cryptic-future

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Let Me Talk About Werewolves for a Second

Why is it that every werewolf book is this weird testosterone fueled alpha male/female romance thing? 

Like guys. Werewolves are family groups. They are basically big ol’ dog families. Your werewolf family wouldn’t be made up of alpha males fighting each other for dominance and subjugating females. 

If there was a werewolf in your neighborhood, they’d be that family of 10 kids always roughhousing outside and their house is the one all the neighborhood kids go to hang out at because Mr. Werewolf and Mrs. Werewolf are the Cool Parents that their kids find really embarrassing. 

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“Dragon” is such a vague category of creature with such a ridiculous diversity of bauplans. It doesn’t matter how big it is or how many legs it has or whether it has wings or not: you can call it a dragon if it is kind of snakey, and/or breathes fire (virtually anything that can breathe fire has the potential to qualify as a dragon).

Case in point, look at all these different things that are dragons:

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guys will try to impress you by telling you they know everything about dragon mythology and folklore and then not even be able to tell you the difference between a wyrm and a wyvern

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im really just here to give you some ideas for your dnd characters fursona (werewolf is based on a maned wolf which isnt a fox or a wolf i just think they look cool)

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there aren’t enough posts going around about the swedish cryptid known as the skvader which is a rabbit with pheasant wings and also a very good boy.

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Dryad

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Part fivveee

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Redbubble / INprnt

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a vampire stands on the front porch of a farmhouse and says “i cannot come in unless i am invited”. the vampires friend, a cowboy, says “cmon, you know youre always welcome here, partner.” the vampire begins crying.

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Myths, Creatures, and Folklore

Want to create a religion for your fictional world? Here are some references and resources!

General:

General Folklore

Various Folktales

Heroes

Weather Folklore

Trees in Mythology

Animals in Mythology

Birds in Mythology

Flowers in Mythology

Fruit in Mythology

Plants in Mythology

Folktales from Around the World

Africa:

Egyptian Mythology

African Mythology

More African Mythology

Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

The Gods of Africa

Even More African Mythology

West African Mythology

All About African Mythology

African Mythical Creatures

Gods and Goddesses

The Americas:

Aztec Mythology

Haitian Mythology

Inca Mythology

Maya Mythology

Native American Mythology

More Inca Mythology

More Native American Mythology

South American Mythical Creatures

North American Mythical Creatures

Aztec Gods and Goddesses

Asia:

Chinese Mythology

Hindu Mythology

Japanese Mythology

Korean Mythology

More Japanese Mythology

Chinese and Japanese Mythical Creatures

Indian Mythical Creatures

Chinese Gods and Goddesses

Hindu Gods and Goddesses

Korean Gods and Goddesses

Europe:

Basque Mythology

Celtic Mythology

Etruscan Mythology

Greek Mythology

Latvian Mythology

Norse Mythology

Roman Mythology

Arthurian Legends

Bestiary

Celtic Gods and Goddesses

Gods and Goddesses of the Celtic Lands

Finnish Mythology

Celtic Mythical Creatures

Gods and Goddesses

Middle East:

Islamic Mythology

Judaic Mythology

Mesopotamian Mythology

Persian Mythology

Middle Eastern Mythical Creatures

Oceania:

Aboriginal Mythology

Polynesian Mythology

More Polynesian Mythology

Mythology of the Polynesian Islands

Melanesian Mythology

Massive Polynesian Mythology Post

Maori Mythical Creatures

Hawaiian Gods and Goddesses

Hawaiian Goddesses

Gods and Goddesses

Creating a Fantasy Religion:

Creating Part 1

Creating Part 2

Creating Part 3

Creating Part 4

Fantasy Religion Design Guide

Using Religion in Fantasy

Religion in Fantasy

Creating Fantasy Worlds

Beliefs in Fantasy

Some superstitions:

Read More

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artfight stuff

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Juanmao

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Idea:

Medusa wasn’t Cursed with Snake Hair and Scales.

She Already had Snake Hair and Scales and was still the hottest lady the Gods have ever seen.

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God I need to draw some fucking MONSTERS like YESTERDAY.

God I need to PAINT some fucking MONSTERS like NOW.

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Lore Thoughts and Explorations

My ramblings taken straight from discord ;3c

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•Gryphons, Hippogryphs, Chimeras, Pegasi, and others of that nature. The big wild animals. Hippogryphs and Pegasi can be tamed for riding. Gryphons and Chimeras can also be trained but in the same sense someone can train a lion. However there are smaller breeds that can be kept as pets.

•Imps, Pixies, and Gremlins: small, mischievous, and intelligent little creatures. all are somewhat similar in form but have their own differences, kind of like hares and rabbits. Gremlins are furry like little monkeys, Pixies are bug-like, and Imps are scalie. These guys are also popular pets

•All the wendigos have skulls for heads. Some things can differ such as they can have bigger hooves or hands, different horn shape, how spiky they are, or a different sort of tail, but the skull shape and general body anatomy stays the same (Varies from region to region for what the “general” skull form is). Wendigos also have poor eyesight during the day.

