their own children brought her watching, it was a poor match for the long despairs and constantly withheld hatreds in the dark of her heart, little match for the longing teased in harmony and spat upon in war and chaos. She was torn.

She always smiled and ever wept.

She was always crying and smiling because she died and was born again perpetually, and suffered and loved and lost at any given moment, just as all the beings and fauna and flora she represented did. The pleasures and pain were harsh engines of contrast that tore her heart apart and made it sing constantly. She wished she couldn’t feel a thing.

Every time the starving wolf died without food, she knew and felt it.

Every time the wolf killed and ate the deer instead, she knew and felt it.

Every child born dead, and every mother that died bringing a healthy child into the world, she was.

Every war and every death of murder or design tore at her. Every garden and kindness and populace growing in numbers and beneficial cooperation reasserted her will to exist. Every day she teetered on the brink of hard Truth and happy deceptions, and she was by now utterly mad.

What mother couldn’t be, when the greatest threat to the ones she loved were the very ones she loved indiscriminately, and yet hated for not being able to keep secure and safe? For she couldn’t keep them safe.

In fact, by the very rules that let her make life, she wasn’t permitted to interfere in it. The very closest she came to doing so was making others who could, and even they were limited. The Gods couldn’t override free will. The Djinni in their natural state couldn’t deliberately harm. The Titans could only uphold elements, and couldn’t interact with other sentients at all.

On and on. Really, in the scheme of things, Sargon was probably more influential than poor Mother Life, or Raz of the Undead- her oddest children, them, without a doubt. Or the twins she created and hated herself for immediately afterward but couldn’t retract.

The twins were Death.

Nythera was the Goddess of Death, a cheery, friendly figure who provided service with a smile and was always bantering or laughing. She was also a merciless and pitiless figure despite it that never granted favors or allowed people cheat her. Meager and great alike failed and fell to her.

Lyssan, the younger brother, was the God of Death. He was better known as the Grim Reaper, a serious, obviously grim, and cold individual who arrived with neither warning or comfort. He, however, pitied those he claimed and occasionally made a fatal wound into just a serious one, or returned a dead family member to life if requested the right way. As dark and dire as the Reaper seemed, he was more kind in the long run than the long dark hospitable warmth and darkness of his sister... who never let souls go.

Mother Life had made Death so that the tired and the pained could enter rest- for pain existed before Death. Sargon, Suffering, was her first and most bitterly bemoaned child, one who often affected her.

Mother Life only wished the Deaths could too, on a dire personal level, but it took more will to live through adversity then to die.

Besides which there was this annoying tendencies of life to continue living, whether Life encouraged it or not; it was also its most endearing tendency.

Five Generations of Terrestrial Spirits Notes

We have not (and likely will not) often speak of the Gods, which makes it all imperative that we do so here. There are five ‘generations’ better termed ‘species’ or ‘Races’ or better yet ‘grouping kingdoms’ of the Great Spirits. We begin with the Parents, Mother Life and Father Matter, between whom were begotten all energies and all aspects- all forms and times and beings, for that thoughts.

They are not counted among the five.

For even the ‘abiotic’ and ‘undead’ are formed of living atoms, whether water, earth, stone, air, or the vast depths of space. And all matter may become energy and all energy matter, though admittedly some processes are far more difficult. The Father exists through the Mother, and the Mother through the Father, and all else is conversion and transition.

But they are least seen of all, as prevalent as they may be.

Now, the Titans are the first generation of spirits, and the Elder Gods the second. The Titans are Conditions and effects that apply to others- for instance, while acid exists regardless of other material and would have no Titan, a corrosive is specifically destructive to another material. The Elders on the other hand are Elements, both periodic table and mystic, which does make certain ones like Water rather close to their component kin.

There are no few Lords and Ladies of gasses, metals, liquids, and plasmas, but the chiefs among them are the great domains that unite the hundreds of divinities. It’s easier to reconcile with the Sky Master or the Terra Chancellor than, say, the scion of Helium (which of course would have a different name in each language, too, if even discovered).

Single greatest among them is Paxus, both Elder God and Titan, usually called the Celestial. The Celestial is the Lord of Night and Day, Cosmos and Satellite, Light and Dark. Just as these all exist simultaneously and often even commingling past our temporary perspective of location or morality, so too does the Balanced One unify the seeming opposites in their natural complement.

In the outer dark of space, you see, the heavens are not separated.

He is a great eye, the fringes or ‘lashes’ marked by nebulae, the iris a blazing sun with the center eclipsed in part by a small moon making a ‘pupil’, with a nearer second moon at the crescent stage shading the side of the iris. Between these, the star studded heavens make up the ‘white’ of the eye in black and arrays of nebulous color. Even in His person complementing opposites are present.

