#Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell

[rochellenorlund1990]

Fred Tatasciore is amazing as the voice of Hulk.

Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell (2016)

My rating: 4/10

Keep reading

[sasa-chan]

Day 24

Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell

Year Released: 2016

Run Time: 1hr 15m

Director: Mitch Schauer

Rating: PG

Genres: Animation, Action, Fantasy

Halloween is Grinch Night (It's Grinch Night)

Year Released: 1977

Run Time: 25m

Director: Gerard Baldwin

Rating: Not Rated

Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family

Thriller Night (Shrek: Thriller Night)

Year Released: 2011

Run Time: 6m

Director: Sean Bishop, Gary Trousdale

Rating: TV-Y7

Genres: Animation, Comedy, Short

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Year Released: 1966

Run Time: 25m

Director: Bill Melendez

Rating: TV-G

Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family

Mickey's Tale of Two Witches

Year Released: 2021

Run Time: 47m

Director: Jeff Gordon

Rating: TV-Y

Genres: Action, Adventure, Animation

[balioc]

So yeah. I don't like Halloween. Reasons include:

It is extremely popular in my cohort, or at least in the circles where I dwell (both online and offline). Oftentimes, it feels like people are trying to make it quasi-mandatory to Love Halloween, in the way that Loving Christmas is quasi-mandatory for many normies. I am contrary and curmudgeonly enough to bristle at this.

I am a theater LARPer, which means I spend a lot of time acquiring and wearing costumes. Costuming for LARPs is great, because it provides a sense of immersion in, and involvement with, a narrative setting; it is a tool for changing reality around you, a little bit, and making it into a story that matters to you. The downsides of LARP costuming are things like "it's expensive" and "it's hard" and "if you're of a certain temperament, there's stress involved in thinking about whether your costume is good enough and whether other people are judging you." Halloween costuming, as far as I can tell, is all downside. It's expensive and/or hard and maybe people will judge you and maybe you care about that, but the costume doesn't plug into any greater anything, it's just a dressed-up you surrounded by people dressed up in unrelated ways.

I don't enjoy trick-or-treating, because I don't enjoy contact with strangers. But more importantly, I have trouble appreciating trick-or-treating, because the notional spirit of the practice is "give us candy because we're threatening you." Which sucks! Wassailing, at least, is "give us food/drink because this is the season of giving and good cheer," and thus gets abstract beauty points even if I would hate it.

And the actual important thing:

...sigh. I have a whole rant about, uh, let's call it "the fakey phony aesthetic of darkness." The thing where people talk about how very much they love monsters and freaks and chaos and abnormality and deviance, but in fact they're incredibly narrow-minded and judgmental and intolerant, it's just that they like the idea of being a spooky outsider (and they hate the idea of being a clean-cut normative insider, even though they are ruthless about enforcing their norms).

The thing where you don't want Beast to turn into a prince, you like him as a hulking furry with tusks and claws, but at the same time you insist that he's just a perfectly inoffensive misunderstood darling who isn't the slightest bit controlling or dangerous or actually-frightening.

Halloween, as it is currently practiced, feels like an encapsulation and a celebration of that thing. It is a scary festival that has ruthlessly had every last bit of genuine terror wrung out of it. At its roots, it's a holiday about warding off evil spirits, but...we aren't actually afraid of evil spirits, these days, and we've kept the empty forms rather than either the old meaning or the old psychology. It should be a holiday about facing down the dark, but nothing about it allows for any facing-down of anything, and the norms of the holiday make it impossible to think that anyone would actually want to do that. I am disgusted.

[thenightling]

We all know that Neil Gaiman didn't steal The Sandman and the aspects he's been accused of ripping off are actually from Greco-Roman mythology and were later used by Hans Christian Andersen for Ole Lukoie but did you know Marvel had a version of Dream first, before Neil?

In the 1960s one of Doctor Strange's main villains was the anthropomorphic personification of Nightmares known as Nightmare, ruler of The Dream Dimension in Marvel comics.

Though he was created first he was not very well-fleshed out. In the 1990s Marvel heavily revamped him to make him more like DC's Dream of The Endless.