•Ghouls and Wendigos are the same species just different names due to region (“Ghoul” is Arabic in origin while “Wendigo” is Native and other regions have their own terms).

•Chupacabras resulted from the mixing of a colony of lagoon creatures and a pilgrimage of vampires. The lore that speculated Chupacabras as a dog-like creature actually comes from a Crocotta sighting.

•The original Mothman from popular culture wasnt actually full mothman. They were a cross between a mothman and a harpy.

•Nymphs consist of five variations: Aurai (air), Hesperides (earth), Nereides (salt water), Naiades (fresh water), and Dryads (trees).

•Dark Elves have gray skin undertones with long “floppy, bunny-like” ears while Light Elves have pearlescent skin with long upward-pointed ears.

•There are three common ways of form changing: shifting, transformations, and illusions

Shifting is a biological form change

Transformations are magical form change

And illusions, such as glamours, are merely just illusions to the eye.

Glamours were common among cryptids to keep their identities a secret but once they are integrated back into society, glamours become more commonly used by humans

•Humans can learn how to use magic such as through ways like voodoo and witchcraft and etc, but it’s never as powerful as a naturally imbued creature such as a unicorn, dragon, or sphinx. Sometimes, humans just aren’t even magically inclined and just have to rely on magically imbued items to grant them a simple glamour.

•Dragons and Unicorns are two cryptids with the longest lifespan, however, they also have a harder time conceiving children.

•The Jersey Devil myth originates from being born as the 13th child of a woman named Mother/Mrs. Leed and she was thought to have cursed the child because of it being the devil’s child (the story varies of course). But the ending still leads to this bipedal hooven bat-winged creature being born and thought to terrorize the area.

Parts of this story turns out to be true.

The Jersey Devil is actual just a feral daemon. What the woman didn’t know is that she had an affair with a glamoured feral daemon and just one thing led to the next. The woman and a few other witnesses blew things out of proportion and threw out the baby, in hopes to be rid of the creature.

Thankfully, some cryptids hiding in the woods found it and took care of it, leading to the occasional sighting.

Nowadays, the jersey devil is a common variant of feral daemon with more equine features and wings.

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That’s it for now! Feel free to shoot me a question if you’re curious about further explorations of the lore!~

Buy me a coffee?

Join my discord!

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Exploring more my two-headed horse idea which I’ve decided to name “corsels” - an offshoot of the spanish word for noble steed, ‘corcel’.

Wanted to have some fun with coats, some organic and others not so, to see how they could look like in wild, domestic, or even fantasy/high fiction settings. Admittedly I wanted to originally call the “faux single” pinto head coat “the oreo” because that’s exactly what I was going for - but didn’t think it may fit well in many other settings aside from our modern one. I changed it to “faux single” because the pattern is supposed to create the illusion that the double heads look like a single one when both faced forward.

We’ll be exploring saddle and rein ideas soon. Heavily studying what horse team reins look like as they will likely be the strongest candidate, but we’ll see alternate variations as well.

That being said, I want to express that the Corsels are FREE TO USE for your own stories, RPs, DnD campaigns, and/or other fictional settings. I only authorize its use for fun, not for profit. 

Have fun!

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Fae vs. Fairy

Alright guys, let’s talk fae (the Celtic version).

There’s a terribly common misconception of what fae/fairy (and pixies) really means. On screen and sometimes even in books fairies are mistakenly shown to be those little winged creatures described as mischievous if not evil. That’s false. Those are actually pixies. The actual Fae (faerie, later fairy) are the mysterious nature spirits possessing magical powers, who look human-like but can also temporarily take up various smaller sizes upon choice.

But where do the Fae start? From the myths and folklore of the ancient Celts. The gods and goddesses of the Celts were many in number, and many unknown, but they were regarded with reverence, as having power and purpose, with various functions in the natural world. These gods were the Tuatha de Dannan, the people of Danu.

But with the arrival of Christianity, this changed, like most Celtic (and other non-Celtic) concepts. They were altered in meaning. Gods and deities of the old pagan ways were demoted to “fairy folk”, to heroes and remorseful warriors that change their faith, to lessen their power. Their pedestal of godhood and aura of mystery was strategically erased. They became enchanters, sorcerers, which obviously had evil connotations in Christian perception. In Daemonologie, King James associated fairies with demonic entities. Eventually even this imagery of the magical enchanters was further demoted to what is now most commonly known as that of the pixies: in other words, something small, harmless, powerless, a troublesome spirit that nobody cares to bother with anymore.

So in this sense, fae/faerie/faery refers to the ancient idea of what they stood for, the original one (gods, Tuatha de Dannan, powerful magical spirits); whereas fairy is the more modern one mistaken for pixies (small, harmless, mischievous).

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pale sphinx in the garden.

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