Bangfish (monster)

It was a quiet and somewhat cold night. There wasn't much of a moon to talk about, and the stars that perforated the dark veil above didn't bring much light to their lonely boat. Billobi inspected the night sky with great awe and tried several times to count the stars - only to be interrupted every time he reached fourteen.

"Did I tell you about the stars, young lad?" said the voice. It belonged to the owner of the boat, an old man named Badsey. He was the ferryman, and made sure people got safely across the waters from Ketch-in-Loch to the small, treeless island of Skiff-in-Loch.

Or, he would have, had he not dropped the oars.

They sat stationary, all alone in the small boat in the middle of night. Billobi was on a mission for the Inquisitive, to do an interview with a strange (according to his editor) woman that lived on Skiff-in-Loch. It was his first time this far west, and it was his first meeting with this ferryman.

"No, you didn't tell me about the stars, Mr. Badsey", said Billobi polite.

"Ah, it's candles, yes, yes! You see, people live up there!"

"But, how could one survive up there? I reckon you'd fall down at once?"

"But you see, it's them mirrorpeople, yes. It's our reflection that lives up there, the mirrorpeople. They look up at us sometimes and wonder why we don't fall down on them, yes. Mirrorpeople!"

"Mirrorpeople?"

Billobi pulled out pen and paper from his backpack. Maybe he didn't have to travel all the way to Skiff-in-Loch for his story?

"And, and! And sometimes, when they sneeze, it starts to rain! Yes, yes."

Or maybe, Billobi thought while taking notes, maybe he'd die of thirst in this boat with this crazy old man, and these notes of sneezing people in the sky will be his last words.

"Oh, and did I, did I", old Badsey said excited when he noticed that Billobi took notes. "Did I tell you about the time I lost me eye to an OGREFISH?" he said and pointed at his eye-patch.

"Please do", Billobi said.

"Yes, it was a cold night, much like this one..."

A deep sound interrupted old Badsey all of a sudden. It was so loud that Billobi almost lost his writing gear to the dark water. The echo that followed didn't make it any less frightful.

"What...was that?" Billobi whispered.

"No need to worry, lad. It's probably just a bangfish, yes. The dumbest animal you'll ever know."

"A...bangfish?"

Billobi searched the surroundings for any stupid looking fish, but it was hard to see in the dark.

"Why's...why is it called that?"

"It bangs its head against rocks, yes, yes. Sometimes boats too, yes."

"Why would it do that?" asked Billobi, taking notes eagerly.

"'Cause it's stupid! Ah, look what the waves brought in, yes! Good thing that bangfish was around, ey? Don't you drop them this time!"

A bangfish is a rather large fish that lacks a mouth. They are born with a life-long supply of nutrition, kept in a elastic cavity in their forehead.

The only way for them to eat is to bang their forehead against something hard. That way, the cavity will leak a small amount of nutrition that's instantly assimilated by their organs.

They communicate by making a deep, strong sound, where their whole body serves as a resonating box.

Bangfish have been known to bash their heads against boats if they haven't been able to feed for a while.

They either die of old age or by depleting their nutrition cavity.

Itchy tree (monster)

Hamphred Dungbeetle, Billobi's cousin and the second largest person in the whole county, didn't care much for prudishness. The hot climate in the southern parts of the country were notorious, and demanded "certain solutions", as Hamphred often declared. One of these included a large, stationary bathtub out on the front lawn, next to the big road.

"Them believers always talks 'bout sacrifices and pleasing them gods and what not", Hamphred told young Billobi once while lowering his naked body into the bathtub. "So if - aaaaah! - them fancy gods created this warmer-than-a-cat-on-fire-weather, one would think they'd expect some sacrifices, right? Well, I'm sacrificing the very dirt and sweat on me body, I am! The best there is!"

He also made a bathtub for Billobi by taking the wheels off an old wagon and filling it with water. Every evening, after a full day's work, Hamphred and Billobi undressed and got in their tubs, cooling down while the sun slowly set in the distance - and greeting anyone passing by.


Billobi cherished every memory he had of these moments - especially one. It was after a particular warm day. Both he and Hamphred lay in their tubs, eyes closed and minds adrift.

Suddenly, something shaded them both. Something that said: "Good evening, fellow brothers!"

They opened their eyes and saw a naked man, grinning at them both. Judging from his posture - among other things - he must've been old.

"Yes, good evening to you too, old man. A bit warm, are we!" Hamphred said with a laughter.

"Noo, well yes, it's quite hot today, isn't it, but noo, clothes are the burden of the ones yet to be blessed, the non-ascended, don't you agree?"

"I don't care for words I don't know", Hamphred answered and closed his eyes again.

