The Weird, Wild and Wooly of Your World

Great thread!

As Fantasy authors, it's just natural that we often have very weird things in our worlds. I believe that such things are actually a hallmark of Fantasy worlds, because if you have simply another Earth then it's not quite Fantasy even if said world is located in a different universe.

Here is one from my Graceland world:

Whakflower

The famous Whakflower Plant was invented by Mages somewhere in the mountains of North Salessya, probably three or four thousand years ago. It grows wild in forests found at the bottom of deep mountain valleys, but it can also be cultivated in gardens and in that case it's a very helpful plant since it repels rats and other types of pest.

Whakflower looks like a bush-type plant, with large and weird flowers in a very vivid shade of purple. Sometimes, the flowers are blue or even violet instead. The flowers bloom all year, even in snowy and freezing weather, and their sweet scent is very attractive to people.

The Whakflowers can be collected and dried, and prepared in the form of a dust in order to be smoked by means of stylish glass pipes. In contrast with their normally sweet smell, smoking Whakflower produces a type of very dense and purple smoke which is always described as rancid, powerful and horrible!

This is a very potent drug, since it was invented by Mages.

Whakflower causes a state of deep relaxation. Soon after the first pipe you do not care about anything in the world, and that state is followed by very realistic and pleasant hallucinations of many types. Most of the times, Whakflower is a pleasure for Mages only... Wizards and ordinary people can enjoy it too, but constant use eventually proves fatal for them.

The final stage of Whakflower intoxication is a state of deep sedation, which can last for many days.

Mages that abuse Whakflower in a chronic fashion can enjoy it without the sedative effects, but the hallucinations are not so realistic and pleasant for them. Cases of terrifying hallucinations have been reported, as well. The other disadvantage is that Whakflower smoking causes a Mage to be vulnerable to other types of magical poisoning.

A combination of Whakflower and a magical drink called Green Fairy is particularly infamous.

The Mage Aycell The Grasswolf Silverthorn is known for smoking alarming amounts of Whakflower almost everyday, to the point that he keeps a huge Whakflower garden just for his personal use and he never leaves home without his pipe and a good supply for smoking. This behavior often gets Aycell in trouble, and still he would never abandon Whakflower no matter what happens!

Whakflower is a Salessyan curiosity, almost unknown in other parts of the world.

 

The Nocturnal Compact: In Silver elf society all organized crime as well as all other professions, is hereditary and divided in guilds for each criminal profession (Burglar guild, highwayman guild, counterfeiters guild). All its members are female, due to an ancient silver elf perception that women don't have the capacity to do crime. This belief has long been proven false, but because night elves can’t break their society’s ancient tradition lest they turn into wild, raving orcs, they ritualistically tolerate the Nocturnal Compact. The entire system as such, is a mock show that can’t be eradicated or successfully combatted. Because it has to remain intact, the Nocturnal Compact is in all but name a publicly accessible criminal network for all citizens of the mountains to peruse.

 

Hello everyone!

Very nice posts, I have enjoyed all of them. You know, talking about this kind of things is a great way to have some insight into our various Fantasy worlds. Sometimes, even little details can tell a lot about the setting of a story...

Another one from Graceland:

The Grasswolves

There are many dangerous species in the grassy fields and plains that separate lower Salessya from the Shadow Mountains, but surely the most famous and most feared of all is the mighty Grasswolf. There are many of these creatures that live there, but they are rarely seen... and if you do get to see one, then most likely you are not going to live to tell anyone about it!

In spite of that name, a Grasswolf is not quite a wolf. The animal in question is much more similar to a hyena, and in fact they are something like wolfish hyenas instead of hyenish wolves. They are comparable to the spotted hyena, not the striped species. The main difference is that a Grasswolf is huge, with a normal weight of around five hundred kilograms.

Some specimens have been measured to weigh twice that amount.

The Grasswolves are armed with huge retractile claws much more dangerous than those of a tiger, not to mention their extremely powerful jaws and teeth. Their fangs are over twenty centimeters long, if not even longer. The brutal and disgusting looks of these animals are terrifying, so almost nobody would like them even if they were a friendly species.

It is important to mention that the Grasswolves have huge physical strength, which allows them to perform unbelievable jumps, run crazy fast and easily climb their way up snowy and dangerous mountains...

Grasswolves are silent and sneaky when they hunt, but anyway they love to play with their prey. If you are caught by one or more of these creatures, you can expect them to happily tear your limbs off one by one before they eat you alive while you are still bleeding to death. They do not grant you a quick death, since the Grasswolf is extremely cruel and also very intelligent.

The main problem with Grasswolves is that they are very resilient, so even if they are hit with many arrows and poisons they can keep attacking or escaping anyway. Sometimes, it has been observed that a Grasswolf can survive the explosion of a very powerful blackpowder bomb right in its face. They seek vengeance, and they can wait for many years in order to achieve it.

Certainly, these creatures are not a natural species of Graceland.

Salessyan Wizards have always refused to comment about it, but it's believed that the first Grasswolves were developed at their labs in order to work as shock troops in the Wizarding Wars of centuries past. For whatever reasons, these wizard-made creatures were allowed to go free and after that they started to reproduce in the wild.

There are rumors about magical powers of the Grasswolf, which include teleportation and invisibility, but that has never been confirmed.