In media outside of the comics, Nightmare has appeared in the direct-to-streaming animated movie, Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell.

He was also a recurring villain in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series where he was voiced by Mark Hamill (Mervyn Pumpkinhead in The Sandman Netflix series).

So if you feel conflicted about Dream because of the accusations against Neil Gaiman, remember, there's always Nightmare.

By the way, seek out the one shot Deadpool Annual from 2019. The one where Deadpool is riding a unicorn on the cover. It has Dead pool go to The Dream Dimension to help a little boy who his having nightmares and when he lands in Nightmare's throne room he says "Is Neil Gaiman going to sue us for this?"

The easiest way to describe Nightmare is he's Morpheus if he never had his "Time Out" Bubble. Nightmare is one of my top 3 favorite Marvel villains along with Marvel's version of Dracula and Doctor Doom. Honorable mention to Loki, since he's been in hero mode since 2010 and I love him that way.

[greywritesrandom]

Legends and Lore - 16 {Monster}

Aqrabuamelu

In the searing heat of the Mesopotamian desert, where the horizon blurs into an endless shimmer of sand, lurk the Aqrabuamelu-scorpio-men born from the twilight of gods and nightmares. Towering over mortal men, their bodies stretch out with the armoured bulk of a giant scorpion, while their torsos, arms, and faces resemble that of a man, though twisted and etched with an ancient rage. From the curve of their venomous tail, gleaming in the desert sun, to their dark, piercing eyes, they are creatures of both war and warning.

First mentioned in the Babylonian creation myths, the Aqrabuamelu were said to have been spawned by the union of Tiamat, the primordial sea goddess, and the earth, crafted to march into battle against the gods themselves. But these scorpion-men were not merely mindless soldiers of destruction. As terrifying as their form may be, they served a dual purpose, bridging the gap between the mortal and the divine.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Aqrabuamelu are encountered not as aggressors but as guardians-standing sentinel at the gates of the sun god Shamash, guarding the thresholds to the underworld. Their sting was said to be lethal, able to kill any creature or god who dared defy their post. Their presence was enough to freeze the heart of even the bravest traveller, for to gaze upon them was to face both fear and fate itself.

But there was something more terrifying about them than just their form-their knowledge of the future. In their black, inscrutable eyes, they could see the fates of those who passed through their gates. They did not attack recklessly. Instead, they warned travellers, speaking in low, rasping tones of the dangers that lay ahead. These creatures, born for war, were also keepers of forbidden truths-gatekeepers not just to the sun god’s realm, but to the mysteries that lay beyond life and death.

The Aqrabuamelu dwells in the spaces between-the line where day turns to night, where the mortal brushes the divine, and where life confronts death. Their hulking forms cast long shadows over the myths of Mesopotamia, their scorpion tails curling in anticipation, waiting for the next unwary soul to wander too close to the sun.

[keycomicbooks]

FANTASTIC FOUR #348 (1991) 1st Print, Arthur Adams Art, Walt Simonson Story, Art Thibert Inks, 1st Cover Appearance of the New Fantastic Four: Wolverine, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Hulk

#FANTASTICFOUR #348 (1991) 1st Print, #ArthurAdams Art, #WaltSimonson Story, #ArtThibert Inks, 1st Cover Appearance of the New Fantastic Four: #Wolverine, #SpiderMan, #GhostRider, #Hulk "Where Monsters Dwell! (Or is It... Where Creatures Roam?)" The new Fantastic Four's investigation has taken them all the way to Monster Island, home of the dreaded Mole Man. https://www.rarecomicbooks.fashionablewebs.com/FantasticFour%205.html#348 @rarecomicbooks Website Link In Bio Page If Applicable. SAVE ON SHIPPING COST - NOW AVAILABLE FOR LOCAL PICK UP IN DELTONA, FLORIDA #RareComicBooks #KeyComicBooks #MCU #MarvelComics #MarvelUniverse #KeyComic #ComicBooks

[pof203]

Halloween Playlist 2024

And now, just like the year before, here is my movie playlist for the Halloween Season, the 13 Days of Halloween, this year. This year will be a little different for me since I also watch football games, which means some days, I only have enough time for one movie.

