Tag: Creatures

Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/3/22: Mythical Lions
xxxx(Narnia XXXIX)

One thing the world has no shortage of are mythical creatures based on lions, as I showed in this post. This is likely the reason there are no manticores or chimerae in Narnia; they would have stolen Aslan’s thunder! There are even more bizarre lion monsters in the world of heraldry, but that’s for another …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 7/27/22: Other Mythical
xxxxCreatures of Narnia
xxxx(Narnia XXXVIII)

This week’s post is a little different. I’m running out of things in Narnia to name, so I’m going to post a list of possibilities for Narnia fanfic writers: Aside from those mentioned in the books, what other sorts of mythological creatures might have resided in Narnia? Lewis himself had a pretty catholic list of …

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The Lady of the Green Kirtle:
Sisters in Green

Previous parts of this series can be read here (Part I) , here (Part II)  and here (Part III) Now that I’ve established The Lady of the Green Kirtle has Green Fairy lineage, I thought it would be fun to look at some of her cousins, the Green Fairies interpreted by contemporary artists. These images …

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The Lion of Lucerne

The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff—for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang …

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Nontraditional Chimerae

As I said in my post about traditional artistic depictions of chimerae there was little doubt to the creature’s appearance, which remained iconic over hundreds of years. The written descriptions, however, differed in the particulars. Artists of the Medieval age and beyond, depending on which writer they had access to, created different beasts from the …

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Traditional Chimerae

  It was a single being that had the force of three beasts, the front part of a lion, the tail of a drakon, and the third–middle–head was that of a goat, through which it breathed out fire. — Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 31 – 32 (Greek mythographer c. 2nd A.D.)   Chimerae depicted in ancient …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/13/22: Undead Magic

Undead are some of the most terrifying creatures in the AD&D universe. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be much magic that deals with them. So here’s a few randomgenned spells created on the fly.   Undead Magic Hair of the Skeleton: Strands of hair still existing on the skull of an otherwise defleshed skeleton can …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/6/22: English Folk Beings

In Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain series, one of the main characters is Gurgi, a sort of apelike wild man who Taran, the protagonist of the series, first encounters living in the forest. Though a pest at first, Gurgi later grows into his own as a hero and participant in Taran’s quest. Though Gurgi struck …

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Mystery Flesh Pit National Park [Review]

Mystery Flesh Pit National Park World concept by Trevor Roberts Begun 2019 This is a different kind of review as it’s not for a book, movie, or game, but a shared concept world. The Mystery Flesh Pit is the creation of Trevor Roberts, a concept artist and writer who started playing around with the idea …

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Children of the Elder Things, or Echinoderm Horror

  As I talked about here, H. P. Lovecraft’s Elder Things were such a unique creation both of their time and for SF in general that their caliber was not duplicated  for many years. There were echoes of them in the BEMs (bug-eyed monsters) of the lurid SF pulp covers of the 1930s through the …

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