City Adapted Monsters

[Snowpoint]

Monsters that have adapted to life in a modern American city. I am plotting an Urban Fantasy story right now. I am looking to create some original creatures to represent the "native" population of magic creatures. They are adapted to life in urban environments and do not feed on humans to live. (monsters that threaten humans go extinct.)

The city is Houston, so the most important creature feeds on Gasoline / Petroleum. I'm not sure what kind of creature I want them to be, but they will drink Gasoline and be immune to fire / explosions. (at least gasoline based explosions, cause they eat the stuff.)

The other is a new idea. Garbage. Whatever these guys are, they live in the City Dump. They use the Garbage Tucks to move about the city, and Dumpsters to camp in. They eat discarded food. (maybe lost children on rare occasion.) (being discarded or lost is what allows them to eat it.)

I had cast Gargoyles are the Gasoline-guzzlers, who can transform into practically anything to avoid detection. However, their transforming power doesn't make a lot of sense. And I have been pulling my hair out over the confusion between Gargoyles and Gorgons. (The two could be very similar creatures, or the same creature if you look at them a certain way.) Now, I don't know If I want to call the gas-monster a Gargoyle.

Garbage monster is a new idea, so it could be called anything. I want to know if you can think of a creature that already exists that might fit this profile, or would make sense cast in the role.

 

[wordwalker]

Garbage, is it? Don't basilisks have a history with dungheaps? (And if killing people is self-destructive, basilisks might be very shy.)

(Meanwhile, were gargoyles ever "a creature" in the mythological sense? Weren't they just various architectures that wanted to put demons or "generic monsters" on their walls, and then those started us wondering if they were real or if there were Stone Beasts we hadn't thought of before? Of course you can play with a history like that --transforming to hide?-- but I think it's about starting from that lack of background.)

 

[Snowpoint]

What I have learned in my research is that in Classical Greece, the carvings of the "head of the gorgon" predate any record of the gorgon myth. The myth might have been written to explain the images. The Gorgon Symbol was used to ward away evil, and gargoyles are believed to have served the same purpose. Most depictions of gargoyles are sentinels - good or evil. Both gorgons and gargoyles are associated with statues. Although in completely different ways. From my interpretation they could be the same monster, or related. They both exist to scare people, but also serve Man by frighting lesser evils. I must either blend the two together, or separate them.

 

[Xaysai]

I don't have an answer to your question, but your description gave me visions of all manner of fascinating things which may not be any help with your project.

I think it would be cool for the Gas Guzzlers to actually survive off oil, scavenging off the oil which drips from vehicles (sometimes pooling under parked cars) or vehicles which leak it, and they could travel on the undersides of buses eating the oil residue and crud which builds up underneath them. They could congregate around mass transit stations, or car repair garages waiting to snatch up discarded oil cans.

Gasoline seems too prevalent, what would stop them from just going up to a gas station and doing "keg stands" with the nozzle?!

I also like the idea of the Garbage eater, but maybe you could poke a little at the seedy underbelly of the city and make them more of a "whino" type, have them live off the food and alcohol they steal from homeless people. All the homeless people complaining about creatures stealing their food and drink are dismissed and thought to be crazy.

Maybe some of the supernatural creatures could live on carbon dioxide (or smog/pollution) and congregate around industry and wreak havoc with environmentalist protesters.

Maybe some of them are more ethereal and thrive off intangibles like fear/crime/paranoia, so they work to scare people or even provoke bad guys to do bad things in order to feed off the resulting feelings kind of like a trickster.

Maybe it's just my bias of growing up in Vermont ^.^ but I think it would be great to have these things survive thrive in the dirty. grungy aspects of the city (without being too preachy) - the things that give them character : P

 

[wordwalker]

Maybe it's just my bias of growing up in Vermont ^.^ but I think it would be great to have these things survive thrive in the dirty. grungy aspects of the city (without being too preachy) - the things that give them character : P

Not biased at all. The cleaner, upperclass sites are naturally the ones with less junk to hide in and more authorities that pay attention if something's spotted. At least, unless some critters have become that good at hiding in different places (please let there be something that blends in with grass and haunts golf courses...)

 

[Anders Ämting]

(Meanwhile, were gargoyles ever "a creature" in the mythological sense?

Kinda sorta. The word come from the French La Gargouille, which was a specific monster - basically a type of dragon.

It was captured and burned, but since it was a firebreathing creature the head and neck were fireproof. The head was then mounted on the town cathedral as a kind of trophy, hence why the stone grotesques on cathedrals became known as gargoyles.

 

[kilost]

No actual answer to your question, but I've still got some ideas and some praise.

First off, praise: this is awesome!