Well, here it is:

Letter Meaning:

F=Family: These films are family friendly and everyone can watch them, including the kids, and are watched in the daytime.

M=Mature: These films are for a mature audience and are not for kids. It’s best to watch them at night when they have gone to bed.

B=Both: These films are both family friendly and mature. They can be watched at any time of the day. If kids are watching, be sure they have adult supervision or permission.

Hocus Pocus (F) & Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (M)

Hocus Pocus 2 (F) & The Birds (M)

Halloween Town (F) & The Craft (M)

Halloween Town 2: Kalabar's Revenge (F) & The Craft Legacy (M)

Halloween Town High (F) & Practical Magic (B)

Return to Halloween Town (F) & The Happening or Sleepy Hollow (M)

Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme (animated) (F) & Locke & Key (unaired plot with Jesse McCartney) (M)

Hulk: Where The Monsters Dwell (F) & I, Frankenstein (M)

(Game Day) Frankenweenie (F)

Paranorman (F) & The Banana Splits Movie (M)

Dear Dracula (F) & Bram Stoker's Dracula (M)

Double Double Toil and Trouble (F) & xxxHolic: A Midsummer Night's Dream (B)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (F) & Trick 'r Treat (M)

Now for my playlist for Dia de los Muertos:

The Book of Life (F) & The Curse of La Llorona (Ms)

Coco (F) & La Muerots (M)

Happy Halloween, Soulful Samhain, and Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

[msclaritea]

Hello, Itaanon here. In my italian Disneyplus account, serching his name, I see 4 titles as well, but different. Multiverse of madness, Doctor Strange 1, making of doctor strange, and a cartoon "hulk where the monsters dwell". Mha... I dunno! :/

Well, something is going on with DisneyPlus. It makes no sense that a billion dollar company would have so many glitches on their streaming site. And the removal of a James Cameron-connected project makes no sense.

[hautsreadsmarvel]

The Hulk takes off

Where last we left off, the Hulk had a new solo series, and it wasn't very good. Thankfully, it improves with his first actual serial arc.

MEH “Trapped in the Lair of the Leader!” is all over the place. Sleep gas subdues the Hulk but awakens Banner, but it also subdues Banner but awakens the Hulk. Also, the Leader isn’t particularly smart. As usual, the Hulk rapidly and inconsistently switches between malice and goodwill towards humanity, and the story conflates Protecting American Military Interests with Moral Goodness. Whatever man. This issue is where the Hulk stories stop sucking as much, though, because at the end the army shoots Banner dead, which destroys a lot of the more boring plot points and outright prevents the story from easing back into the narrative rut Hulk has been stuck in.

That leads directly into ENJOYABLE “To Live Again!”, which notably has the first good inclusion of Rick Jones. He steals a military ambulance and Banner’s body, bringing him to the old lab where they used to dose Banner w/ gamma radiation to induce or dispel the Hulk. His half-sane reasoning and desperation finally lends his character some spirit.

Banner revives w/ his personality inside Hulk’s body, but realizes that he won’t survive transitioning back into regular-human form and so must stay Hulked out the entire time (at the time, the Hulk’s transformation back to Banner occurred whenever his heart rate grew too elevated; the same trigger in both directions). The Leader attacks a military base with a 500 foot tall homunculus (a pilot calls it a “something-or-other… from nightmaresville!”, but it’s just one of his little pink guys sized-up), and the Hulk intervenes to stop it. The military nukes* the both of them, but in ENJOYABLE “Like a Beast at Bay!” the Hulk is revealed to have leapt far enough away to avoid the initial explosion and instead get thrown far, far away by the delayed shockwave.

Also they said no homo, the Hulk is so strong he can respire for someone w/o actually touching their mouths.

Thankfully, Rick Jones is not the only artifact of the earliest Hulk stories to become more interesting.

General Ross’ one-note “raaagh the only thing I care about is subduing the Hulk raaaagh” personality now makes sense, because the Hulk has continually interfered in his military operations. He didn’t gain any depth of character, but having him on-page is now less unbearable.

