A World of Monsters. (An Encyclopedia on the creatures of the world of Null, Original Writing.)

[TripleMRed]

Log 3

You know, big families are a pretty normal thing. How long they stay big varies wildly, but every family has at least one or two spots in their history where enough of them are alive to be notable. I'm happy to report that my family is pretty huge. Lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, from all corners of the Median. One of our most recent additions to be married in, meanwhile, is good ol' Auntie Mira!

Auntie Mira's an Empusa, and a pretty old one at that. A thousand years and she's still kicking all kinds of tail, mostly in the accounting field at the company she works for. She married into the family about 5 years after me and Hanek were born, got together with our blood aunt Hama. They've been together ever since, and have had like a dozen kids thanks to Mira being an Empusa and having the equipment to get it done.

A number of folks have always wondered what Oros-Empusa hybrids look like, but since species is passed down by the mom, they're all Oros like us and auntie Hama. Though, they do have traits from Mira: Some mild gem like structures around the ears, her eyes, ect ect. Us Oros have a sex determination process that causes us to be conceived as the sex we're born as, so that lack of 'crossover' with stuff like the X-Y chromosome of some Displaced doesn't happen with us. As it turns out, however, if we reproduce with someone who is naturally intersex like the hermaphroditic Empusa, the kids have a chance of being born intersex too. It's not really a mixing of our sex determination genes like some would think, but rather adding in a other possibilities to the selection process. Like my cousin's Stella, Blanc or Rorio, for example.

Anyway, Mira's all kinds of cool. She's got this serious, 'don't mess with me' 'tude to her, the kind only old Empusa like her get by surviving as long as they do, and she's always got something snippy to say like everything annoys her. But she shows how much she cares by helping out anyway, and lots of financial stuff we've had to do in the past got handled, like helping me with my tuition or the delivery company Blanc works with with their budget. And that's just what she does on the side, she's a big name in the accounting division of Genesong Biomedical!

As an Empusa, she has the same tail as her larger Chimera cousins, complete with the whole bio-chemical processing and analysis systems. However, Empusa have the gift of geomancy, particularly with crystalline structures. If it's a crystal and she knows the molecular structure of it, she can make it with her own two hands. Empusa like her are major players in the energy industry as a result, because while they can't make stuff like adamantium and mythril that we still need to mine and refine, they can effectively be an infinite source of Solarite and Fulgerite when enough of them put in the time and effort to make the stuff in bulk. She actually used to work as a Gemcrafter before she got into accounting, using her skills at making gems by hand to help pay her way through school to become one! She even used her old skills to make the rings for her and auntie Hama's wedding, which is just the best thing ever. (Note to self, ask her to make the rings for my own wedding if I ever find 'the one' for me.)

Of course, it hasn't all been fun and games with her in her life. Due to their relatively small sizes and fragility compared to the other Orosoid races like, well, us Oros or the Chimera and Cerberi, the Empusa have it kinda rough. It's why they have their signature attitudes, a lot of them lose friends and family at a young age even by the standards of our world. When your kids and other loved ones have such a high mortality rate, it's no wonder you get so aggressive as a defense mechanism. She's been a fighter all her life: Any and every time there's been a call put out for combatants here in Byr, she's jumped at the call. And since she managed to survive so long, she got reeeeally good at staying alive, and making sure the enemy doesn't.

Empusa may not be the fastest, the toughest, the strongest, but what they are is the most vicious. In a fight, they don't 'fight dirty', because that implies they fight clean at all. Weak spots, the belly, private parts, they go after those as much as to make a point of not messing with them as they do to end things as fast as possible. While plenty of younger Empusa who were born in the Great Walled Cities are pretty relaxed and cheerful compared to their older generations, even they are taught to go for the throat as an opening move. Okay, that's factually incorrect. The opening move of any Empusa fight is to use their geomancy to pin the enemy to the ground with a crystalline cage to skewer or otherwise immobilize their feet, before they even begin to get in close to start doing horror movie stuff to the enemy. Auntie Mira refuses to get passed Sergeant in the Militia because she knows how much more useful she is on the ground, and like, I've seen the combat footage. Slowing down an entire horde of incoming Spider Ants with a gem-mine field? Brutal.

She's actually the one who taught me and my brother to fight, Empusa style! Well, as much as she could anyway. There's only so much we can learn to imitate when we fundamentally lack the gem growing necessary to make the most of it, though I have to admit, shoving your fist into an enemy's belly and then exploding your crystal gauntlet into a gem grenade is pretty nasty stuff. Wouldn't be Auntie Mira if she didn't try to get us to imitate it with actual grenades, though! Not much use for me, since I'm not all that much of a fighter and just stick with fixing stuff, but Hanek sure knows how to use it! He killed a Spider Ant Tanker by force feeding it an entire belt of grenades once. Didn't even do it as a last resort, he just snatched a belt from a box, climbed on its back when it was distracted, and shoved them into its maw with all of them active before it even realized what was going on. The results weren't as spectacular or messy as the movies make it seem, but like, it was half dead and puking up its half pulped insides before someone finished it off with an AT missile to the head. Didn't even do any damage except for the wall it busted in through!

