Arty October: Amy’s Art

Drawing is something I’ve done occasionally throughout my life in dribs and drabs. When I was young I used to try drawing animals but they never came out very well.

When I was in my teens is when I did lots of drawing, sadly the majority of that has been lost over the years as both I and my parents have moved since then. I did try drawing fashion for some time but most of the time it was dark or gothic, lots of eyes and gravestones. Eyes are still something I really like to draw as they have a lot of variation but it’s always clear what they are.

I really started back up again mostly because Ste felt that the drawings I made as part of my other hobbies were good and asked me to try focusing on the drawing itself, so it has been turned it into one of my regular hobbies.

I have several creative hobbies – I’m very crafty and I usually like to have my hands do something as I watch tv or listen to audio-books [which my dyslexia makes much more common, as many fascinating books are unfortunately beyond my capacity to read].

Recently I’ve been doing knitting and crochet,  just starting do these last year and I’ve already made 3 scarfs and a few stuffed toys – as well as a few toys for our pet cat.

Colouring books are another hobby I’ve been practising for a while – I tend to use lots of colours, putting some of my own personality into the final product even if the line art is already fixed. I find it few relaxing but just like drawing I don’t really do it in front of the tv because I like to concentrate on it a bit more. I can still listen to a book, but anything that would take up my eyes would distract too much.

And lastly there’s cross-stitch I started doing when I was 8. I did stop briefly in my teens, but I picked it back up again as I got older and I’ve done so many over the years some big, some small, some easy, some hard. I usually have one or two kits going at any one time and do a few small ones too – for Christmas I try to make sure that those I care about get one as a card or tree decoration.

Cross-stitch is what got me drawing again – I started designing my own now and again, working on squared paper to create the pattern; I did one for my grandma on top as a gift. I figured out how to do ones of monsters because it seemed cool, and it’s something I never see so I thought they might be useful for the business – possibly for sale at conventions.

I usually draw on squared paper as I find it easier to get started on than a blank page – and it helps me work out shapes and keep things neat which I feel helps things look good, since I like them to be neat I do use a ruler, compass and things like that. Since it’s on squares it can look a bit pixelated. and cross-stitch patterns usually do too, the most simple ones are and simple is generally the best place to start. But the pixelation I have grown passed with practice both with my cross-stitch and drawing and other thing that help with this size and shape – if something’s big it usually looks less pixelated and the same with putting curves in, which can be done in cross stitch through haft stitch and back stitch allowing different angles of diagonal.

So for my drawing i ten to start out on squared paper with a H2 pencil because it’s easy to rub out, then I go over it with a dark pencil and colour – this sometimes gets mixed again once I like what I’ve done, I go over it with transfer paper since there no way that we found to get rid of squares on the PC without losing lots of detail from the image.

Please follow and like us:

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Urban Fantasy usually features many humanoid magical creatures such as werewolves, vampires, magic user, children of demons or angels and fae of all kinds living in an urban setting, usually in a present day city or town.

There a few concepts that turn up quite often and here some of the ones I think are a big part of the genre. Any number of these may be useful to use or keep in mind when it comes to  making world for your story/game.

The City often has a character

This can be more of a thing in books and rpgs than tv shows i find, The Dresden Files is set in Chicago, and it has a personality – you know what the city is like and how it would feel to live there in the world of Harry Dresden.

This is not so much the case in television settings – the city is often more of the background in some ways, just being used to tell the story, therefore things may not be set in stone (even when they should be). A good example of this is Buffy’s Sunnydale. Buffy is one of the best known, oldest examples of urban fantasy  TV shows, you can tell me it name but not what there other than a high school but what else is in the town changes throughout the show one week it may have a docks others it might not.

When it a suburbia/small town in the UK it might not also because with a small town it’s more the people who live there that give it character, make a place feel a certain way – and if you know all the people there’s no need to anthropomorphise the place.

While everywhere has it own story and its own history that’s not what gives a place character, its about how it feels in the present, to me anyway.