In this issue they destroy another pillar of the Hulk’s narrative rut - the army finds the lab he’s using to maintain his Hulk state and shells it into oblivion. The Hulk can’t go out and fight them, let he lose, but he also can’t stay, lest the continued bombardment kill Rick Jones - so the story ends on an excellent cliffhanger as the Leader offers to teleport him away in exchange for his servitude.

The Hulk takes a little more explosive persuasion to accept the Leader’s offer, but becomes his captive in ENJOYABLE “Within the Monster Dwells a Man!” and ENJOYABLE “Another World, Another Foe!”. The Hulk is in mortal danger of turning back into Banner, but the Leader earns some loyalty from him by using advanced technology to remove the bullet in his skull. Talbot and Ross finally realize that the Hulk is in a way some creation of Banner’s. The Leader puts the Hulk thru tests which discover his physical powers are virtually w/o limit; the Hulk realizes the Leader is a real smarty-pants when he shows off a teleporter that can turn matter into “thought waves” which thereby can exceed the speed of light; the Leader reveals he’s become obsessed w finding the Watcher and taking his “ultimate machine” for his own so he beams the Hulk to the alien’s abode.

The Watcher is, apparently, a curator in the style of Trazyn the Infinite. “I can’t interfere” my ass, you have your own stasis museum!! The Hulk must battle a superstrong alien thief to obtain the Watcher’s ultimate machine.

[I forgor the name of this issue - it’s MEH on account of just being some ok combat]

Most aliens so far have spoken English, but it makes sense on account of them being interested in Earth (or sometimes the USA in particular) beforehand. This is the first time we’ve actually needed an explanation for why an alien speaks an Earth language. It turns out the alien was bred over generations to make a being mighty enough to take the Watcher’s treasures - he puts up a good fight, but the Hulk beats him and takes the ultimate machine. UM turns out to be a helmet that grants omniscience; the Leader puts it on and promptly dies, lol.

I also wanna discuss the Leader’s henchconstructs a little, cause I think they’re cool. They apparently hatch from eggs incubated in a nutrient solution vat, they fight to the death once hatched, they’re made entirely out of plastic, they can change size to microscopic forms or 500 ft tall, they're invulnerable to any firepower short of an atom bomb but can be sprayed with a special acid to dissolve, they can combust into ash on command, the Leader wants to make aquatic ones to fight the sub-mariners after conquering the surface world. Just realized I haven’t taken a picture of them yet. Here you go:

Finally, ENJOYABLE “Not All My Power Can Save Me!” kicks off a new story arc. The Hulk gradually sheds Banner’s personality and reverts to a more aggressive, reclusive misanthrope. Betty Ross finally grows a spine and becomes interesting for the first time ever:

The Hulk rediscovers empathy - not by random and w/o warning, as has been a problem I repeatedly gripe about in prior Hulk issues - but by donning the Watcher’s ultimate machine for a few seconds, realizing Rick Jones is in danger, and realizing that much as Banner was the only one to ever show Jones any kindness, Jones was the only one to ever really be in the Hulk’s corner too.

The arc ends w/ Ross deploying an experimental weapon to stop the Hulk, blasting him into the future.

*I’ve wondered elsewhere why anyone would want bombs that leave behind radiation in the Marvelverse, since it would give any survivors superpowers and turn them evil - as it turns out, the eggheads in-universe agree with me because they have developed a “clean nuke” that leaves no radiation behind.

[rugnificentthegrand]

Updated Halloween Watchlist:

H-E-Double Hockey Sticks

Annoying Orange Shocktober: Pumpkin-Carving Jump Scare, Scare Pear Saga, creepy pasta compilation, Malloween, Shocktober compilation, Ice-Scream duology, Flexorcist, How2 Horror compilation, annoyingorange.exe

