Names for Isaac’s Night Creatures!

I got my hands on the art book for Castlevania Netflix, and it had a lot of cool stuff! Unfortunately, if you’re here for a comprehensive look at the show’s night creatures, you might be a bit disappointed… Only a few have their models shown, but never a full character model sheet; Some are depicted only in concept art, and some not at all, such as Queen B, whom we DID get an actual character model sheet for!

But amidst this disappointment, we did get lots of new information! Particularly with Isaac’s army of night creatures, my favorite… Apparently a lot of his monsters are based on creatures from African folklore, something I’d never considered, but in hindsight it makes a lot of sense! African folklore is an incredibly broad yet highly underrepresented category.

Since Castlevania is no stranger to directly naming/adapting its bestiary after folklore and myths, we may as well go with these names! Of our new names, there’s the Abada, AKA Isaac’s demonic steed;

There’s Ninki Nanka, a long and reptilian creature once compared to a Chinese dragon;

We also have mentions of a Bultungin. In folklore, this is a werehyena… So most likely this night creature, which fits the description more than anyone else;

Impundulu means Lightning Bird, so obviously these creatures (also shown in the previous picture on the right)!

They’re a particular favorite of mine, and I liked to call them Lightning Harpies before we got the art book! There’s also the Rompo, though we already know that the one we see in the show is called Rompa, according to a tweet!

Finally we have the Grootslang, which… Aside from Abada, none of the names are specified, so it’s up to the reader to figure out which Night Creature was adapted from which myth named.

The Grootslang confuses me most, because in folklore it’s described as a giant serpent… So possibly the night creature with actual scales, but some renditions of the myth give the Grootslang elephantine features.

The latter creature has more mammalian characteristics in addition to its serpentine tail, as well as the larger fangs that are more like tusks! I honestly can’t tell which of these is meant to be the Grootslang, the night creature with the spear, or the one that gets memorably killed as the first casualty against Legion.

We also have the Merman and Abel (from the games), as well as Flyseyes and Fisharoo (fully original). To cap this all off, knowing Isaac’s night creatures are named after African folklore, might I suggest Anansi as the fanon name for this spider-like creature?

Anansi is a famous spider trickster deity from Akan folklore, and this night creature’s appearance reminds me of the story of how Anansi’s legs became long and thin; To put it in a nutshell, it’s because of his hunger that led to Anansi’s limbs being pulled and stretched out like that.

The spider creature also has attention drawn to its potbelly in the art book, which COULD be a reference to that appetite, amidst the obvious drool… Is this a stretch? Perhaps. But for now, I’m happy with my suggestion of Anansi as the name for this night creature!

I might look into creatures from African myth after this… Knowing some (but not all) were inspired by that folklore makes me want to find names for the rest, same with Anansi!

Strahd von Zarovich, but make it a bit more Slavic. And then add eyeliner.

Saw @barovianwitch design with white lock and was like “yep, I want this”, so here we are.

Masaaki Sasamoto

Wouldn’t leave my mind sorry

Vitreous Drinker

Image by Wayne Reynolds, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Monster Manual IV Art Gallery here.

[I used one of these guys in my Age of Worms game, to replace the inevitable noble ghoul character in Wolfgang Baur’s adventure. Noble ghouls are fine and all, but a solitary undead rogue in 3.5 would have been mincemeat to my party. The vitreous drinker was a suitably durable and creepy replacement. My version streamlines some of its abilities, notably the spectral ravens, which are too good in the original.]

Vitreous Drinker This hunched, robed figure is human shaped, but its skin is covered with hundreds of bulging eyes. Its mouth is agape, and its tongue is disturbingly long and prehensile. Ravens perch on its shoulders and hover about its body.

