This may be my final journal entry. So sure am I of my imminent death. There is a beast outside my tent, even now as I scrawl these words. I could hear the wails of agony of my traveling party as it slaughtered them one by one. I am suredly alone now. Alone in this monstrous land. I snuck a glance outside, but in the darkness of the new moon, I could make out little. I sit here wrapt in fear, praying for for the sounds of my faltering breath to make it naught passed these terrible thin canvass walls.
---
I was awoke this morning to the sound of a gunshot. It appears that I passed out from fear last night, my weak constitution gaining the upper-hand as it sometimes does. My traveling party, to my elation, had not been murdered one by one in the night as I had thought.
The scene outside my tent was a grisly one. The remains of the monster lay strewn between our tents. The smell was indescribable. Apparently, dear Bertrand had experienced the same nightmare last night as had I, so certain was he of the deaths of myself and the others. However, with courage that I do not possess, he had exited his tent, and killed the terrorsome creature stalking us.
As it was, the beast had not been stalking us at all. Rather it had come to slay our horses. Only one of the mares fell, drained of all its fluids, looking as though its body had baked in an oven for hours. Skin and bones alone lay heaped in a sorrowful pile.
The shape of the creature itself was troublesome to discern, though I was able to puzzle out some of its description from picking through the fowl wreckage.
- Though larger than a horse in volume, the weight of the creature's remains could not have been more than that of a man.
- It was overall insect like in appearance, with long, spindle legs, and a terrible needle like beak. Presumably, it used this to drain the poor horse of its life blood.
- The analogy to a mosquito would not be out of place, though the creature bore no wings, and between vellum-like sheets of chitin was a coating of thick greasy hair. The texture reminded me of wolfs-pelt.
- Though little remained of the creature's head in particular (dear Bertrand is as true a shot as ever) I was none the less able to determine that it possessed a single horrid eye, gazing out above the long needle of its mouth-parts.
- Our often wheedle-some guide, though frequently unreliable, informed us in a hushed voice that his people told legends of a blood-sucking creature. This beast was said to stand ten feet tall, and bore night-terrors to shepherds as it stole from their flock. His people call this beast Chullvobje, the night thief.
Monday, February 12, 2018
[Land of Nog] Hnrógh and his Books
Probably going to re-write this one later. It ended up really long-winded and dry
---
On my long journey, I had the fortune to spend a needful rest at a small inn. It went by the name of Thrûmonn's, though I could not, for the life of me, find any man named 'Thrûmonn', nor any indication that there had ever been one. The name simply was. The inn was located far into the Zygomish Highlands, at a cross roads, in the shadow of Mount Blemish, which stood as bone-gray monolith to the east. In my mind I was convinced that it was watching me, the mountain that is, as though it were some great barren skull looming in the distance. It was a relief to be indoors, out of its gaze.
My time at the inn was that of mundanity-- inns, it seems, are all very nearly the same, no matter where one goes. And so, as there is very little of note to say about the experience, I will write on the matter in brevity. Perhaps the only article of note was my encounter with a foul-tempered beast of corpulent proportions and foul temperament.
As I did not speak the tongue of these people (although the language of coin has so-far proven universal in most situations) I never was able to ascertain whether the beast was employed by the inn, or was a guest such as myself. Perhaps he was even the proprietor. (Through he was no 'Thrûmonn'-- he seemed to answer to the name 'Hnrógh', though, only when it was pronounced with care. I have a suspicion that this name bares a similar sound to a vulgar word in the language of this land's people)
I will describe this beast for you, so that you, as I, can first experience his strange countenance before learning of his prickle-some mood. The inn had a large back lounge, which one could access by passing through a pair of heavy hanging curtains. The curtains were there, presumably, to contain the thick hazy air of the lounge, clouded by the scent of opium, hashish, and tobacco. However, the smell was not the first thing I noticed-- sitting right beside the door was Hnrógh, his large body impossible to ignore. He was easily as big around as a dinner table. He had no distinction between head and body- indeed, perhaps one could say that he was only a very large head. Around the base of his thick, pear-shaped mass were several bearded mouths, each one with a slightly different scowl. His graying beards were twisted and braided near their ends, adorned with small beads. Between the cracked lips of his several mouths were held the pipe of a hookah- save for one mouth (which is the one he used to admonish me later).