(Pronounced: Pax-us)

However, the groups are usually of both more bipedal persuasion and of one set of Divines or the other.

It is a rare thing for one to be of multiple... definitions, shall we say. To our recollection the only other is a Titan and Younger God named Raz, Lord of Undeath, which is both a rather large set of Races and a Condition.

(Pronounced: Raws)

Sargon, despite what L told you in his ignorance of doctrinal organization, is not a God but rather the most powerful of the Titans- and His domain affects-and-effects every other universally, even the Parents. For Sargon is Suffering, and every Erosion, Corrosion, Entropy, Misfortune, Sickness Sorrow Separation, Abuse Addiction Abandonment, Bereavement Betrayal Boredom, etc etc... all take their cue from Him. And yet He is not considered in the same way the Infernals are, for Devils and the wicked suffer just as much as environs or the ‘good’.

Not evil- unfortunate, but also the base upon which all joys and wonders and endurance are measured, the further and more securely apart from suffering the better.

It can be alleviated or healed, sometimes, but all are subject to some variant.

(Pronounced: Saar {like star without the t}-Gon {like gone})

The High Lords among the Elder Gods are much the same as those of a standard pantheon- Water, Sky, Earth, and Flame.

In that order these are:

Serithan, who reigns over the ice and rain and every water body in or on or under the world, without whom no mortal would survive. (Pronounced: Sair-ith-an)

Paligren, who counsels the pair of Winds on where to go, and holds the Air-and-Gas Gods to their duties in keeping breath-and-warmth upon the world, who shuts out the outer cosmos and holds the world in a loving omnipresent clasp. (Pronounced: Pal-ig-ren)

Magden, who leads the Parliament of Metallurgy and Pan-Geoscopic Interests, and can claim the attention of every grain of sand or speck of dirt, up to the most complex crystals and metals, and ye even the bones of the very land listen to the man. More Gods of more Elements man His congresses than any other, yet He Himself has very little personal power compared to the other leaders.

(Pronounced: Magden)

And finally Lady Osen blazing bright, that may create or destroy at pleasure and holds shape-and-plan for all other things at the right heat.

They all hold equal benefit and disaster, yet the whims of Osen cast Her in far more loved or abhorred lights than steadfast Paligren- if Paligren should act as She, it would soon be an atmosphere-less meteor pocked wasteland below. The dancing dramas of flame in saving or taking render Her more myths and opinions. Magden is the one most often challenged, by sciences and contemporaries, by magics and Titans, and does not appear to be moved. Serithan is always around and seemingly capricious, even mercurial, but His behavior is actually easily studied and predicted- though such is no guarantee that Water can be dealt with or contained.

But they are strongest united.

Now, we have spoken at length of the Djinn, the third generation, of whom there are two thousand to sustain and care for the many environs of the world through alterations and rejuvenation of reality.

It is the fourth generation with which most worshipers are actually concerned, the Younger Gods, each of whom embody and serve as a protecting Avatar of a Race. In the case of Raz some forty Races bonded under Undeath, but most apply to a single one and its sub-variants. These Deities are not given governance or superiority over their peoples and in fact seldom interfere- only on matters that affect their survival as a whole, normally.

Many of these are faceless, featureless figures with little definition, requiring only their hooded statues and a whisper of their (often similar) names to invoke their attention. Bringing about so much as their speech, though, let alone action, requires drastic times and measures. I-os is sometimes (for all the second letter variations) considered to be a single God in many height build manifestations... the Sleeping God, who presides over almost all the mortal and demi-mortal Races.

Iaos, Ibos, Icos, Idos, Ieos, Ifos, Igos, Ihos, Iios, Ijos, Ikos, Ilos, Imos, Inos, Ioos, Ipos, Iqos, Iros, Isos, Itos, Iuos, Ivos, Iwos, Ixos, Iyos, Izos, and the others who so very seldom show.

A few are rather more robust, such as the Giant Goddess Delady, the Dwarf-Lord Karrackyrjac, Raz again, or the Draco-deity. Personalities and deep interactions (though again little interference) have made them popular Patrons to individuals and groups across many species not considered their own.

The Sleeping God(s?) ha(ve?)s expressed no dissatisfaction at the loss of believers to their more active and personable kin.

(Pronounced: D’ Lady) (Pronounced: Carrack ear jack)

Titans are not often considered at all a welcome force by the Younger Gods (particularly Sargon and His subscribers) but there is a peace between them that has never yet been sundered. It isn’t wholly certain what would happen if any single Generation turned on the others, whether the First of Forces and Causalities, the Second of Elements and Structures, the Third of Preservation and Restorative- Renewal, or the Fourth of Peoples and Cultures. One presumes it would be nothing anyone would wish for.