The Masquerade

In many Urban Fantasy settings something keeps all of the bad things hidden from the world, the thing that stop the normals from know about all the monsters.

This is usually done a few different ways, often some kind of magic to make you forget what you know about it, or there the no-one never believes you, or no-one can talk about it so even if everyone seen the supernatural you don’t talk about it to each other. But most settings tend to have some people with lot of money and power helping to keep things quiet – censoring the news while spreading false conspiracy theories to make the believers look foolish.

Magical Realism

In Magical Realism subtle magics are real, like white sage keeping away bad things or imaginary friends are real but only them that need them, can see them. Hold story can be built around these like “If Only You Could See Me Now” by Cecilia Ahern or “Practical Magic” by Alice Hoffman this is something that is done well in books and film but it’s not usualy a big thing in games, it may be there but its just another part of the world – running a game with the minor magics of Urban Fantasy tends to be a challenge, and few players are interested in the kind of low-intensity play it entails.

Ones of the things i found about these kind of story is they tend to be more uplifting less dark and gritty like Urban Ffant can be.

Hidden Cities, Markets and other such places

Places that only certain people can get to that are hidden by a veil of magic, these can be places where the whole story happen like Neverwhere in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere or the Nightside by Simon R Green. Or they can be a side place where people go that are just part of the big world like a hidden market or fairy-land in True Blood.

These are used in games quit often and work quite well as they give you somewhere to get all the magic you need and it can look so much more fantastical than the everyday street.

Coming Out

This is a more recent form of Urban Fantasy where supernatural group comes out from hiding, there are usually reasons for this like in “True Blood” where artificial blood could be mass produced for the vampires or like in “Parasol Protectorate series” where they have all been pardoned for by crimes by the crown in the UK since the royal family found them to be very useful.

Usually it’s only one or two type that tell the world that they’re real but not everyone of the type will like it or do so, and usually there are still quite a lot of things still hidden from the human world like other race that are not ready or able to come out.

Hate groups

These are usually part of the coming out world since not everyone likes change. They’re usually very religion based in most story and setting, and they’re usually about trying to make sure humanity keep power and that the monster don’t take over.

There may even be monsters hiding in the group to stay safe from them, or a monster secretly in charge so they get the power by eliminating their competition.

This seems like something the be interesting to deal with in a game sense, but the monster not only have to be out they need to be capable of good which is why it not really seen in Buffy because on a whole this is not the case.

There is an odd case in Angel where there is a hate group but it made up of demons that hate half-demons.

The characters

There are a few different archetypes that are seen in both stories and games. The main character is generally someone who finds themselves travelling deeper into the world over time: 

The PI/cop, or soldier who knows about the monsters and hunts them down or cleans up their messes, in the cop or solder case they be part of a unit that looks into these things.

The chosen one/child of the gods and the likes, that has superhero like powers and they have been picked to fight the monsters.

There’s the human that’s part fae, or god, or angel or some other magical being that usually knows nothing of what they are when the story starts out and them finding out is part of the story, and they’re usually very attractive to the monster for some reason or another, often their magical bloodline.

Then there are the rarer ones, like wizards and other magic users that have some job that they do using their power within the magical world.

When telling a story you’ll also want numerous characters around the edges who are at different levels of knowledge – for instance the mentor or secret-keeper who knows more than the main character but is informing them only piece by piece, and the friend who doesn’t quite believe in what’s going on, but knows enough to listen when given advice.

In games it’s common to skip the “introduction to the hidden world” aspect of Urban Fantasy stories, but it can be a useful way to begin a campaign if you intend to do something unusual with your world, or if you want to create deeper characterisation by maintaining links to the mundane life that came before.

Please follow and like us:

Monstrous Mondays: K is for Kelpie

History

Kelpi are an old scottish/celtic water monster that looks like a horse, the stories tell of a fine horse which appears from the water in Scotland. It tempts people to ride it and once they are on it becomes uncontrollable, carrying them back into the water to drown. There are ways to survive this encounter, one tale tells of a boy who cut of his own fingers to escape its gripping fur once he touched it, another said that if you can get the bridle away from a kelpie you can escape and maybe even control it.