Regular Show Terror Tales from the Park saga

Hocus Pocus

Spooky Buddies

Boo! A Madea Halloween

Sentencing Halloween & Horror movie characters for their crimes

Sodor Spooktober videos: The Tender, The Ghost of the Old Siding, Toby’s Ghost, In The Dark Siding, The Tale of the Bad Engine, Seaside Specter, James’s Discovery, Edward Finds a Phantom, FRANKenstein, the Bad Brakevan, Mask, Silent as the Grave, Fireless Engines, Beneath the Workshops, A Fright For Edward, Whistle of the Dead, A Fright for the Twins, possessed, costume, Sudrian Stories from Hell vol. 1-2, Herman, The Slasher, the half engine, The Old Lead mine, The banker, Past Haunts, Phantom of the Arlesdale, flight of the dragon, it lives on the bridge

Black Dynamite: The Mean Queens of Halloween

Scooby-Doo meets Courage the Cowardly Dog

Supergirl goes Supernatural

Batman vs Dracula

The Batman: Grundy Night

Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell

15 bloodthirsty vampires in Marvel comics

Jeff Dunham: Who has the best Halloween costume? DO NOT WATCH THIS HALLOWEEN VIDEO, séance on Dunham Hill, the Mandela effect, Walter & Peanut face their greatest fears

Vox Machina: Hell to Pay

Wicked Binge: Halloween Tier List

Pitch Meeting Spooky Skits: Halloween (1978), the Nun, the sixth sense, a nightmare on elm street, Wednesday, the Walking Dead, the Ring, stranger things, Nightmare before Christmas, the mummy, IT chapter 2, beetle juice beetle juice, the Shining, ultimate Twilight compilation, ultimate Harry Potter compilation

What if: SpongeBob snapped and killed everyone, bikini bottom zombie outbreak, Andy got Chucky in Toy Story, SpongeBob became the scariest thing in bikini bottom, Kevin McAllister was alone on Halloween night, Kevin McAllister faced Jason Voorhees in Home Alone 2, Mystery Inc gang entered BO2 zombies,

[fridayyy-13th]

Would you prefer to be a werewolf or vampire?

oh, gosh, good question! i'm not really sure. i'm gonna consider the most common interpretations of both monsters, otherwise i'll just go down a path of "how inhuman am i in the werewolf state? what alternative methods of finding blood would i be okay with doing?" and i'd never actually answer the question lmao. so werewolf is complete loss of control and full wolf-man transformation on the night of the full moon, vampire is night-dwelling creature who preys on humans for their blood and is immortal unless killed.

jeez that's still really difficult...but i think i'll go with werewolf. i'd be able to live a more "normal" life, i suppose? while immortality and being nocturnal sound cool, especially since i'm a night owl and i never have any free time ever, living forever sounds terribly lonely and also i like being able to feel the sun on my skin. there's plenty of forested areas where i live, i could just drive out to an abandoned spot in the woods once a month and just. go wild. hunt some deer. hope i don't get spotted on any trail cameras. idk lol.

though being a werewolf is lonely in its own ways, too, i feel like. that sort of "i have to hide a part of my very being to survive," which uh. closeted queer moment right there, so...nothing i'm not used to. except yknow instead of "i'm trans and aroacespec" it's "i turn into an uncontrollable hulking beast one night every month." i don't think i have to elaborate on this there's enough "lycanthropy as an allegory for being trans" posts floating around on here, surely.

but yeah that's my answer; i'd rather be a werewolf.

[nagawei]

"THE IMMORTAL ANGUISH OF HEAVEN: THE TALE OF HONGYU"// Oc Lore snippet thats just for fun!!♡♡

‐--------

She has never felt such fury. Or, maybe she has, in a twisted and pleasant way. She may have always harbored this fury from moments long past.

It is hot, hotter than molten rock and bright blue flames. It burns in a spindel of heavy emotions and stifling feelings of pain, white hot and scarring. Its power burns her heart and chars her organs like a roasted chestnut. In her mind she knows this is not good, not healthy and most definitely not moral or just.

But in her heart, her soul, she desires with every inch of her being to sink her hot fury into everyone around her. She wishes to make a monster out of herself, one of magma and volcanic ash, and use her monstrous claws to snatch a man from his home, a mother from her babe. She wishes to destroy a family in her hands and when they scream, when she can see and hear the terror and anguish she has brought about their home, she wishes to devour. She wishes to devour them like a serpent, to shred their flesh with her furious teeth and let their blood turn into her fuel.