"Well, yes, it's understandable, although a bit ignorant, I must say. However, why don't the two of you come join us in the merry blessing's of the trees? We're building quite the community, you know."

"Them words leaving your mouth doesn't make any more sense than a bucket on a head, old man."

"Well, to make a long story short... By the Itch, is that your dog?" The old man suddenly shouted.

"If this is about them gull flowers..." Hamphred said and opened his eyes, only to discover his neighbour's dog Ten happily wagging his tail next to the bathtub. Usually hairy as a bear, the dog now had a large hairless area on its left hind leg. In the centre of the otherwise pale skin was a strange symbol in red, almost pulsating as if it was breathing.

"Ah, Ten, you dumb dog", Hamphred said and splashed water at the dog. "Couldn't stay away from them itchy trees, could you?"

"This dog's been blessed!" the old man proclaimed with a solemn voice.

"No, he's... Wait a minute... Old man, don't tell me you're one of them rashers!"

"We prefer to call ourselves Huggers!"

Billobi never forget the sight of Hamphred flying out of the bathtub and chasing the old man off his properties under heavy cursing, dressed in what mother nature tailored for them at birth. The dog licked the rash a couple of times, before running after them in an unnatural high speed.

Itchy trees are called so for their highly toxic bark. Touching the bark will most certainly cause complete hair loss at the affected area. More interesting, in some rare cases will the rash form a strange red symbol, pulsating at a slow pace.

The symbol will affect its wearer by some magical means - beneficial or harmful. There have been no successful reports of how to determine this behaviour.

Consuming the bark is lethal, and have never resulted in any magical effects taken place - only death.

The rash will last for a couple of days, after which both the symbol and any magical effects will disappear.

A multitude of cults have evolved around these trees, of which nearly all revolves around the idea of stripping down and rubbing one's body against the bark, in hope of being "blessed". The most famous of these are called "Rashers", although they prefer to call themselves "Huggers".

Gull flower (monster)

The southern parts of the country are more or less known for their farming communities. Big people harvesting even bigger crops, feeding the out-of-towners so they won't die of hunger - at least according to Billobi's cousin Hamphred Dungbeetle.

Hamphred was not only a self-proclaimed genius and farmer, he was the second largest person in the whole county (his father being number one). After winning the annual arm wrestling contest with ease for the third year in a row, the local newspaper described him as the closest thing you could come to a living barn with arms.

Billobi and his parents often visited his cousin during the summers, to help out with the daily chores and mock the out-of-towners.

"Them burghers come here with the're fancy talk and teeth", Hamphred used to tell Billobi, often followed by spitting. "Can't milk them cows with yer teeth, though!"

Hamphred had great knowledge of the nature of the countryside, about harvesting and farming in general, much of which he gladly passed on to young Billobi. He also liked to talk about things he didn't know anything about, like women, magic and city life. One particular lesson in gardening Billobi remembered was the one about gull flowers.

"Bill!" Hamphred shouted across the fields. "Pick me one of them yellow flowers and come!"

Billobi did as told, and picked one of the flowers. Their stalks were tall and thin, yet sturdy enough to bear its yellow crown.

"This blossom here, we call this a gull flower", Hamphred told him. "Taste like sugar, but deadly as a black cat in a fancy dress! Look here."

Hamphred led him back to the patch of flowers, and dug up one of the flowers with roots and all. A large, round bulb was attached at the bottom. It was dark red, and seemed almost polished.

"These balls, the gull bulb, are cursed. Three times does it give you a nice flower, but the fourth the shell cracks, and out crawls horned creatures, like dogs out of the soil... Horrible, annoying things, chews on everything. Good meat though, taste like sugar!"

Gull flowers grows almost everywhere. Their bulb is dark red in colour, and hard as stone. The flower blossoms thrice before the bulb enters a strange metamorphosis and evolves into a horned creature, the size of a dog.

Gull flowers are usually banned in larger settlements such as towns, although some may allow them if the planter promises to keep count.

Spellbook parasites (monster)

Thomas Althorp, the owner of Horsehead's only antique shop and one of Billobi's friends, was equally known for selling strange, magical items as dealing with strange, peculiar people that visited him from time to time. One of these was lady Lamport.

Billobi only met lady Lamport once, but he remembered it for the rest of his life. He was passing through Horsehead and decided to pay his friend Mr Althorp a visit, and came into the shop just when she was about to leave.

"Hang on a second, Billobi", Thomas said and went into another room behind the counter.

"Why, hello there", said lady Lamport and waved at Billobi. She wore a pale, oversized gown, that made her look thrice as big as she probably were. Her hair was tied in a firm knot in the back of her head, that seemed to pull her face backwards. She wore a pair of glasses, ornamented with colourful pearls, that lacked actual glass. She held out her bare hand to Billobi.