Like many water basic monster stories, these exist to keep children away from water, but they also serve to stop young maidens from talking to strangers since kelpie can take on human form – usually male, though some later art shows them as siren-esque women.

One theory for their origin is that they’re linked to a misunderstood weather effect known as waterspouts – which are columns of water that can appear over body of water, these can sometimes make unusual shapes on the water.

These monster are not seem much in books or films today, except when they are linked to the Loch Ness monster.

Physiology

  • They have the head of horse with glowing green or red eyes.
  • They have the front body of a horse.
  • They usually have the back end of a horse,
    • But sometimes they are depicted with a fishtail as there back half, like a hippocampus.
  • Their tail is sometime horse hair tail, but made from matted seaweed.
    • Sometimes it is a fishtail instead
  • They’re usually covered in fur made from matted seaweed.
  • Some story tell of them having inverted hooves.
  • They can also change form into human, but their feet sometimes stay as hooves.

 

Ideas

 

  • You could have someone who keeps horse and have some of them be kelpie that they tamed.
  • You could have a kelpie that lives in the human world as human, where they are a swimmer and a real lady’s man.
  • The heroes could find a set of horses abandoned on their journey, that reveal their true nature in the middle of the heroes’ journey

 

References

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Kelpie/

https://www.pottermore.com/explore-the-story/kelpies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kv3m_ACEmE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterspout

 

Please follow and like us:

Monstrous Mondays: M is for Manticore

Manticore

One of my favourite monsters since I was a child because its a mixture of so many things that still fits together.

History

A manticore is a Persian monster with the body of a lion, face of a man and the tail of scorpion.

There are few stories of this monster, most just talk about what it looks like, not what it does, but I have found a few a story telling of how the young were hunted by men on elephant back, since the elephant is the only animal whose hide could not be puncture by it spikes, and the youngsters lacked the deadly venom in their tails. There are also stories told of it being given as a gift to kings in the middle east.

A Greek story tells of how the manticore was driven into the underworld to be watched over for all eternity by Hades.

Many theories suggest it was an over exaggerated tiger, given features that a tiger could never have to make people more scared of it. The name itself means man-eater which we know big cats like tigers do, and they do come from that part of the world, they are also seen as an omen of bad luck.

Sadly this chimera of a monster is not seen much in books or film today but is mainly featured in games both computer and table top, games like D&D where it is treated as a big beast for you to kill no more than that.

Physiology

 

  • The face of a man with grey or blue eyes and a moth that gose from ear to ear with 3 set of teeth like a shark.

 

    • Sometime shown to have horns or tusks

 

  • The body of a large cat, broad and stocky with a mane like that of a lion.

 

    • They sometimes have wings coming from their back, they can be like the wing of a birds but are more often those of a dragon or a bat.

 

  • It is usually depicted with the paws of a big cat but sometimes the manticore has monkey feet instead.

 

  • It usually has the tail of a scorpion with a large poisonous stinger but there are some images of it with a tail of dragon or a big cat, with barbs coming out of it.

  • It can turn this tail 180 degrees, allowing it to attack all around its body, and can shot out barbs as well as stinging someone in melee.

  • It is usually furry all over, except the tail, and it can be anything from a pale or golden yellow like that of sand, or brown or red like the fire.

  • It can be anything from the size of a large dog to that of four elephants, but is most often sized such that it is the same height as a man with the proportions of a lion.
  • They can be found anywhere in the wild, hunting large prey – will often not bother with an individual human, only attacking groups.

Ideas for stories

Have it be the monster that other monsters flee from – when a town comes under attack by monster after monster the heroes must find out what is driving them from their homes.

Since it has the face of a man you could have be as smart as, make it able to talk, have it be the big bad with some elaborate scheme or the warlord head of its army.  