At my first glance, it seemed ot me that he was wearing above his mouths a thick glittering belt of gemstones. Only as I looked closer did I see that this belt was one of eyes, not jewels. Each eye seemed to be a different shade, though all were either blue or gray-- incidentally, the same color as his wrinkled flesh.. Above these multitudes of glassy eyes sprouted dozens of long, sinuous arms- or perhaps you would call the tentacles, like that of a sea creature. These limbs did different things each. Some would pick through baskets of dried meats placed nearby. Some would change out coals on the hookas. But many simply hung idly in the air, occasionally reaching down to turn the page on one of the many books that sat in a great circle around this beast. And he seemed to be reading all of the, all at once, as his eyes darted back and forth over the pages.
It was my love of books that overcame my revulsion, and urged me to approach the hyper-literate monstrosity. I bashfully attempted to introduce myself to this creature. When I was ignored, I realized with embarrassment that the creature almost certainly did not speak my language. I tried instead to communicate through gestures, moving my arms about and pantomiming. When this too got me no-where, I considered that perhaps the creature could not see me. The books were not far from its eyes. Perhaps it was simply near-sighted and deaf. It was then, when I took a single step closer, that all the myriad of eyes turned to look directly at me. It was as though I had unknowingly crossed some sort of invisible barrier to its attention. Before I had a chance to speak, Hnrógh's single unoccupied mouth opened, and (in my own language, without a hint of an accent) said "Go away."
Over the course of my stay at Thrûmonn's, I spent a great deal of time watching the beast-- from a small distance, of course. Never once did I see him move from his spot by the door. The staff would dutifully refill his baskets of dried meats, hookah, and skeins of wine. One morning, very early, it was only I and Hnrógh in the lounge (even then, he would still ignore me) and a young servant came in to bring a new basket of food. A stray pillow had fallen from the pile on which the creature sat, and the servant tripped, flinging the basket onto Hnrógh, and falling herself onto one of his books. Enraged, the beast snarled curses in a foreign tongue, and began to beat at the servant girl with several of his long arms until she fled sobbing.
Occasionally, he would finish with a book, and set it in a stack near the pillar beside him, and retrieve a new book from a similar stack. In the evening, a servant would take away the finished books, and bring out several new ones. Each time they would speak to him, presumably to ascertain what he wished to read next (this is how I inferred his name, by the way). His responses were always as curt and brief as I assume he could manage. Curious one evening, I followed this servant in his retreat. He took the stack of literature down a narrow flight of stairs, and through a narrower hallway, which let out into an enormous library. The ceiling was low, but the rows of books stretched back far from the doorway I'd entered through. There were plush chairs set up here and there. I found my manservant in one of them, book in hand-- it seemed he had found this treasure before I-- in part, no doubt, because of my obsession with the beast above. I asked him then, as the thought occurred to me, why that dreadful, many-eyed monster didn't hide himself away down here, considering his love of books, and hatred of company.
The answer my manservant gave was quite apparent in hindsight: Hnrógh simply couldn't have fit through the narrow hallway or staircase.
---
On my long journey, I had the fortune to spend a needful rest at a small inn. It went by the name of Thrûmonn's, though I could not, for the life of me, find any man named 'Thrûmonn', nor any indication that there had ever been one. The name simply was. The inn was located far into the Zygomish Highlands, at a cross roads, in the shadow of Mount Blemish, which stood as bone-gray monolith to the east. In my mind I was convinced that it was watching me, the mountain that is, as though it were some great barren skull looming in the distance. It was a relief to be indoors, out of its gaze.
My time at the inn was that of mundanity-- inns, it seems, are all very nearly the same, no matter where one goes. And so, as there is very little of note to say about the experience, I will write on the matter in brevity. Perhaps the only article of note was my encounter with a foul-tempered beast of corpulent proportions and foul temperament.
As I did not speak the tongue of these people (although the language of coin has so-far proven universal in most situations) I never was able to ascertain whether the beast was employed by the inn, or was a guest such as myself. Perhaps he was even the proprietor. (Through he was no 'Thrûmonn'-- he seemed to answer to the name 'Hnrógh', though, only when it was pronounced with care. I have a suspicion that this name bares a similar sound to a vulgar word in the language of this land's people)
I will describe this beast for you, so that you, as I, can first experience his strange countenance before learning of his prickle-some mood. The inn had a large back lounge, which one could access by passing through a pair of heavy hanging curtains. The curtains were there, presumably, to contain the thick hazy air of the lounge, clouded by the scent of opium, hashish, and tobacco. However, the smell was not the first thing I noticed-- sitting right beside the door was Hnrógh, his large body impossible to ignore. He was easily as big around as a dinner table. He had no distinction between head and body- indeed, perhaps one could say that he was only a very large head. Around the base of his thick, pear-shaped mass were several bearded mouths, each one with a slightly different scowl. His graying beards were twisted and braided near their ends, adorned with small beads. Between the cracked lips of his several mouths were held the pipe of a hookah- save for one mouth (which is the one he used to admonish me later).