Billobi, who were no stranger to etiquettes, walked up to her, gently took her hand and touched it with his lips. "Good day, madame", he said and smiled.

Right about then, Thomas came back with a worn book that he handed over to lady Lamport. He wore white gloves, which he immediately pulled off and disposed in the stove next to him.

"There you are, m'lady. I'll see you next week then?"

Lady Lamport nodded, first at Thomas and then at Billobi. She then left without a word.

"Who was that?" asked Billobi.

"That, my friend, was lady Lamport. One of my most valued customers. She helps me cross-pollinate my 'special' spellbooks. There are quite a lot of 'special' wizards out there..."

"Cross-pollinate?"

"Yep."

"How?"

"She grow parasites at home. I borrow them sometimes for cross-pollination."

Billobi felt a cold chill running through his spine. "She grows...parasites?"

"Yep."

"...fetch me a glass of water, please. A clean glass!"

Spellbook parasites are tiny, tiny creatures that lives on the alteration of magic, most often found in spellbooks. They do not consume the magic of the spells in the books, since that would make it harder for them to survive. Instead, when a wizard reads from his book in order to memorize a spell, the parasites nourish on the magical link between the reader and the spell on the page. When fed, the parasites produce a by-product of that original magic that the wizard will memorize along with some of the original spell.

The by-product is an small alteration of the original spell, so the reader will not notice any difference; they will memorize a spell by that same name - only slightly modified.

The by-product or modification differs greatly, and seems to depend on the age and origin of the parasites:

• Very old spellbooks, infected by the parasites a long time ago, tend to have spells go much, much slower through the air, as if the ageing of the parasites directly affects the speed
• If infected near a swamp or any other damp and wet environment, the spells will almost certain create water splashes on impact - or even cause a extremely local rain
  
• Wizards have been known to shoot flowers when their spellbooks have been infected by meadow parasites

Since this is not a curse per se, any attempts of removing them with dispelling magic will fail. The only known ways of getting rid of these parasites is to either put a new spellbook next to the infected one during the night (there's a 25% chance that half of the parasites climb over to the new book, but only 5% that all of them will), or simply burn it.

The parasites are harmless to humans and animals.

Sinker (monster)

Billobi always had a feeling that travelling with the small ferry between Ketch-in-Loch and the tiny island of Skiff-in-Loch, could very well be his last one. As long as he could remember the ferry had been operated by old man Badsey, a rugged fellow with an eyepatch. A harmless man, that had a different story each time on how he got the eyepatch.

The ferry was a narrow and old thing, powered by Badsey's slow paddling in the middle. There were a total of four seats spread out evenly: two in front of Badsey, and two behind. This time, Billobi unfortunately got to sit face to face with the old man.

"A fish ate my eye! A FISH!" Badsey said.

"Yes, you told me so last time", Billobi answered bored, although he suspected that Badsey didn't really listen.

"An OGREFISH, yes, that's right, terrible, terrible things...good meat though, yes, yes..."

When Badsey didn't get the awe he wanted, he leaned to the side and faced the man sitting behind Billobi. With one finger pointing at the eyepatch he shouted: "OGREFISH! ATE MY BLOODY EYE! PUPIL AND EVERYTHING!"

Just then the boat hit something, causing Badsey to drop one oar into the water under loud cursing. Luckily, the traveller behind him was able to reach it, handing it over to Badsey again.

"Thank you, lad, yes. Good thing an OAREATER didn't catch it! Nasty critters, eats oars, yes, see this? Caught my eye once, mistook it for an oar he did!"

"Look!" the rough man behind Billobi said with a low voice, reaching into the water. "I bet I can catch that fat fish with my bare hands!"

Looking over the side deck, Billobi spotted the fish just below the surface right next to the boat. It would indeed be possible to reach it.

"Don't touch it!", Badsey cried.

"Let me guess", the man said with a grin, "it will eat my eye... I'm hungry, I'll just take it and cook it later."

Effortless, he managed to get a firm grip around the fat fish. It didn't even seem like it was fighting back. He held it just above the surface, smiling at the rest of the ferry travellers.

"Gotcha! Hmm, it's kind of sticky...hey, its-"

All of a sudden, he fell overboard like if being pulled by his arm, and disappeared.

"He caught himself a sinker", old man Badsey said, and started paddling. "Not much we can do, no, but wait and hope that he can hold his breath!"

The sinker is a surface fish with the ability to excrete a sticky slime through glands hidden beneath its scale. The slime is the first part of the sinker's self-defence mechanism; the second consists of a strange metamorphosis inside its organs, making it a hundred times heavier. This transformation lasts for a couple of minutes, just enough for the slime to dry.

Anyone touching the sinker is guaranteed to get stuck, and potentially dragged down into whatever depths it came from.