Creature seed: Japanese Office Chairs (sella ambulant japonica)

:brightly: Good morning!  I’ve had coffee! Whee!

japanese-office-chairs-google-docs

 

Japanese Office Chairs

(sella ambulant japonica)

They are… living office chairs.  That move around on their own. They eat dust bunnies and excrete… dust bunnies. They mate – don’t ask, and don’t look, either – and reproduce by laying eggs in storage rooms, which then hatch into baby office chairs which then eat discarded office equipment until they reach full size.  When one dies, it… stops moving on its own, but still remains a perfectly usable office chair.  But most people bring their dead ones to the storage spawn pits, where it is swiftly ingested by the next generation of Japanese Office Chairs. Continue reading Creature seed: Japanese Office Chairs (sella ambulant japonica)

Creature Seed: Gol-Dough Golems.

gol-dough-golems-google-docs

Gol-Dough Golems

Like all modern enchanting materials, the stuff that goes into Modeling Compound (we’ll call the stuff Gol-Dough) Golems has advantages and disadvantages.  The disadvantages first: Gol-Dough does not last very long, will dry out if not kept either oiled or hydrated, is not particularly strong, breaks apart easily under pressure or impact, and needs to be wrapped around some sort of framework or skeleton in order to get full use out of it.  And, of course, Gol-Dough Golems have a top weight of about, say, four or five pounds before bits start falling off in earnest. Continue reading Creature Seed: Gol-Dough Golems.

Creature Seed: Cants.

This is one time when I wish that I was better at drawing things.  Ach, well, it’s greedy to want to have all the artistic talents.

cants-google-docs

Cants

Cants are… well, the name is a portmanteau of ‘cat’ and ‘ant,’ and it’s pretty accurate.  They are furry, tailed pseudo-mammals (the ‘cat’ part) with six legs and iridescent, protuberant compound eyes (the ‘ant’ part).  Cants are about the size of a bulldog, but can be sometimes a bit smaller.  They first appeared in the wilds of the Amazon river basin and the backwoods of Siberia, but have been spreading through the rest of the planet over the last few years, usually as pets.  Cants tend to be mixed insectivores/vegetarians: they prefer wetlands, but can adapt to any climate that has reliable water.  There was a desultory attempt to keep cants out of the general public’s clutches by various governments, but it didn’t work: just enough people had already adopted a stray to make it awkward to take them all away from their new owners. Continue reading Creature Seed: Cants.

Creature Seed: Chinchillas – Basic Briefing Sheet

I’d say blame this, but it’s not really her fault, is it? No. No, it is not. Also, I take the side of those who say that ‘seizuring’ is a word.

Chinchillas – Basic Briefing Sheet – Google Docs

Chinchillas – Basic Briefing Sheet

The domestic chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera) is a small South American rodent most often encountered in either the fur industry, or as a pet.  Wild chinchillas (which are currently officially listed as ‘endangered’) have a slight susceptibility to inimical supernatural energy: this trait has been amplified to a drastic degree in domesticated strains.  Simply put: expose a chinchilla to evil magic, and it gets a seizure and likely dies.

Continue reading Creature Seed: Chinchillas – Basic Briefing Sheet

Creature Seed: Fairy Swordfish.

Fairy Swordfish – Google Docs

Fairy Swordfish

These are… not precisely free-willed spirits or supernatural entities.  Instead, they are a shell into which a spirit can be poured into – preferably, voluntarily.  Not primarily because of any ethical concerns, alas: it’s more like you probably shouldn’t stuff something into an independent weapons platform unless it doesn’t mind being stuffed in there anyway.

In their ‘natural’ form, Fairy Swordfish look like small, winged, bomber jacket-wearing female humanoids with a narwhal’s horn on their heads and a grenade in one hand.  The species has what appears to be an almost religious aversion to hand-to-hand combat: they will happily stay out of range and rain down grenades at you from the air… unless you’re an ally of the British Crown, which is the entity that ‘owns’ the Fairy Swordfish shells.  In that case, they’ll just blow up your enemies, instead.  The spirits hired to imbue Fairy Swordfish are typically not evil creatures, so they don’t actively attack innocent people, but British Esoteric Intelligence is well aware that when you give flying spirits hand grenades, every so often the wrong thing might blow up*.

Nonetheless, they’re invaluable when it comes to cleaning out nests of apocalyptic cultists, assuming that the cultists were considerate enough to set up shop in truly desolate areas.  Which happens surprisingly often.  It’s like none of those people ever need to go to the supermarket…

*How does BEI cover up the existence of Fairy Swordfish? That’s an interesting question. Do you have the necessary security clearances to allow you to hear the answer?

Creature Seed: Textworms.

When writing this, I kept having the strangest feeling that I’ve written something like this before. But if I had, I couldn’t find it. Weird.

Textworms

These… things… are conceptual descendants of “printer’s devils” and the like; and pretty much everybody involved in, and aware of, the situation wants the devils back.  At least you could communicate with a printer’s devil.  The only language Textworms understand is the one spoken by a burning flame.

Continue reading Creature Seed: Textworms.

Creature seed: Scorpibones.

And blame this.

Scorpibones

Because necromancers have to go to school like everybody else; and sometimes they get bored in the lab.  Admittedly, you have to be very bored indeed to make what looks like a very badly-designed skeletal scorpion out of fish bones and a mouse skull, but that’s modern education for you. At least they’re doing something involving their field of study, right?

Continue reading Creature seed: Scorpibones.

Item/Creature seed: Yodeling Pickles.

Yodeling Pickles

No, not the ones on Amazon.  These …these… are a bit more problematic. And possibly evidence of an act of war between us and an alien species that nobody’s ever met, and lived to tell the tale about it.

It all started with the North American Mystery Boom Strikes of 1977 and 1978. Never heard of them? Well, of course not! Those shadowy government agencies exist for a reason, macushla: and in this case the reason was that the ‘booms’ were actually what appeared to be escape pods from an alien ship that augered into, and then left a fairly impressive crater on, the dark side of the moon. Various governments hushed it up, of course – blaming it on the Concorde supersonic jet (incidentally, the story of why we had to stop doing supersonic commercial air travel is rather fascinating, if a bit grim) while frantically looking for the capsules.  They found most of them, probably: unfortunately, they never found anything inside them that was actually still alive after impact. Continue reading Item/Creature seed: Yodeling Pickles.

Creature seed: Caws.

Blame this.

Caws

History – mercifully; perhaps, too mercifully – does not record the name of the Mad Scientist on Old Earth who first decided to mix cows and cats.  The plan, reportedly, was simple: imagine a cow with the fangs and claws of a lion or tiger! Fear their wrath as they go stampeding through the defenseless countryside, goring and tearing at all humans in their way!  And how would their creator would laugh at the sight!  Laughed, the way that they laughed at him in Veterinary School.  But he’d show them. He’d show them all.

[pause]

Well, that was the plan, at least.  Problem with that? Well, apparently the Mad Scientist in question forgot to carry the one. Continue reading Creature seed: Caws.

Creature Seed: Junkyard Spirits.

Junkyard Spirits

These creatures are a cross between nature and urban spirits; like the former, they are territorial, able to possess their surroundings, and have magic associated with their ‘element.’ And like the latter, they are essentially comfortable around humanity (note: not necessarily ‘nice’), able to use technology, and growing more and more corporeal every decade. At current rates, Junkyard Spirits will make the jump to an actual physical species within one hundred years. Continue reading Creature Seed: Junkyard Spirits.