Animals of the Anitaverse
In addition to the supernatural humanoids of the Anitaverse, there are also a few supernatural fauna, which, to my memory, consists of trolls, gargoyles, and dragons. Though LKH has long forgotten them from what I can tell, I always really liked the idea that what were mythical monsters in our world were just regular animals in this one, and I always wanted more focus on them...which of course never happened.
I think there could very easily be lots of other creatures from legend and folklore that could fit easily into the Anitaverse. Trolls, gargoyles, and dragons are all fantasy staples, and so I think that other fantasy staples like griffins and manticores would mesh well enough with that setup. Unicorns fall into the same camp, but I really, really want to keep unicorns out of the Anitaverse. They're my favorite legendary creature, which normally makes me want them everywhere, but in this case them being my favorite makes me want to protect them from this disgusting mess. I once read a short story by LKH about sea serpents as animals in the modern-day real world, and I think her portrayal of them in that would fit well with the Anitaverse. It even had the “they’re totally sweet gentle creatures but ignorant people misunderstand them and think they’re dangerous except our awesome heroine who is an expert on them!” thing going on.
At first I figured that part-humans like centaurs and sphinxes wouldn't fit in, since we haven't seen any creature like that. The closest we get to a half-and-half is the therians in hybrid form, but that's a blending, not one half being something and the other being something else. But then I remembered that we DO have half-and-half creatures: naga, merfolk, and lamia in this series all have a human form but can shift into their true form as well. Centaurs, sphinxes, etc., could be like that. Of course, lamia and merfolk and naga also all fall under the 'sentient humanoid' category like fae and vampires, and this discussion is about animals...but is there any guarantee that shifting into a human form automatically means having a human mind? An animal being able to take a human form but still having an animal mind (like the reverse of how shifters have a human mind in animal form) would be a really cool concept, I think (kind of like the henge-yokai of Japan). Though I *hate* to think of what LKH would do with the idea of centaurs and satyrs.
Rawhead & Bloody Bones was referred to as a type of fey called “a nursery boggle” and since he was called a boggle, not the boggle, I think it’s safe to assume that there are more of them. In my head canon, each boggle is something from British Isle folklore that is similar to spirit to Rawhead, such as Jenny Greenteeth and Black Annis. "Boggle" isn't a race, just the name to refer to individual, unique monstrous fey that are, like Rawhead, true immortals, each the only one of their kind. If I recall right, Rawhead was depicted as a sentient creature too like the other fey, so that’s going off-topic again, but I do think that other fairy creatures from legend and mythology could well be real animals in the Anitaverse, such as the barghest and other spectral hounds, the kelpie and other water horses, the pooka, etc. I expect they mostly all stay in their native lands though, unless imported to zoos overseas and the like. I could definitely see people crossbreeding barghests with domestic dogs for more ferocious hunting, fighting, and guard dogs (my vampire Ruthven does that) and people bringing those dogs with them to America could be used as an explanation for why black dog stories exist in the American South in such abundance (the reason in our universe is, of course, that the South was mainly settled by people of Scotch-Irish descent).
In fact, I think that in the folklore of any given place, there’s probably something, a whole lot of somethings, that could be made into a real animal in the Anitaverse like trolls and dragons. The Phillippines has ekeks, which are huge black humanoid-shaped birds that attack and eat people. Latin America has the ahuizotl, which looks like a black hairless dog and has a long tail with a hand at the end it uses to grab people and drown them, the cadejo that could be cousin to the British Isles black dogs, and, of course, the chupacabra. I could go on and on.
I'll probably make a post about how I think each of these would work in the Anitverse and what they would be like in comparison to our legends of them, but in the meantime, what are some things that YOU think would fit in well as supernatural fauna, with or without adjustments to their original lore?
I think there could very easily be lots of other creatures from legend and folklore that could fit easily into the Anitaverse. Trolls, gargoyles, and dragons are all fantasy staples, and so I think that other fantasy staples like griffins and manticores would mesh well enough with that setup. Unicorns fall into the same camp, but I really, really want to keep unicorns out of the Anitaverse. They're my favorite legendary creature, which normally makes me want them everywhere, but in this case them being my favorite makes me want to protect them from this disgusting mess. I once read a short story by LKH about sea serpents as animals in the modern-day real world, and I think her portrayal of them in that would fit well with the Anitaverse. It even had the “they’re totally sweet gentle creatures but ignorant people misunderstand them and think they’re dangerous except our awesome heroine who is an expert on them!” thing going on.
At first I figured that part-humans like centaurs and sphinxes wouldn't fit in, since we haven't seen any creature like that. The closest we get to a half-and-half is the therians in hybrid form, but that's a blending, not one half being something and the other being something else. But then I remembered that we DO have half-and-half creatures: naga, merfolk, and lamia in this series all have a human form but can shift into their true form as well. Centaurs, sphinxes, etc., could be like that. Of course, lamia and merfolk and naga also all fall under the 'sentient humanoid' category like fae and vampires, and this discussion is about animals...but is there any guarantee that shifting into a human form automatically means having a human mind? An animal being able to take a human form but still having an animal mind (like the reverse of how shifters have a human mind in animal form) would be a really cool concept, I think (kind of like the henge-yokai of Japan). Though I *hate* to think of what LKH would do with the idea of centaurs and satyrs.
Rawhead & Bloody Bones was referred to as a type of fey called “a nursery boggle” and since he was called a boggle, not the boggle, I think it’s safe to assume that there are more of them. In my head canon, each boggle is something from British Isle folklore that is similar to spirit to Rawhead, such as Jenny Greenteeth and Black Annis. "Boggle" isn't a race, just the name to refer to individual, unique monstrous fey that are, like Rawhead, true immortals, each the only one of their kind. If I recall right, Rawhead was depicted as a sentient creature too like the other fey, so that’s going off-topic again, but I do think that other fairy creatures from legend and mythology could well be real animals in the Anitaverse, such as the barghest and other spectral hounds, the kelpie and other water horses, the pooka, etc. I expect they mostly all stay in their native lands though, unless imported to zoos overseas and the like. I could definitely see people crossbreeding barghests with domestic dogs for more ferocious hunting, fighting, and guard dogs (my vampire Ruthven does that) and people bringing those dogs with them to America could be used as an explanation for why black dog stories exist in the American South in such abundance (the reason in our universe is, of course, that the South was mainly settled by people of Scotch-Irish descent).
In fact, I think that in the folklore of any given place, there’s probably something, a whole lot of somethings, that could be made into a real animal in the Anitaverse like trolls and dragons. The Phillippines has ekeks, which are huge black humanoid-shaped birds that attack and eat people. Latin America has the ahuizotl, which looks like a black hairless dog and has a long tail with a hand at the end it uses to grab people and drown them, the cadejo that could be cousin to the British Isles black dogs, and, of course, the chupacabra. I could go on and on.
I'll probably make a post about how I think each of these would work in the Anitverse and what they would be like in comparison to our legends of them, but in the meantime, what are some things that YOU think would fit in well as supernatural fauna, with or without adjustments to their original lore?