At my first glance, it seemed ot me that he was wearing above his mouths a thick glittering belt of gemstones. Only as I looked closer did I see that this belt was one of eyes, not jewels. Each eye seemed to be a different shade, though all were either blue or gray-- incidentally, the same color as his wrinkled flesh.. Above these multitudes of glassy eyes sprouted dozens of long, sinuous arms- or perhaps you would call the tentacles, like that of a sea creature. These limbs did different things each. Some would pick through baskets of dried meats placed nearby. Some would change out coals on the hookas. But many simply hung idly in the air, occasionally reaching down to turn the page on one of the many books that sat in a great circle around this beast. And he seemed to be reading all of the, all at once, as his eyes darted back and forth over the pages.
It was my love of books that overcame my revulsion, and urged me to approach the hyper-literate monstrosity. I bashfully attempted to introduce myself to this creature. When I was ignored, I realized with embarrassment that the creature almost certainly did not speak my language. I tried instead to communicate through gestures, moving my arms about and pantomiming. When this too got me no-where, I considered that perhaps the creature could not see me. The books were not far from its eyes. Perhaps it was simply near-sighted and deaf. It was then, when I took a single step closer, that all the myriad of eyes turned to look directly at me. It was as though I had unknowingly crossed some sort of invisible barrier to its attention. Before I had a chance to speak, Hnrógh's single unoccupied mouth opened, and (in my own language, without a hint of an accent) said "Go away."
Over the course of my stay at Thrûmonn's, I spent a great deal of time watching the beast-- from a small distance, of course. Never once did I see him move from his spot by the door. The staff would dutifully refill his baskets of dried meats, hookah, and skeins of wine. One morning, very early, it was only I and Hnrógh in the lounge (even then, he would still ignore me) and a young servant came in to bring a new basket of food. A stray pillow had fallen from the pile on which the creature sat, and the servant tripped, flinging the basket onto Hnrógh, and falling herself onto one of his books. Enraged, the beast snarled curses in a foreign tongue, and began to beat at the servant girl with several of his long arms until she fled sobbing.
Occasionally, he would finish with a book, and set it in a stack near the pillar beside him, and retrieve a new book from a similar stack. In the evening, a servant would take away the finished books, and bring out several new ones. Each time they would speak to him, presumably to ascertain what he wished to read next (this is how I inferred his name, by the way). His responses were always as curt and brief as I assume he could manage. Curious one evening, I followed this servant in his retreat. He took the stack of literature down a narrow flight of stairs, and through a narrower hallway, which let out into an enormous library. The ceiling was low, but the rows of books stretched back far from the doorway I'd entered through. There were plush chairs set up here and there. I found my manservant in one of them, book in hand-- it seemed he had found this treasure before I-- in part, no doubt, because of my obsession with the beast above. I asked him then, as the thought occurred to me, why that dreadful, many-eyed monster didn't hide himself away down here, considering his love of books, and hatred of company.
The answer my manservant gave was quite apparent in hindsight: Hnrógh simply couldn't have fit through the narrow hallway or staircase.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
[Land of Nog] The Yodeling Yolbum
My friend Nick and I have been discussing collaborating on a project. I'll write blerbs about weird monsters, and he'll make illustrations. Here's my first attempt; we may be doing something else instead, we'll see. The idea is that each of these posts will be like a chapter from a travelogue from some noble adventurer, or a traveling merchant, like Marco Polo. I'm setting these in the Land of Nog, which is basically a loose fantasy setting that takes place on the face of an incredibly large, incredibly slow moving giant.
---------
In my travels through the land of Nog, it foremost stands
out in my recollection that never a single night were we at peace from the
haunting howls of the Yolbum. Each supper, precisely following sunset would the
caterwaul begin—first as a single lone yodel, then followed by a cacophony. Early
on our journey, it was a mystery to us, as to where these beasts—whom we
presumed to be most fearsome—were hiding, as our first leg took us through the
vast expanse of the Face Waste. Nary a tree nor hill stood to conceal their
forms, and yet looking out across the pocked earth, one could see nothing, even
if the sound seemed to come from only a stone’s toss away.