A vitreous drinker is a horrible undead creature made from the body and soul of a spy or voyeur—anyone who watched others without their consent. They are animated by a violent desire for secrets, and will gladly kill for them. More often, though, they turn their victims into unwitting agents, clouding their vision with magical cataracts that allow the drinker to see through the victim’s eyes whenever it wishes. As such, vitreous drinkers will often conduct hit-and-run attacks to create multiple windows into the world. If pressed, or if prevented from fleeing, they use their spectral ravens to deliver deadly touch attacks while lashing out with their gnarled hands and piercing tongue.

Vitreous drinkers typically work alone—they make minions, not allies. A vitreous drinker may sell its secrets to the highest bidder, infiltrating mortal society in disguise so as not to give away their horrific nature or weaken their clientele with their awful visage. Such urban drinkers make spies from the dregs of society; beggars, thieves and vagrants with milky eyes are common in cities where a vitreous drinker dwells. Occasionally they will partner with the clerics of an evil god or some fiend in pursuit of higher knowledge, but such alliances last only as long as the drinker feels it has some information to gain.

A vitreous drinker stands as tall as a human, and their withered frames are typically slightly lighter.

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my favorite scene in LotR as a kid was when Sam started miserably freestyling in the tower of Cirith Ungol and the only reason he ever found Frodo was because he deliriously tried to join in

…i did read some of the novels, but i couldn’t get through them entirely…

…and so i genuinely have no idea whether or not this is serious. coz i mean, obviously, it could be a joke. but it could also have legitimately happened. people who have only seen the films underestimate the amount of random things that happen in the books that could come off as utterly silly and ridiculous if removed from their context.

Haha, well, it is pretty much what happens. Sam is looking for Frodo in the tower of Cirith Ungol and is despairing that he will ever find him. He sits down and does what any self-respecting Tolkien character does during their moments of hopelessness and bursts into song.

It’s a really good song (ten year old Ship had it memorized) and as he begins the refrain a second time, he hears Frodo’s voice answering weakly from above. Frodo is poisoned and despairing and beaten but he is still a Hobbit and cannot resist a singalong even while on the brink of death.

I just have to reblog because it makes me laugh EVERY TIME

William Alberto Huaman Vilcatoma

Guilin Mountains China

#this is one of the wildest landscapes to me#but i will not be seeing it live. just look at that steamy fog#i am not compatible with that kind of humidity 

these landscapes are great bc you see these chinese paintings showing what you think are very stylized landforms, but then you see photographs of the actual mountains in south china and it’s like, no, that’s actually just what they look like

iirc these kinds of insanely dramatic peaks are characteristic of karst topography, since soft limestone is easily eroded and can create some pretty wild shapes in the process. some of the really insane ones include the stone forest (also in southern china) and tsingy de bemaraha in madagascar.

needless to say you often also get incredible caves in karst regions, even ones which don’t have nearly as dramatic surface features as these

Horseman's axe, Spain, 16th century

from The Art Institute of Chicago

NEW LEAK JUST DROPPED

this will never stop being true

all done by the very talented @maddieshara

@afriendtokilltime

not to be That Person but y’all have got to learn to be more normal about bisexual characters. this isn’t 2012. women romancing astarion is not the problem, nor is karlach “lesbian coded”. the real problem is y’all’s biphobia stemming largely from homophobic stereotypes

some very good tags on this post

Isn’t Jimmy Dore a notorious Transphobe?

AND a Vaccine conspiracist.

weird how Tankies keep reblogging reactionaries...

Isn't Jimmy Dore a notorious Transphobe?

MORE PHOTS IN MUH REBLOG

Psst. Don't tell the jolkein rolkein rolkein estate, but this is amazing. DO consider buying a print from the extraordinary artist responsible:

https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/leiaham/

Original Twitter thread with the artist's thoughts and commentary:

This is so fantastic

One of my favourite bits of media history trivia is that back in the Elizabethan period, people used to publish unauthorised copies of plays by sending someone who was good with shorthand to discretely write down all of the play's dialogue while they watched it, then reconstructing the play by combining those notes with audience interviews to recover the stage directions; in some cases, these unauthorised copies are the only record of a given play that survives to the present day. It's one of my favourites for two reasons:

Piracy=Art preservation