You could have it be some kind of primal beast like in d&d 4e, trying work their way up to godhood, representing all of nature’s predators.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manticore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojFXUnq-3us

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/manticore

https://www.britannica.com/topic/manticore

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Manticore

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=manticore

Please follow and like us:

Monstrous Mondays: Nephilim

The sons of God saw the Daughters of Men that they were fair by Maurice Greiffenhagen

 

Nephilim

The children of women and angel are not always good and are stronger than any man. Sometimes they are monsters, and other times they are not.

 

History

A nephilim is a creature mentioned in the Bible but no no one seem to be sure what it is, the word itself is said to mean giants and is written as such in some versions, so some think that they are or were just giants – nut parts of the word mean ground, or fall, or earth. Since this word is found in the same paragraph as sons of God, which could mean angels, lying with daughters of man many think that a nephilim is what happens when an angel, or a fallen angel, lies with a woman, and its nature tends to depend on if the angel was fallen or not – but it also depends on their actions since they are also part mortal and we choose our own fate.

 

There are no stories of them in the bible, only a few mentions of them and all are before the story of the great flood, so many believe that the nephilim were killed off in the flood, which is why we do not see giants or nephilim or whatever they may be.

But modern media has cemented the idea that nephilim means the child of an angel and a human woman, since most stories are set in the modern day and if that is the case nephilim can still be present as an angel can sleep with a human whenever.

They are usually the love interest in many films and books, like the Hush Hush series; and there are usually both good and bad nephilim – the bad sometimes have black feathers on their wings. So even though we are not sure what they are or should look like this is what they have become to most of us and few of us know anything else about them.

 

Physiology

From head to toe

  • They’re usually male
    • Often a handsome human male with blonde hair – akin to standard european depictions of angels.
    • In books and comics they’re often somewhat androgynous – again reflecting the standard depictions of angels in artwork.
  • Well toned human arms and chest.
  • They often have a large set of wings that can come out of their back, these usually allow them to fly.
    • Most Nephilim are capable of hiding these wings, making it harder to see their nature.
  • Well toned human legs and feet.
  • Can be larger than a normal man in height and size but a lot of books and films only have seem that way when their wings are out.
  • They often use swords as these are seen as the favourite weapon for angels.

Many story tell of them having all kinds on powers, some of the most common are: being able to talk to animals, talk and understand anyone, superstrength and of course flight.

They can be good or bad it all depends on the story they’re in, their nature and the nature of their angelic parent.

Ideas

  • Do a story where the only nephilim in the story is female, changing the sex of an character can make things play out differently.
  • A story or adventure where a nephilim is going around make people think he’s a god and is trying to recruit followers, paladin’s and the like. This would work well in 13th age where the big powers can change from age to age.
  • In the common polytheistic fantasy setting a nephilim rejected by their god, because their god disapproves of such mating, might choose to follow another god – their native god will send them to hell, but if they can become a saint perhaps that can be avoided?
Please follow and like us:

Monstrous Mondays: Oni

[ED Note: We’re back to Amy for another month of monsters – enjoy]

Photo by Xeal on Flickr

Oni

I first came across this creature in Magic: the Gathering’s Kamigawa expansion.

History  

An oni is an ancient eastern monster often with red/blue skin, an ugly head with horns and sharp teeth.

The story tell of how they were once men, men that were so wicked that they became oni when they died, some of them were so wicked that they became one in life – often through a mask that they had been wearing to disguise themself fusing to their skin. These beings are so evil that they attract other evil beings to them.

The theories is that Oni once just meant a ghost or soul it only over time that it has come to mean evil ghost or being. Since this monster is depicted with horns it is often seen as a demon when put into a western framework, but could also be seen as an ogre, giant, or poltergeist.

In the media they are seen as a Japanese monster but it appears they actually come from a form of Buddhist mythology that has roots across north Asia.

They are often depicted as demons like in magic the gathering where they had two types of them the big bads were demons and the lesser ones that were under them which were a type of ogre.