Finally there are the Natures, spirits who live in and for the aspects of others, which comprise the Fifth Generation. From Arborvitaes to Zounds and all the Dryads Naiads Sylvans betwixt, as well as the personified emotions and actions of Sapient-kind... or just personified aspects in general. They are often confusing- despite their overwhelmingly spiritual comprise and origin, they are very often of corporeal form and interaction.

Many are ascribed to be among this classification, whether ‘Chaun or Fae or Mer or Wyr, but this isn’t actually the case for the purpose of this study. They are indeed similar, but the most direct difference is that those counted as Divine here are the birth-children of Mother Life, whereas most Races (however mystic and magical) have lineages and parents forbears of their own. They are all part of Her and visa verse, but they are not all birthed of her.

The Gods of Concept, whether Molechivichi of Sin, Gleek of Bizarrity, Furor of Motives, Laemon of Thought, or the many others, are also part of this very youngest set of strange-beings.

(Pronounced: Mole Ek E Veech E) (Pronounced: Gleek) (Pronounced: Fur Or) (Pronounced: Lay Mon)

Undead

Vampires

Terran Vampires are extremely susceptible to sunlight- an exposure to sunlight lasting 20 seconds duration burns them to their muscle, 40 seconds duration burns to bones and marrow, and 60 seconds duration burns to ash. They’re presumed to die at 54 seconds. Their clothing often burn with wearer and may prove harmful even if the Vampire gets out of the light, still being ablaze against their skin.

Vampires try to adjust via giant custom umbrellas 20 lbs in weight or by living in, under, or under the shadow of vast terrain or buildings like mountains or skyscrapers.

Many vampires are diurnal and city-dwelling, as in defiance of the painful death that might await them on a windy day or if they forget precautions.

The majority live in Clans, under traditional mountain safe-zones, where they have carved out palaces and an existence; however, artificial light, nocturnal living, and caverns simply are not for some individuals. There are no designated areas or reservations- they’re free to try to live where they will, but many locations are simply more hazardous or wrong for them.

Although originally nocturnal in nature, their sleep cycles are now dependent on individual choice either

diurnal, nocturnal, or omnural; that is to say, a Daydweller, a Nightstalker, or both.

Vampires, being dead, do not require sleep and CAN be omnural... physically. MENTALLY is yet another matter entirely. While not susceptible to weariness or damage physically as much as comparable Races, their minds need a chance to rest or they will eventually become first fatigued, then insane.

An omnural Vampire will often sleep day and night for a solid week after a month of sleeping in neither to obtain enough rest.

The amount of rest required generally depends on what they do or what class they are, but most sleep every day, or once per every two days. This is simply to be more acclimated to and comfortable with the practices of other creatures.

As a general statement Vampires seldom dream unless seriously disturbed.

Vampires, depending on their strength, are susceptible or vulnerable to several killing methods and weaknesses.

Garlic, Roses, Ont-Wood, Mithril, Fire, and Acids are all materials that harm Terran Vampires, no matter what form the material is in.

Vampires cannot cross running water without a bridge, ashes, or grave dust, even when flying. The term ‘running water’ does NOT include showers, tap water, flash floods, or accidents by a hydro electric company runoff.

To kill a Vampire of strength properly, one is required to cut off their head, stake their heart, and fill the neck with Garlic or one of the aforementioned harmful materials. OR push them into sunlight. There are many other methods, but if one has no magic weapons harmful to them, these two are the surest.

Vampires, depending on their class and situation, will deign to work anywhere from garage mechanic cash register worker to C.E.O. or ruler of a small business empire- or simple Empire. Their individual skills and community standing with both Vampire and non-Vampire play a role in their role, as it were.

Vampires like having classes. They, elegant creatures that they are or proclaim themselves to be, prefer to know exactly where they stand and who what means to them and their position.

The Royalty are the strongest and most influential. These consist of a single King or Queen (never both), seven Princes, and two Thanes.

The Nobility follow the Royals closely, although they are far more numerous, and many of Terra’s greatest legends- both good and bad- have been accounts of Vampire Nobles. The Noble classes, from strongest to weakest, consists of the Dukes Duchesses, Earls (either gender applicable to title), Marquis Marquesses, Counts Countesses, Barons Baronesses, Lords Ladies, and Chieftains (applicable to both genders).

The Populace, non-Royal and non-Noble, are the majority. These consist of either young Vampires or moderately able Vampires, although those who simply haven’t been recognized as Noble yet are also grouped here, as are the weak, the old, and the feeble. There is absolutely no shame to be part of the Populace; it is still several steps above any non-Vampire, as any Vampire will tell you.

