What I'm Reading - Part 1: Taxonomy of Monsters

One of the best non-book yet literary experiences I've had recently is a video game called The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It's the closest thing to feeling like you're the protagonist in a novel, ever.

The game's quests are like a series of mystery novels, and you are the detective. You go into a mission, look at the clues and evidence, and draw conclusions. Sometimes it was a monster that did the crime, sometimes a person, and sometimes a person unleashed a monster. It's really great, and sometimes the quests have big twists.

Like, your character rides into an abandoned town. As you approach, you hear shrieking and moaning. Then, out of nowhere, a ghost appears and attacks you. You, as a monster hunter, kill it. However, the ghost returns for some reason. You begin to explore the surrounding abandoned buildings, and you read notes and find tokens that allow you to piece together what happened. A woman was killed, and a curse was set upon her. An object you found binds her to the town, to forever haunted and attack anyone near. You discover that she's a noonwraith, a specific type of ghost, and then you brew potions and oil your blade with specific items to prepare. Then, you must then break the curse and kill the ghost one last time. As you do, her human soul calls to you and thanks you for setting her free.

This is one of the quests I remember, and it was so awesome to figure it all out like a detective.


What makes the game's stories so great is probably that it is based on writings by Andrzej Sapkowski. I began reading his short story collection, The Last Wish. I've finished the first story, and it is really great. It's a monster mystery. 

If you want to see my review of The Witcher 3, click this sentence!
 

 

Monster Manual

One of the things that inspires me about the game and the writings are the way monsters and beasts are classified. There are subgroups, laws and rules that the world stands by for how the monsters look, how curses are laid out. Noonwraiths appear at noon and are bound to the world by objects. Nekkers have warrior leaders. Trolls can be intelligent and persuaded to give up their actions and avoid fighting whatsoever. 

The game has a system of classification. Giants, trolls, and nekkers are Ogroids. They share weaknesses and similarities. The same blade isn't effective against Katakans as it is on werewolves, because katakans are classified as vampires and werewolves are classified as cursed.

Ever since I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid, I always wanted to make my own Monster Manual, filled with my own designs. I've actually started one for my novel, and it is inspired by the idea of monster taxonomy. Each monster is sorted into a system. Monsters in one group share similar physical attributes, weaknesses, organs, etc. I like it when magical worlds are forced to conform to a set system of laws and logic, and that's one of my goals with my writing. Anything magical needs to be bound by rules, otherwise magic becomes a deus ex machina.



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Creatures and Monsters of The Unraveler - PART 2

My novel is filled with crazy beasts of my design. On this side project I'm working on, I'm creating nice artwork and describing some of the lesser-seen monsters of my world. So, to show a few of the creatures, I'm compiling a best-of monster list of creatures that exist in my novel.

Click the names to go to the full post about each creature! (...or start at Part 1)

Munlo

Description: Munlo are one of the most eaten creatures in the Unraveler universe. They are two-legged lizard-like creatures that are about the size of a pig. They have a taste comparable to bacon, however more chewy. They have a main of white fur along their spines, webbed feet for ease of navigating rivers, and a slithering tail that can latch on to the surroundings. The fangs are defensive, and only rarely are able to kill anyone. The teeth within their mouths are no more dangerous than the teeth of a toothbrush. They are aggressive to deal with, however, the ease at which they reproduce keeps them too valuable of a food source to not use.

Szip

Description: Szip originally evolved from living on the hides of giant creatures with rocky husks. Back then, they would use their needle mouths to feed off of blood. After the rocky giant creatures went extinct, however, szip addapted to live in the mountains. Now, they tend to simply go after smaller insects and small mammals for food, but are more often prey themselves (and prey for each other!).

Latcher

Description: The Bull Latcher is the largest (and scariest) of the three, and is the featured image at the top of this post.  It has evolved teeth and extended spines. It tends to latch on the biggest creature it can find, usually onto animals the size of whales. The Bull Latcher is about as tall as a human. Bull Latchers are the most aggressive, and if a giant predator is threatening its host, it will detach and attack the predator and then reattach to its host if both have survived.

Bewildered Vat

Description: The Bewildered Vat is a very strange creature. It is a slow liquid in a hardened outer shell. The liquid is acidic and poisonous, and it can launch bubbles rapidly to attack. It eats insects and dissolves them into its core. As strange as it may appear, it actually is fairly intelligent, having a soupy brain that is comparable to a sloth's. People have given this creature several nicknames, including, Death's Soup, The Living Cauldron, and the Reaching Pot.

Arbuscula

Description: The Arbuscula is a sentient tree creature. It has four spiderlike legs and a great maw of a mouth. Some of the leaves are light-sensitive, which give the arbuscula a sense of sight. Arbuscula come in a variety of appearances and several different tree-breeds have been discovered. Although they are very hostile, they will often sit quietly and wait until their enemies leave. Any small-sized prey, however, will be killed if the risk is low enough.


Thanks for checking these out! Let's be twitter friends (@Oxyborb). Here are the other parts to this series:
Part 1