 

Physiology

  • An ugly human face with horns, sharp teeth, glowing yellow or red eyes and they usually have black messy hair on their head and face.
  • The body can be very muscular or have a very big gut.
  • The arms are strong and muscular with big hands that usually carry a metal club.
  • Strong muscular legs with big feet.
  • They usually have red or blue skin.
  • Are about 8ft tall – larger than any man.
  • Supernatural strength
  • Supernatural toughness
  1. How it acts
    1. Evil they eat and terrorise people
  2. Where it can be found (if need).
    1. They can be found anywhere, but they have been known to hide until they an army of evil beings following them.

Ideas

You could have a story where someone becomes one and they seen the error of their ways and they try to turn them self back to human but they have to act against their nature to do so.

Since they attract evil to them you could have one set up near a peaceful town and then all these bad things start happening and the party have to work out what the cause is.

You could have the party get into town on the night of hyakki yakō which is the night parade of one hundred demons, and see what the party do when surrounded by monstrous beings that are currently well behaved.

 

References

http://yokai.wikia.com/wiki/Oni

https://www.britannica.com/topic/oni

http://yokai.com/shutendouji/

http://yokai.com/hyakkiyagyou/

http://yokai.com/oni/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni

 

Please follow and like us:

Gaming History: Amy

I didn’t get into gaming until I moved to Manchester at age 18. The people I was hanging out with were into Magic: the Gathering and they got me into it too, serving as my gateway drug for gaming. I bought my first deck but a lot of my cards at the time were given to me by my then-boyfriend Stuart, who gave me a shoebox full from his collection; it slowly grew bigger and stayed with me even after the relationship ended.

At that time I would spend most of my day, after looking for work, at Fanboy 3 playing Magic and watching all kinds of games – not just MtG but RPG’s too.

It wasn’t until a couple years later that I played in my first RPG, a Buffy game which was fun but didn’t go too well. We were playing the pre-made characters from the book, which I think was the first thing that was wrong for me, as I like to make a character with a story and explore the world and the stories in that world through their eyes. I started out playing one kind of witch and switched to one that had more story, that was still from the book (because I had joined the group late and the GM liked players to use premade characters) by the beginning of the next scene. I did have some fun with it, and I played to the end of the story… I think. I don’t remember anything about the other people or their characters – I was playing with people I didn’t know which may have been one of the reason it didn’t work for me

I started playing RPGs with a regular group soon after that – with my best friend and Dan, my new boyfriend of the time, we met once a week for a game. We played modern d20 which was my first meeting with the d20 system – I was playing a techie who was a mutant dolphin person, I had metal armour before the rest of the party, which was needed because my dexterity was terrible [turns out, Dolphins are not agile on land], because I made it myself.

That campaign and Character taught me few things, like it was more fun to make my own character and how much fun it was to be something i’m not – having created my own character let me feel very proud of her achievements.

Having found both a new job and a new hobby, I gave the magic cards to Dan, put Spycraft and other card games to one side, and focused on the roleplaying which I enjoyed more.

I played in the same group for a few years and we played a few different systems and settings like Werewolf the Apocalypse, and BESM [Big Eyes, Small Mouth], though not all went as well as my first game with that group, such as our In Nomine campaign which never fully got off the ground.

With Werewolf I liked the world and story but hated the system – especially trying to get honour to level up which you mostly got from killing things; I was playing a smart schoolgirl who didn’t get much chance to kill. This lead to people leveling up at different times even though we had all contributed – something I’ve tried to avoid in games since.

I game for same reason I write, or read, to get away from me and the real world. To be someone else for a bit, to be able to do the things I can’t do like be able to move like a gymnast or a monk or a cat, or to able to play with tech in ways I can never understand, and make magic.

I like to make a character with a story and explore the world and the stories in that world through their eyes – so when the mechanics get in the way I tend to either ignore them or as for help in working around them.

The BESM game was the first time I GMed – it was ok for my first campaign, though a bit clunky, as I didn’t own the book and hadn’t read the whole thing – and I hadn’t played in a game with that system which is how I generally run games now since my dyslexia makes it hard to fully read a rulebook, I learn by playing and have Ste help with the more mechanical parts of running.

