by Vance Huxley
Globhoblin: warty, globular creature up to the size of a football with multiple legs ending in clawed feet. Will drain magic from the maggots and other life in discarded food but prefers to prey on the helpless like kittens, hamsters, and baby animals as well as small wildlife. Will also prey on drunks or the ill, using a stinger to draw magic. Easily killed by weak glyphs or banished by hexes.
Gremlin: tiny, vaguely human-looking creature whose skin and carapace look somewhat like a toothless old man in overalls. They live inside any type of machinery, including electrical equipment. They cause malfunctions so that angry or frustrated humans touch the object, and the Gremlin can feed from the leaking magic.
Thorny: prickly creature the size of a mouse, prefers fruit but will absorb magic from most human food and especially the flies and insects attracted to it. Infest canteens and rubbish dumps.
Hoplin: little creatures looking like a miniature armadillo hopping like a kangaroo, with a mildly venomous bite. Hunt in pairs that can kill rats, mice or a kitten to drain magic. Useful for dealing with infestations of rats and mice.
Faerie: rough-skinned creatures in shades and patterns of brown, with long, thin horny wings and a variety of limbs. Absorb the magic in grass or leaves, or sometimes fruit. Eat a little to help remain solid, which leaves tiny blemishes. Too many on one place can kill grass or leaves.
Fae: similar looking but a little larger than faerie, and prey on them. Some hunt small insects and are harmless to humans while others have stings and can be dangerous. Their natural magical food supply is sucked like mosquitoes from larger magical creatures that browse on the magic in plants.
Fairies: prefer wilderness, living on magic leached from plants especially flowers, many are bright coloured which makes them vulnerable to hunters such as fae.
Pictsies: like to live with humans and their pets where they hunt lice, flies, insects and spiders.
Pixies: live with humans. Live on the magic leaking from the residents of 'their' house or left on clothes, removing dandruff and loose hair.
Piskies: live in gardens, in stock pens, or in the wild. Like jokes.
Brownies: good ones are fanatically tidy. Live with humans if possible and tidy up dust, cobwebs, pet hair, but will leave if humans are either too tidy so there is no food, or too scruffy. If the humans are too untidy, the brownies may become angry and will trash the house before leaving.
A profusion of other small creatures exist, hunting the magic from anything from fleas up to rabbits or small dogs. They also hunt each other, and there are magical prey creatures that 'graze' on the magical energy in plants such as grass. Cats and dogs can see them but not clearly, just enough to avoid them or fight back. Some are beneficial, but if aware most humans prefer to stop most from fluttering, crawling, hopping or slithering into their homes.
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Allegedly Extinct species
Skoffin - Icelandic creature - breathes fire and turns prey to stone before consuming.
Dragon - many types, now all hunted and killed.
Aryadne's Hound - man/spider hybrid created by Goddess Aryadne to serve her. Live in caves, eat carrion, four spider legs and rear and four spider-like arms on humanoid torso. Died out when she faded.
* * *
Created Creatures
Guardian: very hard to kill without magic. Usually a stone statue, the construct is charged with magic and set to guard. Once triggered the magic will animate the stone regardless of any weathering or damage. The animating glyph is carved in the centre of the stone block, a very skilled magical task, and impossible to reach without destroying the vessel.
Bound Shade: a creature with its spirit captured at the moment of dying and used to keep a semblance of life. Usually controlled by burying a glyph deep inside it, or imprisoning the spirit within a tattoo on the Shade's master or mistress. The Shade will then obey direct orders from the glyph-maker or if sent on mission or left as a sentry follow imprinted instructions, guarding an area for instance. While torpid a Bound Shade needs only a little sustenance, but once roused it must feed on the living.
Pungh Hmmshtfun (Old Hebrew dialect)
Spiritus qui Furabatur (Latin)
Koška Smerti (Russian)
Braeth Huntian (Old English)
Ferryl Shayde - name currently used by a faded sorceress
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VANCE HUXLEY
Vance Huxley lives out in the countryside in Lincolnshire, England. He has spent a busy life working in many different fields – including the building and rail industries, as a workshop manager, trouble-shooter for an engineering firm, accountancy, cafe proprietor, and graphic artist. He also spent time in other jobs, and is proud of never being dismissed, and only once made redundant.
Eventually he found his Noeline, but unfortunately she died much too young. To help with the aftermath, Vance tried writing though without any real structure. As an editor and beta readers explained the difference between words and books, he tried again.
Now he tries to type as often as possible in spite of the assistance of his cats, since his legs no longer work well enough to allow anything more strenuous. An avid reader of sci-fi, fantasy and adventure novels, his writing tends towards those genres.
