Miniature Tree Giraffes – Google Docs
Miniature Tree Giraffes
Well, they’re about the size of a capuchin monkey and look a lot like giraffes; the only real difference is that Miniature Tree Giraffes have prehensile, toed feet instead of hooves. Oh, and they eat fruit, leaves, and small insects. Otherwise, yeah, pretty giraffe-like. They started showing up in the Congo river basin about six months ago, and they’re remarkably common at this point.
Drug Bugs
The 2060s were a messed-up time, man. It took a while for the basic techniques for fast genetic engineering to make its way down to the high school level, but once it did — hoo, boy. Mix smart adolescents with the building blocks for Abominations of Science, and all sorts of stupid ideas can be born.
The Chattering Man
Chattering Man
Chattering Man
Big white whiskers,
Lives in a can;
Give him a buck
He’ll treat you good
But if you’re mean
He’ll get you good.
Blame my wife for this one.
Pseudo-blankets
They’re not exactly monsters. Yes, they were summoned from an eldritch plane of existence that isn’t very nice. Yes, back in their home dimension they’re vicious predators. And yes, they were summoned by evil magicians in order to be monsters. Amateur evil magicians.
So I saw this picture of Tom Baker being delightedly covered in kittens.
Warpex Cats
(felis catus gallifreyus, heinleinus, or ultharus)
These are all distinct species, although they are derived from the Canadian Foldex cat breed; no Warpex is interfertile with regular domestic house cats (or, indeed, another species of Warpex). All three Warpex species strongly resemble the Foldex, both in appearance and temperament. It can in fact be difficult to distinguish a Warpex from a Foldex, at least until the special abilities of the former manifest.
When I told my wife about this, she at first thought that lift was accomplished by tying two whales together, and spinning them. When I pointed out that this was a silly idea — I mean, really, the whales would just start vomiting — she looked at me. And then she helplessly started to laugh.
Ceteacopters
History does not record the name of the medieval mage who first looked at a whale, and then at a double samara (otherwise known as a ‘helicopter seed’), and decided that the two should be combined, somehow. Possibly because History was laughing too hard: first at the concept, and then the exceedingly comic attempts to execute it. For some reason, Northern European mages and monarchs were obsessed at the idea of making a whale take off, hover in the air, and then touch down in a specific and precise location.
Apotropaic Ambulatory Groundcover Swamp Beet – Google Docs
Blame this.
Apotropaic Ambulatory Groundcover Swamp Beet
(Beta vulgaris subsp. palus daemonium occisio)
This particular cultivar should be distinguished from non-magical variants of cultivated beetroot. It shares a common ancestor (the sea beet, or Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima), but was specifically bred for reasons besides taste. In fact, while Swamp Beets are edible they are not palatable; the leaves and root both share an unpleasantly meaty taste and texture. The juice is also both unpleasant smelling, and tasting — and cooking does not improve the flavor or smell.
Continue reading Item Seed: The Apotropaic Ambulatory Groundcover Swamp Beet.
Blame this.
Icelandic Reedhaunter – Google Docs
Icelandic Reedhaunter
The Icelandic Reedhaunter is not precisely Undead. Instead, its favored habitats are swamps saturated with necromantic energy, which means that the bird’s feathers and epidermis are Undead. The Reedhaunter itself is a thoroughly inoffensive small brown bird from the order Passeriformes that eats death-aspected seeds and zombie insects. They have, as one might expect, no particular natural predators; but the species’ fertility is very low (as one might also expect).
Steroid Squirrels – Google Docs
Steroid Squirrels
Actually, it’s worse than you think. They’re steroid explosive squirrels. The concept is as simple as it is depraved: how do you get a bioweapon package widely dispersed? Why, you blow up the container in which it is currently housed. But you don’t blow it up too much; simply converting a squirrel’s body fat and blood into a mildly explosive gas would do the trick nicely, for given values of ‘nicely.’ It took researchers two years to come up with the right genetic tweaks, but once they had them, the future was theirs.
Octopia Octopuses – Google Docs
Octopia Octopuses
To use the classic Mad Scientist trope: it seemed a good idea at the time. It always does, doesn’t it? Then again, if it was a bad idea then most people wouldn’t try it, by definition.
Anyway, when researchers discovered that octopuses (don’t start) were busily creating cities — in the sense that video games create cities, which means that there’s about a dozen or so of them vaguely wandering around each other amid a somewhat sketchy amount of infrastructure — most people said “Huh.” A few said “That’s interesting.” And one said “A-ha! This sounds like it will be the perfect place to test out my Neuro-Physio Octopode Mutation Serum! Mwhah bah hah hah hahh!!!!!” Because of course.