Sadly I had to leave the group not long after I met Ste but the Magic cards came with, not just my shoebox but pretty much the whole collection as my ex, Dan, passed them on to Ste [Ste Note: I’ve now declared that these cards don’t belong to me, they belong to whoever Amy is with – but hopefully the difference will remain irrelevant :-)].

Once we left, we started up own game with him running and I’m able to make better character now, making them a bit more well rounded.

Please follow and like us:

Geeking About Gaming: Amy on Board Games

 

I love playing board and cards games, but I’m not very competitive – it feels nice when I win, but I will happily play a game that I know I never win, such as Power Grid.

I prefer games that encourage polite socials interactions, like cooperative games such as Arkham Horror: The boardgame is actually my favourite game as it’s a game that not only encourages you to work together to beat the big bad but does storytelling in a very elegant way.

Arkham features another two elements I like in a game – firstly its design is cohesive, and I find that cohesive design make that game easier for me to pick up because it feels like it just runs smoothly. Secondly I tend toward turn based games, like Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan, both of these games I like to play, although I never win I often come second, which is a significant improvement on my previous tendency towards last place.

We’ve started playing deck building games which bring back for me some of the things I used to enjoy about Magic the Gathering without spending anywhere near as much and without the sore winners that you sometimes come across in that world.

I like how I can sit there building my deck quietly and there’s usually a theme or some cards that I like to put in – like in clank, I’ll always try to get the cute cat, I know this is bad in some ways [Ste Note: That cat is seriously powerful – it’s not a bad choice at all] but it makes it fun for me and the last thing I like about this game is to watch the deck roll out – and these games I can win sometimes.

Another type, I tend to quite good at is betting games but this is a thing that has taken some time because I’ve gotten better at working out the odds – though I’ve always been good at the social aspect.

There are a few games I really don’t like, like Werewolf and The Resistance: I know most people see these as social games, but I find the behaviour they encourage uncomfortable, the accusations making me feel targeted at times and these games seem to encourage fighting, and may be left team up with someone who being a dick to you, since the teams are random and I know in the end I can be happier to make him lose than anything else because he’s a sore winner – so I think these are more anti-social games than social ones.

Please follow and like us:

Monstrous Mondays: P is for Panther

Panther

I don’t exactly mean the big cat – but in some ways I do.

History

A Panther is monster from medieval Europe 1)from a time when people did not understand what they truly were with magical powers, such as its coat being all the colours of the rainbow and being able to call animals to it.

Some stories call this monster gentle but all tell us how it awakens and roars, emitting a sweet smell that calls animals to it to become its food. The only animals that won’t come to its call are dragons because they are scared of the panther, and then the panther falls asleep until it is hungry again. But since it only sleeps once it is full then it most eat all the animals that come to him, there for he call them to there doom that don’t seem very gentle.

The female Panther only gives birth once because her young eat their way out of her, like some sharks do. This is somewhat at odds with the supposedly peaceful nature of the Panthers, suggesting that the myth may be an amalgamation of different stories.

This story have been used as a metaphor by the Christians for Christ and the devil and Christ’s story of rebirth, the beautiful panther is Christ and the devil is the dragon. It told of Christ dying as the panther sleeps, and when dead he defeats the devil (the dragon) which is why the dragon is scared of him. He is then reborn 3 days later and calls all the animals to him with his beautiful roar. This a case of Christians taking an old story and trying to make it theirs, like having Hercules be a version of Samson, but it is a strange version because the dragon stays away from the panther and because when the panther call the animals to him he eats them, not generally considered the way that Christ will behave.

These stores of it both the christian and nonchristian meant that people gave this beast magical powers and made it into more than it was, we tend to do this to things we don’t know about because of fear of the unknown. But it can sometimes make it scarier than it is, since these do eat animals and could eat human it might be due.