Her fury has consumed her, she knows this and she bathes in it. Her fury is hot and stifling in its temperament, and yet she still desires to know how far it can go. She wants to know, to understand.

Her mind is in jumbles and her body is heavy and tired with anger. She can't see, she can't move, yet she knows she is here. In a strange way, in a moment she can't entirely feel or realize, she cries out.

“Destroy.”

Her mind is made up and in the back of her head, deep in her being, she hears it. The rattle of bones and the shiver of a bubbling shadow cross her mind. She can see.

She sees in hues of starch gray and red, for the dead come in no other color.

In agonizing tremors and horrifying contortions of flesh, muscles pulling over bone and blood sloshing freely, her body knit itself together with the force of a thousand curses. Her fingers were all but bones and tendons when she flung a single digit out. Her hands built like claws and sharp like the steel of anchors pointed towards the dark mouth of the sky. Her great form built itself like the beginnings of a tornado, strong and vicious with a promise of death.

"Kill them!" Her great and deadly voice wailed. Her cries were guttural and unnatural, like the cries of a cougar in hunt, and left her with the roar of shaking bones in her mind.

The continuous clatter of skeletal beings just beneath her skin makes her rise up from her depths. She hears whispers of promised powers, sacred oaths and other divinities of the Realms. She is too angry to pinpoint these stories but the clatter and scratching of bone grates against her mind like the very thoughts and hushed voices are carved into her reformed skull. Her hulking form gathers, the heat of something behind her morphing into itchy chills. Like life was sucked from the atmosphere, she emerges, mighty and grand from where she dwells.

Volcano of death! Temple of torture! Anguish! Anguish! Fury to use! Power to have! Use it! Use it! Voices and shrieks that are so vile, their sound whisps like the wind. They call, scream, claw and beg to be heard, to sway her mind and heart. She growls in utter disdain.

“SIlence, all of you!”

--------

☆TBC☆

[st-guliks-fnord]

Actually my favorite Marvel movie is ‘Doctor Strange and The Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell’

[starculler]

maybe i'm reviving my werewolf!Aizawa AU, maybe not, but i sure did write a nearly 500-word snippet for it.

Shouta remembered the bite.

He remembered the fear, a cold solid weight in his chest stuck somewhere behind his rabbit-fast heart. The way the already dark night had narrowed to the hulking clump of shadows stalking slowly closer, as untouched by the weak, thin moonlight overhead as it was by his quirk. How its eyes – golden, gleaming, hungry – had followed his every trembling step backward until chilled, empty air had turned to smooth bark.

He remembered how the world had hung still, an eternity condensed to a second where he and the beast had only stared at each other. There had been no breeze, no stirring creatures, not even the sounds of traffic just past the tree line.

There had been him. A student one week shy of graduation. A stupid kid whose phone had broken after an earlier fight and no other way to contact the hero he’d been interning under. An amateur who’d frozen at the first sign of a danger he hadn’t known to prepare for.

And there had been a beast. Nearly as big as he was tall and made bigger still by its muscular bulk and fur.  A snarling, stinking creature black as the night and whose thick, overgrown fangs had torn Shouta’s capture weapon to shreds before the fear had sunk in enough to paralyze him. A monster who’d prowled closer, closer, closer until he could feel its every rancid breath on his face.

He remembered praying it would leave. Pleading silently for it to sate its curiosity and be on its way. But Shouta’s luck had been piddling at the best of times. That night had not been the best of times.

Shouta remembered the bite. Couldn’t forget it when he carried the scar of it on his arm every day since, wide and raised and ragged where delayed survival instincts kicked in and he’d done his damnedest to tear his arm free.

He never managed to remember, though, what came after. How he’d gotten away. Where he’d gone. Who he’d met that night, and whether they’d been kind or foolish to tend to a mauled teenager’s arm. And, most importantly, what had happened to the creature.

There was no point dwelling, he knew. Not then, when all evidence of what had happened to him minus his injury had seemingly vanished by morning, and not now some 12 years after the fact.