We both owe her a lot, and I don't know what we can do to repay her, but knowing her, she'd refuse it on principle. 'We're family', she'd used to say when someone in the family tried to pay her back, 'We help each other when we need it. Now shove off with the money before I shove it down your throat!' Ah, good ol' Auntie Mira.

[The Anniversary Updates will be happening throughout this month, featuring some art of older creatures and new in-universe lore, with some surprises in store! Amazing art courtesy of @Jen!]

 

[TripleMRed]

Log 4

Dogs, right? Us Oros are dogs, which is cool, there's a bunch of dog species we keep as pets, and there's several canine species related to us over on the other side of the continent. However, there is only one other sapient species of dog people who live alongside us here in our homelands that have been with us since the start-

The Cerberi! Got more than a few friends and family who are members of their species, but I'd like to highlight one I know from work since they are pretty cool with helping us out. Dari Meti-Leti-Heti, construction workers extraordinaire! Even with the advances in auto-construction over the centuries, there is always work for super strong folks like Cerberi, Warrior Body Type Oros, and Erui Tiger Spirits. A whole team working together can set up a whole house in no time at all, and they're just as useful on reconstruction of military facilities as anyone. Not sure if they do it because it's cheaper or not, but it's not uncommon to subcontract out construction of military vehicles and heavy equipment to folks like them when auto-fab facilities aren't available.

The Dari sisters (From right to left, Meti, Leti, and Heti) are common sight thanks to Rain-Aki Heavy Fabrications being one of Dreamhold's main go-tos for reconstruction and repair of the Great Walls. I meet them a lot due to them also having a contract to help with repairs and fabrication of the heavy vehicle bays, as we're still stuck with older model equipment that is all finicky and temperamental. They're rolling out upgrades to all the defense bases around Dreamhold, but we still haven't had our turn yet. But hey, what can you do, some sectors have higher priority due to higher threat levels, you know?

Anyway, the Daris remind me of one of my aunts despite no relation. Cerberi personalities vary between sisters, and the range vary between Cerberi bodies. Meti, the right head, is calm and analytical, while Leti, the dominant central head, is peppy and friendly, with Heti the left head being a bit grouchy. Not that you'd know when they're on the clock. When these girls punch in, they're the utmost epitome of professionalism, which makes their quirks showing up off the clock all the more surprising. They've been working at this job for some five centuries by this point, which seems hard to believe due to how few scars they have. It's not all that surprising when you consider how good Cerberus regen is. Takes a lot more to scar them up, with even their scales healing up without scratches after a while. Or do they shed the scales and replace them with new ones? Even with Cerberus aunties, I never got the chance to get that one cleared up.

Despite being into construction, the Daris are also experts at black smithing and rune working. Not that surprising. According to the old legends, the first Mortal race that the Great Tiger Spirit of Black Smithing discovered was the Cerberi, who he taught the basics of forging to give them a leg up. The Cerberi, being the big lovable ladies they are, immediately used their new skills to help out the rest of us, and civilization got a big boost in technological advancement early on. Regardless of how true the legend is, it's a cultural staple for Cerberi to learn at least the basics of smith and rune work in their youths to carry them into their adulthood. Even Cerberi who are the least skilled at smithing can do decent upkeep and basic repair jobs on armor and gear, and even know how to etch in some basic runes, making them excellent sources for cheap start up equipment for those of us who are still young and starting out.

As for the Dari's themselves, they come around here enough times that they've started offering to pay for after work drinks for the crew. Needless to say, this has made them very popular here in the engineering segment I work at. They got the rusty red fur and accent that indicates they're from the Firebrand Nation, so it's been something of a matter of national pride that me and the other Stonecutters challenge them to drinking contests. I'm usually the last one standing up against them, but it usually ends in a tie anyway as we all just collapse before a real winner can be selected. But hey, free drinks, can't complain about that! [Unless it's a warm liquor challenge. Who does those when it's not even winter!?]

Dari's been good to us, so we here have been good to their in return. I don't know all that much about the Cerberi's main religion to be honest, something about fist-fight God? Either way, we help keep their PA and weaponry in tip top shape whenever they go out to their equivalent of services. Update: Apparently, if what I heard is right, it involves finding the ancient divine nature beasts they worship and trying to kill them so they come back stronger? It's summed up in a really old koan of theirs: 'Do you love God enough to kill Them?' Which like, does make me think on it.

They also are part of the Militia, the unofficial reserve forces of the Median military whose job is to act as the rapid response forces among the civilian population. Thankfully, all of us here at Dreamhold who are part of that don't have to see action often, but there's been a couple of Spider Ant wars that were big enough that we've had to call in everyone to fight. I remember the last time that happened, 20 years ago. Swarm billions big, managed to get who knows how many hundreds of thousands into the city's streets before the shields could be brought up. Thankfully, we were coordinated well that time, and were able to kill off the Ants with minimal casualties and collateral damage. That time at least....

With folks like Dari helping keep Dreamhold up and running and protected, though, I'm not too worried about our continued safety in the future. It'll take way more than Ants to knock us down! Especially when some of the defenders have freaking flamethrower tails! That's sure to cook whatever's dumb enough to come after us!

[The Anniversary Updates will be happening throughout this month, featuring some art of older creatures and new in-universe lore, with some surprises in store! Amazing art courtesy of @Jen!]