Second off, ideas: What if, rather than being invented entirely from scratch, each of these types of creature was in some way descneded from a creature from mythology? What I mean is, there were monsters occupying different niches in mythologies from across the globe, and where else would they meet but the Melting Pot of the USA? But of course, nothing stays the same. The modern world has forced changes upon the monsters of old, and those too set in their ways have died or retreated to remote corners of the Earth. Examples: Djinn have swapped their lamps for USB sticks and SD cards, and travel at lightning speed through computer networks. Basilisks have left behind their dung heaps in favour of garbage dumps. The Namazu inhabit city waterways and take advantage of the waste given off by cities. Goblins and their ilk move from the countryside to the cities, living among ruins and sewers and subways, breeding prolifically. I'm sure everybody can think of some more, and include assorted different mythologica traditions.

 

[Zireael]

Most monsters in fantasy are derived from some mythology or other. This includes various garbage eaters.

 

[kilost]

Most monsters in fantasy are derived from some mythology or other. This includes various garbage eaters.

Thanks Zireael. But what I meant was, rather than be inspired by mythology, map a direct route of descent from an urban monster back to one or more older races which resemble those in mythology, but with a dramatic new spin enabling them to live in the modern world.

 

[Snowpoint]

To me, Urban Fantasy is all about how our familiar mythological monsters adapt to modern life. How they stay true to their origins, but adapt to the new environment and take advantage of our infrastructure.

 

[Shockley]

What I have learned in my research is that in Classical Greece, the carvings of the "head of the gorgon" predate any record of the gorgon myth. The myth might have been written to explain the images. The Gorgon Symbol was used to ward away evil, and gargoyles are believed to have served the same purpose. Most depictions of gargoyles are sentinels - good or evil. Both gorgons and gargoyles are associated with statues. Although in completely different ways. From my interpretation they could be the same monster, or related. They both exist to scare people, but also serve Man by frighting lesser evils. I must either blend the two together, or separate them.

I have no input on your creations as urban fantasy is not my bag. But I can help here.

The issue with tracing what came first in Classical Mythology is that you have a transition from oral myth to written myth, so it is nearly impossible to tell when a story came into being and whether it inspired something else or was inspired by that thing.

That said, you're not quite right on your dating. Homer mentions a Gorgon (Not Medusa specifically, just something he called Gorgon and gave the power to turn individuals to stone), and that's about two-three hundred years before the first known Gorgoneion was created. The general operating theory on this is that the mainland Greeks were just carrying over Cretan religious traditions (they would weave snakes in their hair) and turned it into a monster, then gave said monster more fearsome powers - but all of this was done in the shadow of it having already been slain by their gods. So you have the head image, and poetry relating to the head by itself, long before you have the story of Medusa developing.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

It occurs to me that you could run variations on a theme for your urban monsters. I was thinking initially of memphets from Neverwinter, where you have lots of different types of the greeblies, ice, fire etc, but that's a made up critter. Imps on the other hand, is an already existing critter. So why not a fire imp for the oil sipper, drinks the stuff, spits fire and immune to flame etc. Garbage imps, eat everything that is thrown out, probably quite feral little critters with sharp teeth. Or you could have different types of gremlins as above.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Snowpoint]

I have an idea for a new monster, but am far from a complete idea. I thought of doing something with Radio Waves. Either Phantoms that live in radio waves and communicate to young people who are "integrated" with computers. (the computer age generation of people) Or, Goblin creatures that hear radio waves and operate all of the radio stations on the planet.

I don't know what their goals or motivations would be. But I do like the idea of Creatures recruiting young people. Hearing radio wave would give the creatures access to so much information, they could be major power in an Urban Fantasy World.

Also, the Gasoline Drinkers have a new direction. The Highwaymen. Their domain is roads, cars, and parking lots. They drink gasoline to live, or maybe just to fuel their own cars. They are responsible for weird traffic backups and car wrecks. They can travel almost anywhere because roads are so common, but can not leave the road itself.

 

[wordwalker]

I have an idea for a new monster, but am far from a complete idea. I thought of doing something with Radio Waves. Either Phantoms that live in radio waves and communicate to young people who are "integrated" with computers. (the computer age generation of people) Or, Goblin creatures that hear radio waves and operate all of the radio stations on the planet.

I don't know what their goals or motivations would be. But I do like the idea of Creatures recruiting young people. Hearing radio wave would give the creatures access to so much information, they could be major power in an Urban Fantasy World.

Might this be an evolution of the Will O the Wisp or Lamia, creatures known for imitating people's lights or voices to lure them into danger? Or if you want to emphasize recruiting and long-term power, they start to sound like the elven court itself, able to draw people away and return them changed and surprised time has passed.