He sighed and rubbed at the scar through his sleeve for the third time in the last hour, and hoped the dull, throbbing ache building beneath the skin subsided by the time he took his place in front of his homeroom class. That bunch of troublemakers demanded his full attention if he wanted to get through the day’s lesson plan.

[greywritesrandom]

Legends and Lore - 41 {Monster}

Trolls

The Stone Giants and the Hidden Folk of Norse Legend

In the dark forests and jagged mountains of Norse mythology, trolls lurk, their monstrous forms blending with the landscape, unseen by human eyes. There are two distinct types of trolls, each as dangerous as the other, though they differ greatly in appearance and habitat. The first are the hulking, grotesque giants, towering over the trees, their bodies gnarled and misshapen like the very cliffs they call home. The second, smaller and more elusive, are the gnome-like trolls, who dwell deep within the earth, in twisting caves and ancient caverns, hidden away from the light of the sun.

The forest trolls are feared for their size and strength. Their leathery skin is as rough as bark, their limbs like ancient, twisted roots. These trolls are slow but relentless, stalking travellers who stray too far into the wilderness, their deep, guttural growls echoing through the trees. Tales speak of travellers disappearing in the dead of night, dragged off by these lumbering creatures, their bones never to be found. These trolls are often said to use the massive boulders scattered across the Scandinavian countryside as weapons, hurling them with terrifying force at any intruders who dare to venture too close.

But it is the smaller, underground trolls that are perhaps more insidious. Unlike their brutish cousins, these trolls are clever, lurking in the darkness beneath the earth, plotting their mischief. They live in labyrinthine tunnels beneath the mountains, their crooked fingers clawing at the stone as they dig deeper into the blackness. These trolls are known to kidnap children, replacing them with changelings-creatures that resemble human infants but grow into twisted, malevolent beings. Their hunger for gold and treasure drives them to raid villages, hoarding their stolen riches in the deep, cold caverns where no human dares to follow.

Yet, there are whispers of strange bargains made with trolls. Despite their malevolence, trolls can sometimes be bargained with, their cruelty momentarily softened by the promise of a favour or offering. But such deals are dangerous-trolls are quick to anger and slow to forgive, and any who break their promises to these creatures are doomed to a life of misfortune, or worse. Those who fail to repay their debt might find themselves spirited away to the trolls' lairs, never to see daylight again.

Trolls, though feared, are also pitied. Legends tell that these ancient creatures are cursed, doomed to live in the shadows, for the light of the sun is their greatest enemy. When dawn breaks, any troll caught in the sun's rays turns to stone, their bodies forever frozen in place. It is said that the massive boulders dotting the Scandinavian landscape are the petrified remains of trolls, turned to stone as they fled the rising sun. To this day, locals will point to these boulders, whispering of the trolls that once roamed free.

In the end, trolls are beings of both mystery and terror, creatures born of shadow and stone. They are a reminder that, in the wild places of the world, there are ancient forces still at play, forces that care little for the lives of men.

[mongen]

If I were going to adapt this to a “standard” fantasy tabletop system, the hells and shadowfell would be in layer 1; the underdark and dwarven lands would be in layer 2; humans, halflings, orcs, beast folk, and the feywilds would be in layer 3; dragons, elves, gnomes, and a bunch of other nimble and/or flying things would be in layer 4 with the added detail that their long lifespans are now inverted; and a bunch of wild monstrosities and plot problems would come from layer 5.

Demons feed on the chaos and unfiltered magic of the deepest realm, and are functionally just wild animals. They have no plans, no schemes, no economy of souls. At most, they might band together into a pack like wolves.

Devils are the oldest civilization. They prey on demons and siphon power from the immense godfalls left by an ancient war that killed some of the primordial beings and send others into exile. They might run out of this source of power someday, and when they do, they’ll have nowhere to turn but up.

The underdark is home to many bioluminescent creatures and the first beings of flesh: the drow. Here they bear no relation to elves, but are instead ancient magical beings clad in carapace with many limbs and mandibles. They are not evil, but they detest that their infinite home underground was made finite by the creation of the “surface”.

