Category Archives: Flora and fauna

Flora and fauna

A Wooden Joker Warning

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As we turn towards spring, it seems like a good time to remind citizens about the occasional risks of Wooden Jokers. As yet, no one has determined what manner of entity these are – tree growths? Fungi? Demonic forces? We don’t know. What we do know is that they resemble human men and women, grow out of the trunks of trees and cause nothing but trouble.

Usually they look rather attractive, and can draw the attention of the lonely and sexually destitute. If you fall into this unhappy camp then it is as well to stay out of the woods during the spring, when the sap is rising. Wooden Jokers can be strangely attractive at this time.

My personal theory is that if you find one in the deeper woods, it will probably kill you. Survivors of Wooden Jokers have tended to be on the wood margins, where rescue is feasible. If you are visible to other islanders, someone may come along and cut you free from the tree. This is never a dignified process. The more enthusiasm the tree has provoked in the victim, the less dignified the release is bound to be, if I may speak circumspectly.

It is possible that some Wooden Jokers release their victims after a time. No one has ever admitted to such an experience. I myself make a point of keeping well away from such trees and definitely have no insight into whether there is any scope for enjoying their bounty and then escaping with life and reputation unharmed. It would be unwise to try. No matter how they shake their branches at you.

(Art by Dr Abbey, text by Nimue)

Flora and fauna

Do not trust the trees

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Do you look at the trees at all? Have you noticed how trees in the distance always look like pine forests, but trees close up always  look like this:

I have been in to the woods, at least far enough to see the bare branches, and the leaf litter. At times there are leaves, but my sense of time is not good.

I have walked for what seemed like days to try and reach the pine forests that haunt this island. Always they seem to be on the next hill, the next headland. I see their dark greens, their mighty canopies, and yet I can never reach them. Up close I find only these stark and often lifeless trees, and I do not know why.

Where are these unreachable forests? Do they only exist in my mind, or are they somehow out there, beyond my grasp? I dream of the sharp scent of pine resin, and the soft footing of needles beneath my feet.

Is it that I am cursed? Do others wander into those distant pine woods whenever the fancy takes them? Am I alone excluded from their shade? What have I done to so offend them? I know not.

When I die, please bury me in a pine coffin. I am homesick for the trees of my childhood, and afraid that this is the only means by which I might yet reach them.

(Photo by Keith, text by Nimue – which will make sense if you’ve ever looked closely at the trees in the graphic novels.)

Flora and fauna

Do not give them forks

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It is best not to mess with SpoonWalkers. Nathaniel Bowbridge (self styled gentleman scientist) had a theory that SpoonWalkers could and would use forks if these were the only utensils available to them.

Accordingly he trapped several SpoonWalkers and isolated them in a cage with only forks available. They did indeed hobble about unhappily on forks but before Nathaniel could write up his findings his housekeeper arrived one morning to find the lock of the cage expertly picked by a fork, the SpoonWalkers gone, all the spoons missing from the kitchen and Nathaniel Bowbridge dead, repeatedly stabbed.

He was, in the words of Detective Inspector Edgeworth, “completely forked!”

(Text by Bob Fry, image by Keith Errington)

Flora and fauna, Uncategorized

Gazing back at the weird things

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Back when the first few graphic novels came out, a number of reviewers made the same observation: The island is full of strange entities, but the islanders seem entirely oblivious to them. It creates a somewhat creepy effect. That part of the storytelling was not my decision.

It could be assumed that islanders used to protect themselves by trying not to know what was going on around them. Perhaps they didn’t care, and felt no interest in the eyes in the dark. Fear, or complacency, apathy or despair – there are many reasons not to bother with what’s around you.

The life of the island has changed as we’ve gone along. The Hopeless, Maine Scientific Society first turned up as a two page spread in one of the books – it was my idea, as I wanted to dig in more with islander life. I went on to use the Scientific Society repeatedly in the aftermath of the kickstarter where I had to kill one hundred people.

Since then, the Scientific Society has taken on a life of its own, including those splitters who are now in the Horticultural Society instead. Islanders have started paying a lot more attention to the flora and fauna around them.

There is a kind of horror in weird obliviousness, and people who do not care enough to engage with the world they live in. Frankly, I think there’s enough of that kind of horror out in the ‘real’ world. Better then, to have the kinds of horrors you can find by gazing back at the weird things, gazing into the void, gazing into the bushes and so forth.

