Book Review Up: Honeycomb by Israel Del Rio
I’ve just finished a review of a book I finished about two weeks ago. Apologies for the lateness. You can find the review here. It was a neat book, I just got busy and couldn’t write the review. Anywho. Enjoy! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
WBM: Bestiary–the Bugganes
Location and General InformationThe bugganes are curious creatures who tend to be bad omens wherever they are found, no matter the circumstances. They inhabit regions less populated, for there they are more likely to remain unnoticed for a time and the relatively small population of remote areas is less able to deal with a buggane properly. Finding bugganes in large city complexes is rare, and when it does happen the buggane is almost always destroyed within twenty-four hours as cities tend to have specialized keepers of the peace who deal with incidents of the odd or magical. Unfortunately for the bugganes, they are quite easy to kill: anything that can kill a human works on a buggane, though more easily considering that the bugganes tend to be rather frail in the first place. DescriptionThey are tall creatures covered in long, greasy hair that extends from their heads to their feet. Whether they always wear clothing is unknown. Sometimes they are seen wearing tattered robes and other times it is impossible to tell amidst the loose skin and long hair. Their arms are especially long, with long fingers and fingernails and their teeth are lenghty and sharp, creating a jaw that looks inhuman and menacing. Bugganes, however, are not intentionally violent and rarely attack people unless provoked, which is almost always anyway. MagicWhat makes bugganes particularly hated among the creatures of Altern is their uncontrollable ability to affect fate. They are attuned to the magic that flows through Altern, which results in their bodies becoming conduits through which accidents of potentially lethal consequence can occur. When they are around, people tend to die or fall victim to horrible accidents: such as falling off ladders, landing head first on a table full of knives, or even having a tree randomly uproot itself and crash on top of you. Beyond that, the bugganes contain no other magic. CreationWhere the bugganes come from isn’t entirely clear. A few humans believe that they are part of the spirit world, existing on Altern as markers of individuals who committed horrible crimes and got away with it, for one who bears the secret of horrible acts is unlikely to reach heaven in one piece. Other humans believe they are mean spirits sent from darker reaches of Altern to annoy and punish humans, though the people who believe this are rarely capable of arguing a logical reason for this. Generally it is accepted that the bugganes are simply extensions of the magic that exists in Altern as sort of “bubbles” of excess negativity that just happens to be condensed into a buggane as a way of releasing tension. It is known, however, that the bugganes do not reproduce. CultureFor the most part the bugganes have no significant culture. They rarely interact with one another and never interact with humans. Even if they did interact with someone other than themselves they would barely be able to do more than mumble considering their exceedingly full, toothy mouths. They are more like sentient creatures who wander and cause accidental havoc.
WBM: Bestiary–the Ellefolk
Location and General Information Creatures who inhabit the forests of Altern, particularly around the area of Barksville. They are generally considered beings of folklore, rather than reality. Description Males are generally shorter than the females, have giant noses, white hair, and large heads. They wear robes or suits and sometimes walk with a cane. They also have eyes that are narrow and yellow; much like a bird of prey. Females are tall and unusually beautiful in a more “strange” way than a “typical” way. Their beauty is cause for intense curiosity from human males. They are tall, generally long-haired and blonde, and have piercing eyes. Both male and females have gaping holes where their backs should be, as if their fronts were created to seem human, but the rest of them were left mostly unfinished (although they do have bottoms and legs, just no backs). Magic The Ellefolk are primarily masters of the art of manipulation, and mainly the manipulation of males. Their magic is exceedingly effective against human males, who tend to be more inclined to curiosity and, unfortunately, weaker willed when it comes to temptation. One of the key magics of the Ellefolk is the use of magic as a means of controlling by inserting emotion or sensation. They are capable of controlling men by making them genuinely obsessed with pleasing the ladies of the Elle, which can sometimes spark intense jealousy amongst the affected males. Generally, this magic is difficult to break. One must wait quite a long time for the magic to wear off or someone must kill the lady whose magic has hold of an individual. The easiest way to break the spell is to keep knots, holes, and cracks in trees covered up or stuff full of clay or some other substance Women are rarely affected by the Ellefolk, though they can be, on rare occasions, struck by a similar manipulative magic found within Ellemen. This magic, if it works on the individual woman, will be instantaneous, but less difficult to break than the hold the ladies of the Elle have over human men. The limiting factor, however, is that the Ellefolk’s manipulative magic is only effective when the target looks through the knot, hole, or crack in a tree. Other magic includes creating a genuinely pleasant environment that glitters. Their homes in the forest are filled with glittering gold particles that make anyone caught within it happy by default. This isn’t so much a spell as an environmental thing, as the Ellefolk are not actually in control of this so much as just living in it. The breath of a lady of the Elle is like a corrosive acid. It causes death in seconds and melts the skin and tissue from the victim’s face, causing agonizing pain. Creation The Ellefolk are not born normally, as most creatures are in Altern. While humans breed through intercourse, the Ellefolk do not breed at all. All the Ellefolk on Altern were there from the beginning, or what seems like the beginning, and as such there is a finite number of them. They cannot create new Ellefolk, nor can anyone else. As such, the Ellefolk are essentially immortal, part of a spiritual/faery world rather than what one might consider the human world of mortality. They can be killed, of course, and generally this is pretty easy as thy are subject to the same physical weaknesses as humans. Ellefolk are born in giant stone eggs found buried in the Earth. The Ellefolk are constantly searching for their kin, digging wherever they can find them. This is a constant preoccupation, which goes hand in hand with their ability to manipulate human men, providing them with free labor. The stones are brought to the surface, dipped in enormous containers of water, and left to sit. Eventually the rock softens and becomes more like a boiled chicken egg without a shell and then the Ellefolk inside breaks out and is born. At least, that’s how the folklore goes; nobody actually knows how they bring out their young from the stone eggs. War The Ellefolk never have any wars. Because there are a limited amount of them across all of Altern it is not considered worth dealing with the complications and ramifications of war. Why fight your own kind when you can move and maintain the population? Whenever a dispute arises, members of a particular group assess the situation and make a mutual beneficial decision (usually one group moves elsewhere with the help of the group that gets to stay). This may seem quite civilized, but it should be known that if the Ellefolk reproduced normally, no such peaceful decisions would be made. It’s simply thought as better for the species not to fight over anything, no matter how horrible or annoying. Culture The Ellefolk have a very simplistic culture in comparison to the cultures of mankind. They are dominated by the desire to essentially dig up their own kind. This prevents them from developing cities or separate cultures. In a way they are like animals–lions might be a good example. Their young, once dug up and brought to life, either remain with their “parents” or move on to other groups or create groups of their own, expanding and seeking to hunt down their kind from other locations–to be released, of course. Beyond this, the Ellefolk lack any sort of complex culture. They do no create music, except in certain regions where non-human, sentient creatures exist who are not so easily swayed by Ellefolk magic–and music has a higher success rate with certain creatures, and a lower success rate with human beings. They are not, by default, an artistic people, creating little art, except the glittering gold air of their woodland homes that produces bliss for anyone within its grasp, which might be considered artistic. In fact, the only thing that makes the Ellefolk more than animals is the fact that they are sentient, capable of intentionally luring humans (and other