Dwarves are creatures of the land in a very literal sense, living up to 500 years and reproducing by budding. Their skin would be earthen to the point that some grow plants in their hair or on their shoulders. They have innate spellcasting and eat precious metals.

Orcs are desert-dwelling mammalian folk - notably a separate species from humans and therefore half-orcs cannot exist - who are well-adapted to the harsh climate. They live among the petrified forests and salt flats, building towns of sandstone and cultivating tumbleweeds and cacti. They’re brutal in war, but only because they’ve long-since realized that civility will not appease their adversaries.

Humans and beastfolk have contentious relationships, as they’re all fighting for common resources and have still yet to find much common ground. Human kingdoms fight among themselves for the plains as bird folk, cat folk, and humans alike fight for the forests. Fish and lizard people battle for the swamps, and orcs fight lizardfolk and goblinoid a for the deserts. The only faction who goes consistently overlooked are the halflings, who seem to subsist on plants everybody else find inedible or even toxic. Nobody pays them much mind, leaving the short little folk to live their own lives in the underbrush, chasing toads and munching on poisonous bramble.

Elves have one-year lifespans where they undergo a sort of rebirth and re-aging cycle rather than outright dying. They are born from the corpses of powerful fey who wander out of the wilds and burst into wind-borne spores. These spores die without a LOT of sunlight, so only those on the floating islands mature into elves. Their civilization would be centered around entertainment and beauty because their lives are short.

Gnomes would’ve formed civilizations of island-hopping tech wizardry. Their culture has a focus on seeing as much as they can see in their short, few-decades-long lives, so they make sure to set up landmarks to help future generations see more than the old ones did.

High in the astral sea, immortal wanderers gather crews of dozens of mortal followers from the layers below and from the worlds they explore, hoping to someday ascend. This has ramifications on the material plane, though, as things begin to leak between the previously disparate worlds.

Inevitably, things fall from the sky to the surface. Great beasts from the astral sea and gnome sky ships can become bloated hulks scattered across the land. Some of these bear treasures worth retrieving. This is where the job of “adventurer” gets its origins, even before the advent of living monsters flowing over from tangent realms became a problem.

Idea for a fantasy world:

The world was made in layers.

The primordial gods who emerged from an endless sea of chaos crafted the deepest realms of the abyss by hand. The life that arose here was twisted, unpredictable, and overflowing with innate magic. The gods represent titanic universal forces and wild, unpredictable aspects of life: time, tectonics, light, rage, curiosity, etc.

Their children were more physically grounded, more anchored to the material world, but still deeply chaotic in form as they laid out the stone and the caves. Life here would be hardy and cunning, using magic to shape a comprehensible but hostile world to their vision. The gods would take on the names of elements and major virtues and sins: Carbon, Gallium, Iron, Pride, Greed, etc. Volcanic vents and enormous echoing chambers would permeate the seemingly infinite lithography… until the next generation of gods was born.

The third age of gods would craft the soil and the biomes of the surface. Magic would become more harshly defined, but not without its own wildness. Life here would be abundant and ever-changing, and many of the more keen species would find themselves with a good foundation for civilization. The gods of this age would adopt specific tasks and functions in the world as their domains: war, love, hunting, craft, etc. Their cousins, demigods, would shape new planes of being on the periphery.

The fourth generation would cast islands like dice into the skies above their parents’ land, spreading magic thin but using their increasingly mortal forms to guide and elevate the inhabitants. Life here is lived quickly, and civilizations formed here see magic as a specialized tool rather than a shaping force. These gods control specific phenomena - rainbows, lightning strikes, echoes, the north wind - and are much more concerned with the affairs of those living on their islands. Their concentrated domains mean they must work together just to craft new islands.

The fifth and final generation of gods has lost its divinity, but has not gained mortality. They rule as god-captains in craft formed of earth stolen from their parents’ islands, drifting in a primordial soup that extends into the infinite sky. Through their will and the actions of their distant relatives, small worlds have begun to form in this vastness, leading to the god-captains seeking out these worlds in the hope of one day ascending to true godhood.