It was one night, and, at this point, the yodeling had begun
to wane from wondrous to irksome, that I set out, determined to find my first
Yolbum, and harangue it for it and its kin’s assault on my ears each night.
Thoroughly I sought, late into the night. It was only by high moon, by my
count, when I had all but given up, that my foot caught on a hole on the
ground. Easy enough to miss, looking out over the uneven ground—even then one
could walk right by and mistake it for another of the Waste’s many craterous
divots—yet, certainly large enough to twist an ankle of a blundering oaf such
as myself. Luckily, I merely scuffed my traveling vest as I fell to the ground.
On a hunch, I scurried away from the hole, and lay down
close to the ground to watch the opening, certain that it would reveal to me my
quarry. And indeed it did, only perhaps an hour later. The yodels had waned,
for a time, as they sometimes did, only to start up again suddenly with full
force. As I listened closely, I could hear the sound approaching, like a
reversed echo, until a call sounded from one Yolbum not a mile away. Then, out
from the hole before me slithered a long, sinuous creature. Like a worm, and
fleshy pink, it unspooled itself into a great pile of flesh on the earth around
its den. Along one side, the creature split, all the way down its hairless
length, opening up a long, horrible mouth, filled with small blunt teeth, and
it bellowed its ponderous howl into the night.
In a foolish attempt to gain further insight, I stood, and
uncovered my torch. The moment the light touched its hideous body, the creature
recoiled, slithering its bulk instantly back down into the dark burrow.
Further investigation has revealed this:
- Each Yolbum to emerge from a given hole is a different
individual. I speculate they have a vast network of tunnels under the earth.
- My manservant speculated that they consume the earth
itself, but whatever they eat, there is, as yet, no explanation for the lack of
apparent leavings that must follow.
- Each yodel is subtly different from the last. Either each
creature has a unique call, or the ululations of a given call are random. In a
letter from my dear wife, she fancied that they were singing lullabies to one another
in their strange language, and each song was a unique composition.
---
Additional information
Catching Up with an Old Friend
Been catching up with my friend from middle school, Nick Talbert. He's a self taught artist and graphic designer. He's got some cool shit, I'll plug his various accounts here at the bottom of this post if you want to check him out.
I met Nick in middle school, back in 2001. I'd been home-schooled up until the 5th grade. My parents were military, and had planned on having a bunch of kids, so homeschooling made sense, as the alternative would have been forcing me to get accustomed to new schools every time we moved (if you don't know, the military tends to ship its people around every few years)
As it turns out, all they had was me, and when it became clear they weren't going to have to move, they stuck me into the little Catholic grade school down the road from our house.
Now, when I say little, I mean little. Our 5th grade class was fifteen kids, including myself, and over the years until high-school we'd lose about one or more of that number each year. Nick himself left either near the end of 5th grade or at the beginning of 6th, I don't remember.
Still, he was basically the first friend I made in middle-school, and we've kept up off and on over the years. We mainly bonded over the fact that we both loved to draw. We spent most of our time in class (when we should have been taking notes or doing other things) drawing monsters and comic books.
In middle-school, I had this idea of making a big book full of monsters and their descriptions, sort of a sillier Magical Beasts and Where to find Them, and I would doodle a monster and leave room on the page to go back and fill in details about it. Except I very rarely followed through with that last part. I didn't really enjoy writing back then; I had atrocious hand writing and worse spelling.
Nick, however, followed suit, drawing his own monsters, except he would actually write out the descriptions of them.
In college, when I was going through some of my old stuff, I came across my monstrous manifesto, only the actual title I'd given it as a kid was "The Tomb [Tome] of Creatures", and boy. It was a tome alright. Basically, my methodology had been: fill up a note-book with school notes and doodles of monsters interspersed, and then, at the end of the year, tear out all the stupid useless notes and keep the pages with doodles.
These skeletal notebooks were then stitched loosely together by duck-taping backs to covers, ultimately forming this big shambling masterpiece. It was, however, totally falling to pieces, even from the get-go, and so when I re-discovered it, I took out the pages and rebound them into a three-ring binder, putting some of the more well-worn pages into plastic slips.
In going through this archeological dig, I discovered that, for reasons unknown, I had a handful of pages from Nick's parallel work, which he'd titled "The Monster Jaboree [Jamboree]". I really don't know why I had them. I think he gave them to me for some unknown purpose before he left our class.