(Image and text by Nimue)

Flora and fauna

The Turnip Man

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“What are you making?” I ask my child.

“It’s The Turnip Man,” she says, holding up her needlework for my inspection.

I say nothing. I have seen The Turnip Man too many times in my dreams of late, his rooty fingers reaching for me.

“He lives underground,” she tells me. Her voice is strangely neutral, as though this information is of great indifference to her.

“Have you seen him?” I ask, more afraid of the answer than I care to admit.

“I see him all the time,” she says, as though this is perfectly normal. “Don’t you see him?”

“Only in dreams.”

“He wants you to see him, but you have to let him in through your eyes,” she explains.

I do not want to let him in.

“He is cross with you,” my child continues.

“What must I do?” I ask in a frightened whisper.

My child considers this question carefully. Almost as though she is listening for the answer. I have never heard The Turnip Man speak. When he opens his mouth in my nightmares, I hear only the sound of my own screaming.

“He wants you to feed him,” she says. Then she smiles up at me. Her eyes are black holes, her skin the leathery texture of dried turnip skin. Her mouth opens slowly, revealing the rows of tiny, sharp teeth.

I wake up screaming, to find my child standing over the bed, holding a piece of cloth depicting The Turnip Man.

I remember that I do not have a child.

(Text by Nimue Brown, Turnip Man image and concept by Allison Kotzig.)

Flora and fauna

More goblins

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Steven C Davis recently found this goblin in the kitchen. It appears to have eaten all the cheese, at the very least.

Most of the time we don’t see goblins, because they’re just energy. However, they can pull together assemblages like this at will, taking form from whatever is around them, to enable them to do whatever they want to do. Which in this instance appears to have been feasting on cheese. Quite where the cheese went is anyone’s guess.

Goblins definitely eat things, but need to take a physical form to do so. The good news is that if you can’t see them, they can’t eat you. The bad news is that this can change rather rapidly.

Flora and fauna

Harvesting G’nee oil

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After some recent discussions in the pub it has become obvious that not everyone knows what to do if they find a dead g’nee. Back in the day of course we caught the giant ones and processed their oil, but the really big ones don’t come to the island any more, for some reason.

G’nee are easy to identify. If you find something with tentacles that has been crushed by a rock, this will be a g’nee. They have a nearly-invisible hot hair balloon as part of their anatomy, and when their candles run out, they fall out of the sky and are often killed by the stones they were carrying. Why they feel the urge to carry the stones is anyone’s guess  – maybe as stands for the candles. How they get the candles remains a mystery. How they light the candles is also unknown. But they are at least easy to identify when dead.

Having scraped what remains of the g’nee off the stone, you have to press the oil out. This is best done through either squeezing, or the application of weight or pressure. Do not try to boil the oil out, this does not work. The oil is dark, thick and smelly. It is exceptionally good for oiling machinery. It is singularly dreadful for cooking with, and as James Weaselegrease has recently ascertained, likely to induce vomiting. Frankly, if James can’t eat it, no one can.

We hear rumour that some people swear by it as a skin oil. Applying it to the skin is likely to make your average islander smell a good deal worse than usual, and as the oil deteriorates, the smell increases. Whether there are any skin benefits to be achieved remains to be seen – we look forward to hearing about you experiments with this.

(Image and text by Nimue, with input from James and Keith)

Flora and fauna

The science of dustcats

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Dustcats are much debated by The Scientific Society of Hopeless, Maine.

Observations of James Weaslegrease: According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a dustcat should be able to fly. The dustcat, of course, flies anyway, because who cares about tiny details like the laws of physics.

Keith Errington: As a fellow member of the Scientific Society, I am astounded by your inaccuracy Mr. Weaselgrease, clearly dustcats do not fly, they are simply not capable of flying, to suggest as much is tantamount to lunacy. No. Clearly dustcats float. And it’s their floating that defies all known laws of physics. (Even the ones that “Professor” Evenheist made up).

Mark Hayes: dust ‘floats’ in the air due suspension in air currents , until it settles on a surface, in the same way that heavier particles ‘float’ in water, suspended in the medium a dust cat does not fly, it ‘floats’.