Nowadays we no longer see it as a monster but the beautiful animals which we now know is not its own species but any slender big cat, like Leopards, with too much melanin in their fur in the case of the black panther (which is more commen) and a lack of it in the white panther, so a panther is a big cat with some form of mutation in their fur usually making it be without marking on it. The white panther is what is described in most of the old stories as the monster is said to be white, rainbow coloured or to shine like the sun. which is interesting since it is the black panther that is more common and that most people think of – and was, of course, the inspiration for things like the superhero Black Panther, as well as the Black Panther political movement.

Physiology

Due to the time period this monster was believed in not all the images of it were the same, mostly it is shown as a big cat but there some odd ones out there one like an image of a donkey the another that has horns. I’m just looking at the standard version

  • The head of a big cat with small eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth.
  • With slim body of a big cat like a leopard – not stocky like a lion.
  • It stand on all fours on long slender legs – but can stand upright when it wishes.
  • Large paws with sharp claws.
  • Covered from head to toe in beautiful soft fur of white or rainbow or of golden sun light.

 

Ideas

  • It come be used it a set as something that is treated like a deity, maybe a god of nature that only eats and sleeps.
  • It seems similar to the Tarrasque with how it acts and there be no information how to kill it. But it doesn’t roam the land eating all as it goes, it waits for food to come to it. Perhaps the Tarrasque is what happens when one of these doesn’t get fed – or perhaps it’s instead what happens if they eat a dragon.
  • How often the Panther must eat varies, but one version has it eating every 3 days. Perhaps the sweet breath makes the area nearby particularly fertile to support it.

 

Where to find more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_(legendary_creature)

http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast79.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(comics)

https://a-z-animals.com/animals/panther/

 

Please follow and like us:

References   [ + ]

1. from a time when people did not understand what they truly were

Monstrous Mondays: Q is for Qalupalik

A recent book about the Qalupalik

Given my dyslexia I will never remember how to pronounce or spell this monster.

History

Qalupalik is the inuit iteration of a child stealing mermaid, but unlike most such monsters it is not pretty at all. It unclear how old it is, but the stories of this monster have been told as long as they have lived in ice ridden lands.

There are a few stories of the Qalupalik in Inuit lore, in all of them it is a humanoid monster that is found near coastal waters of these icy lands, and makes a humming/clicking noise,1)like ice just beginning to crack and if a child gets too close the Qalupalik will rear up and steal them in the amauti 2)what Inuit use to carry child on their back around the back of its neck. It then takes the child to its watery world – but it does not kill them quickly, it slowly drinks their lifeforce, and as the child gets older it gets ever younger. The child can be saved but they are forever changed.

It seems to be a cautionary tale, to keep child away from water and thin ice, using things that are easily recognised, like the green seaweeds and humming noise which is the ice cracking – which is dangerous for everyone, but especially for childen, since people can fall into the water through cracked ice and then be unable to surface.

How is it seen in media

The Qalupalik isn’t seen much in media, there a few children fairy story books and books about Inuits people and a few short films, but for the most part this tale has failed to grab the public eye in the way that many other monsters have.

Physiology

  1. Very long green seaweed-like hair that runs down to the base of their back.
  2. A ugly green, slimy, long face, with bright yellow eyes and a thin wide mouth with sharp teeth
  3. It has a long, slim body with an amauit on its back – sometimes this is not made of clothing but their sagging skin.
  4. Long arms with large hands – long webbed fighter with sharp long nails
  5. Long slim boney legs.
  6. Long flat feet with webbed toes with sharp nails
  7. It has green slimy skin all over them.

It’s usually found near the ice coast, watching the water for children but it is careful to strike only when the child is alone – it won’t risk its life to catch or keep them.

Ideas

  • Run an adventure where you have to save the child from one. The Qalupalik will not put up much of a fight – except against very weak adventurers – but the environment may.
  • A story or a game where a bad guy is trying to steal its power, allowing them to drain life from children.
  • One where it’s told from the point of view of a Qalupalik hiding in plain sight. It would mean a lot of makeup, and they would likely seek to work with children in order to drain small amounts of life force from many individuals – keeping their feeding hidden.

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

References   [ + ]

1. like ice just beginning to crack
2. what Inuit use to carry child on their back