At any rate, with Nick's permission I've compiled these ten pages of his into an imgur album, which you can find here. The descriptions are often quite witty and humorous, more so coming from a ten year old. Heres a selected quote:
"[Twin Snakes] find it easy to sniff humans out to find Blood. They also have x-ray vision to see through humans or anything else. So if you live near one of these don't plan to live anymore."
It's well worth a read-- I've transcribed the writing from each of the pages, as the poor photo quality makes it difficult to read on the images themselves. At some point, I'll scan in and make an album of higher quality images of these and other doodles of my own.
Having a collection of old sketches has been a cherished thing in my life, over the years. There's something about the creativity of childhood that makes for the perfect inspiration later on in life, once your mind has cemented into certain ways of thinking, and I'm always glad I've held on to this stuff all this time.
-------
My friend Nick Talbert has a healthy social media presence, but he doesn't have nearly enough followers, so get in on the ground floor while you still can!
- Nick's Instagram
- Nick's tumblr
- Nick's deviantART
And, if you're interested in commissioning him for design work,
- Nick's fiverr
I met Nick in middle school, back in 2001. I'd been home-schooled up until the 5th grade. My parents were military, and had planned on having a bunch of kids, so homeschooling made sense, as the alternative would have been forcing me to get accustomed to new schools every time we moved (if you don't know, the military tends to ship its people around every few years)
As it turns out, all they had was me, and when it became clear they weren't going to have to move, they stuck me into the little Catholic grade school down the road from our house.
Now, when I say little, I mean little. Our 5th grade class was fifteen kids, including myself, and over the years until high-school we'd lose about one or more of that number each year. Nick himself left either near the end of 5th grade or at the beginning of 6th, I don't remember.
Still, he was basically the first friend I made in middle-school, and we've kept up off and on over the years. We mainly bonded over the fact that we both loved to draw. We spent most of our time in class (when we should have been taking notes or doing other things) drawing monsters and comic books.
In middle-school, I had this idea of making a big book full of monsters and their descriptions, sort of a sillier Magical Beasts and Where to find Them, and I would doodle a monster and leave room on the page to go back and fill in details about it. Except I very rarely followed through with that last part. I didn't really enjoy writing back then; I had atrocious hand writing and worse spelling.
Nick, however, followed suit, drawing his own monsters, except he would actually write out the descriptions of them.
In college, when I was going through some of my old stuff, I came across my monstrous manifesto, only the actual title I'd given it as a kid was "The Tomb [Tome] of Creatures", and boy. It was a tome alright. Basically, my methodology had been: fill up a note-book with school notes and doodles of monsters interspersed, and then, at the end of the year, tear out all the stupid useless notes and keep the pages with doodles.
These skeletal notebooks were then stitched loosely together by duck-taping backs to covers, ultimately forming this big shambling masterpiece. It was, however, totally falling to pieces, even from the get-go, and so when I re-discovered it, I took out the pages and rebound them into a three-ring binder, putting some of the more well-worn pages into plastic slips.
In going through this archeological dig, I discovered that, for reasons unknown, I had a handful of pages from Nick's parallel work, which he'd titled "The Monster Jaboree [Jamboree]". I really don't know why I had them. I think he gave them to me for some unknown purpose before he left our class.
At any rate, with Nick's permission I've compiled these ten pages of his into an imgur album, which you can find here. The descriptions are often quite witty and humorous, more so coming from a ten year old. Heres a selected quote:
"[Twin Snakes] find it easy to sniff humans out to find Blood. They also have x-ray vision to see through humans or anything else. So if you live near one of these don't plan to live anymore."
It's well worth a read-- I've transcribed the writing from each of the pages, as the poor photo quality makes it difficult to read on the images themselves. At some point, I'll scan in and make an album of higher quality images of these and other doodles of my own.
Having a collection of old sketches has been a cherished thing in my life, over the years. There's something about the creativity of childhood that makes for the perfect inspiration later on in life, once your mind has cemented into certain ways of thinking, and I'm always glad I've held on to this stuff all this time.
-------
My friend Nick Talbert has a healthy social media presence, but he doesn't have nearly enough followers, so get in on the ground floor while you still can!
- Nick's Instagram
- Nick's tumblr
- Nick's deviantART
And, if you're interested in commissioning him for design work,
- Nick's fiverr
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