James Weaslegrease: Your theory, whilst interesting, has some room for improvement. Floating is what occurs when a creature has buoyancy within the appropriate body, be that liquid or gaseous. It, critically, involves no input from the creature itself to sustain, and does not allow for directed movement, forcing the creature to move as the flow of its surroundings dictates. With this in mind, I have performed several tests with a dustcat’s favoured human, as well as some especially tasty piles of dust, and have concluded that dustacats are entirely capable of “floating” towards whatever their target is with far too much regularity to be a coincidence. Therefore, since their aerial mobility is controlled, it constitutes flight, as opposed to floating.

At this point it needs noting that the debate in question had occurred informally at The Squid and Teapot and that further insights may be less than perfectly scientific in nature…

Herb Chevin: Your mum’s a dustcat.

James Weaselegrease: You wish my mum was a dustcat.

Bob Evenheist: I have proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that my theories about physics…

Herb Chevin: I’ve got a theory that if I punch you really hard, you’ll shut up. Want to test it?

At this point Herb Chevin undertook to punch Bob Evenheist. Bob flew through the air in a graceful arc and then just lay horizontally in the air above the fireplace, looking awkward until she was towed out at closing time. Various conclusions have been drawn from this, but frankly none of them were useful.

(Image by Nimue. Text by named individuals, other bits also by Nimue.)

Flora and fauna

And there were hideous, eldritch cries

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A small cove, lit only by moonlight. Often a good place for line fishing, but tonight the seas shudder with awful sound, and the fisherfolk huddle amongst the rocks, hoping that the danger will pass before morning.

At first, the raucous trumpeting, echoing between the rocks. A shuddering, making the sea itself tremble, the waves choppy and erratic. A dire rasping, as though rusty metal objects were drawn across each other’s surfaces, setting every nerve ending into spasms of discomfort.

A violent honking, angrier than geese. Screaming geese would be a welcome distraction just now for they at least are a familiar kind of threat.

The sea throws cold wetness over the huddling folk amongst the rocks. Their wiping fingers find it is not water, but something sticky and insidious that clings to their skin.

All night long the sea itself seems to hack and hiss, until the anxious light of a new day creeps in to bring strange insights.

In the centre of the cove lies a large form, grey in the faint light. It thrashes from time to time, and hideous sounds emerge from between its gaping lips. Not just sounds, but flurries of spittle and revolting, slimy nuggets that are taken by the tide. It is a sea monster, and it is dying.

This is a rare sight; leviathans such as this one spend their lives beneath the waves, and only come into the shallows in the final days. Here, they cough up their offspring from the depths of their massive bodies. Each greasy lump is in truth an egg, that will float away to begin a new life. Only in death do they reproduce, and the awful night sounds are life and death entwined as the old sea monster passes and new ones are born through the same unpleasant process.

There is nothing to do but leave the monster to the crows. In time, the bones may be worth salvaging.

(With thanks to Steven C Davis for the prompt. What he actually suggested was that I should record the noises I’ve been making whilst ill, but I thought it would be less disturbing all round if I just tried to describe what the last ten days have been like. I appear not to have drowned, but have unleashed a massive swarm of unholy snot-offspring into the world.)

Flora and fauna

Do mermaids have knees?

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Sometimes it is hard to be sure what comes from true memory, and what I have dreamed in some fevered night when the wind was full of howling and my flesh seemed possessed by unnatural beings.

I remember whales, the shape of them in the water above me and the uncanny sense of their having knees. Do whales have knees? I remember someone telling me in truth I had seen only blubber. But they were telling me about seal blubber at the time, and how that relates to the bodies of selkies in and out of human form and perhaps that did not happen after all.

Still, I cannot shake off this question, this unease. Do mermaids have knees? For if whales have knees, then surely mermaids must? Is that not logical? And if whales have blubber resembling knees then could mermaids be the same?

I only ever see their upper parts, their heads and shoulders as they bob in the bays, calling for me to come into the water. I am certain I have seen them, with their wild eyes and terrible teeth. I have seen them turn and dive, the flash of tails as they resubmerge. But of knees, I know nothing.

“Come and look,” they say to me. “Slip beneath the waves and learn our secrets. Know our hidden parts, discover the truth for yourself.”

I know that mermaids are not to be trusted. We bury the people who trust mermaids, or at least we bury what little of them the sea gives back to us. Perhaps those dead souls might speak out, and share the truth of their own findings beneath the waves. Undoubtedly there were teeth, and tails. Will they remember the knees? Are they – like me- haunted even in death by that which lies beneath the surface?

(Text by Nimue with thanks to Rachel on Twitter for the prompt.)