The Exile is their only shamed class. Exiles have somehow by word or deed managed to insult their entire society so much that even killing them would not ease the shame, and so they are cast out to be scorned instead.

A few (definitely not all) traits of the Vampires are: the ability to become the Animal of their individual Clan; the slow, two month Turning that propagates the Vampire race by turning (insert here) into a Vampire over time; the ability to turn to smoke, darkness, smog, or dust, although this greatly drains their physical coil and willpower; and being physically stronger and faster than almost any mortal living.

Nobles have been known to possess telekinesis and limited telepathy.

Royals can overwhelm the wills of living and dead alike around them for a kilometer and control them, suffer an almost incomprehensible amount of pain and laugh it off, resist almost any of their kind’s weaknesses but sunlight, transform into utter monstrosities, and create and inhabit multiple bodies for themselves by absorbing new bats into the ‘flock’ they can become and then reverting to their original form. Multiple bodies and control HURT, though, and the mind requires a lot more sleep when using them.

All Vampires have fangs, and have them continually. There is no elongating or transforming of the teeth. And they are all, from weakest to strongest, weak to the sun.

Vampires drink blood for sustenance and nourishment.

Vampires in the past did not attempt consuming or imbibing ‘mortal food’, declaring it to be either utterly tasteless or that it ‘turned to ash in their mouths’; a bitter, disgusting taste or none.

The Vampire King Sylvanos, predecessor to Queen Safiria, proved that taste or not, Vampires CAN metabolize normal food, and that it lowered, although not eliminated, the thirst for blood. A certain amount of blood, unique to each individual, was still required to survive.

Sylvanos proposed that the blood thirst had something to do with the taste and that adding minuscule amounts of blood to a food or drink might allow Vampires to taste the food as the mortals did, and have food taste like food.

Sylvanos was proven correct; cultural interactions and culinary economics skyrocketed, now that Vampires were no longer confined to the role of predator and could take the time to talk to their food. A tentative peace formed.

Stalwart ‘bloody’ Vampire traditionalists assassinated Sylvanos. The King was much too loved to Exile, and he HAD improved their people, but Vampiric Custom demanded that change be dealt with accordingly. They did it in his sleep to spare him suffering, they claimed, although in truth it might have been just to avoid being killed by the mighty being in a fair duel.

The World Government began making more detailed ethics laws, still followed to date, on the allowed feedings of necessity and the inhumane illegal feedings that constituted wanton greed and parasitism.

The Vampire clans only followed the laws that suited them, although they did obey the ethics laws (which are still held in good regard as fair) and retained their autonomy. Safiria took the Throne, and three hundred years passed before events finally made the Vampires follow all of the laws and join.

Being Undead, it is generally held that Vampires cannot bear children or cause procreation thereof in fornication. This has been found to be only mostly true, but, generally speaking, they ARE barren and sterile as believed.

Most of the time, since Vampires are mostly gendered-but-asexual abiotic creatures, they tend to be bisexual in preference if they fornicate at all. The act of drinking blood is enough pleasure for most and they abstain from such activities.

That being said, Vampires do receive pleasure from physical activities, exactly the same way mortals and deities do.

Although often arrogant, they are always honorable, save for Exiles. They also have a strange tenancy to be charismatic, artistic creative, and or beautiful, although repulsive ones are known to exist- mostly 49 second sunlight victims.

They do not tend to like Lycans, whether Wolf, Bear, (insert Cat-type here), (insert Bird-type here), or the various others. This isn’t considered racism. Vampires also heartily dislike shape-shifters and doppelgangers- transformations impress far less when there are other Races known to be better and more varied at it. It’s more of an envy.

Vampires are prideful, loathe changing, and loathe permanent and inexorable change bound unwillingly upon their person and freedoms more than anything. Add that their ‘partners’ were better than them at a few things, were also predators, and had no such consequence applied to THEM, and you begin to see why the little bat-lings were and are so enraged and disposed to dislike their current allies and neighbors.

There are the Vampir- which allowed her to become bats-, the Vryolakas- although such were usually deemed Lycans, there was, of course, the Werepyres, and those that command them but were not themselves Werepyres could become dogs instead-, the Strigoi- which let her become an owl-, the Nosferatu- although, again, closer to Lycans in that it more closely resembled Were-rats, and allowed one to become manner of rodentia-, the Upir- which let one become ravens-, and the Lugat- which, though usually invisible, could let one become a cat.

Strength, regeneration, speed, shape-shifting, and control tend to be their advantages, against a whole host of disadvantages.