Showing posts with label adumbrators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adumbrators. Show all posts

Stablehand: Adumbrator (updated), Equivocator, Eventuator, Vociferator, Blazondeer

I'm currently kind of revising the canon as far as attributes, particularly Undirected attributes, go, so at the same time, I'm trying to work on revising the assortment of mystery beings to better fit that. There aren't going to be any new attributes added, at least not at this time; I'm just better clarifying "ways" each attribute can "be", if that makes any sense.

What prompted me to do this is that I got an idea for a new type of Undirected mystery being that's especially hostile, shadowy, and mysterious. At first I just got the image of a Portent one like that, but then I decided I'd make similar ones for the other Undirected attributes. After that, I realised that there were other ways I imagined Undirected attributes being expressed in than just the "standard" one and that, so I made a couple more categories. I'm unsure if I'm going to do the same with Directed attributes, or whether Undirected attributes will just be the more complex ones and that's the way it will be.

Trust me, it will make more sense later.


I already described the Adumbrator, but this is the revamp. Its head is mostly a hollow, flat curve, and houses churning dark clouds instead of a brain. These clouds seem to follow the general mood of things, though they also sometimes churn more visibly when the Adumbrator is contemplating something.

Equivocators are six-limbed, vaguely horse- or centaur-like beings that always wear two masks, usually connected by a cloak. They seem to have the ability to reverse their bodies by putting their "arms" on the ground and picking up the set of "arms" at the other side, enabling them to quickly change directions.

Few people have seen either of their masks come off, but it's rumoured that both ends of the Equivocator are just tail ends beneath the masks. If this is true, nobody has any idea where the head is.

Eventuators are quiet, aloof beings that mostly just wander around and observe their surroundings, much like Observers. However, at times they will just... unexpectedly do things. Usually, these things are things that seemingly would have happened anyway, though once the Eventuator has already done them, it can be hard to tell.

Nobody is really sure why Eventuators go around doing things that would inevitably happen anyway, but this seems to be their trademark. It's also thought that they may live forever, though nobody knows if that's actually true.

Vociferators are extremely noisy mantis- or wasp-like beings that seem to be discontented almost all the time. They tend to fly around mostly randomly but occasionally they seem to pick a certain area and just continually fly all around it being exceptionally noisy, threatening, and intrusive. They're somewhat arbitrary about the areas they pick to do this in, but if anybody taunts them or aggressively tries to fight them off, that tends to increase the probability of them choosing that area by a lot.

Wild stories tell of people getting killed by their stings, shredded by their foreleg teeth, violently devoured in their mandibles, etc., but nobody knows if these stories are actually true, because almost everyone just avoids them when they appear and no bodies have been preserved showing Vociferator damage that anybody knows of. Nobody is even sure if the widely-held assumption Vociferators actually want to kill and destroy when they fly around places angrily is true or not.

Blazondeer are regal caribou-like beings that almost always carry at least one flag. Usually they have a number of different flags hanging from their body and antlers, whose shapes and heraldic patterns vary from individual to individual but are usually symmetrical from one side/horn to the other.

Blazondeer, somewhat like Veriasauruses, can often be seen wandering around silently and majestically while displaying their insignia as if trying to advocate for some kind of cause, but to empty air. It's not really known why they do this. (Some have speculated this is their courtship display, but there's really no evidence for that.) At other times, multiple Blazondeer sporting the same or very similar insignia have been seen in the same area, suggesting that some people may use them in teams like reindeer. Nobody who does this has ever been discovered, though, and like with other mystery beings, very few people who've just found them have been able to tame them. Unlike with most other mystery beings, though, it seems like every so often somebody who managed to tame a randomly-found Blazondeer does show up. However, it's very rare for one of these people to even have two, much less a full team of them.

Incidentally, since almost all mystery beings can float and swim in the air, Blazondeer can do that too, meaning that not only does the Stablehand universe have a "Christmas flying reindeer" mythology but a lot of young people just assume they came from "Santa". (I'm thinking they probably wouldn't call it Christmas or Santa, of course, but still.)

Stablehand: Ahalatl, Eternituga, Veriasaurus, Hlardraho, Adumbrator, Shoǔshi

As you might or might not already know, I'm currently on a quest to get all 27 (which means 29 since I already made two extras) mystery beings designed. It's an arduous quest, yes, but I'm not going to stop until it's done.

Also, if you haven't figured it out by now (and I'd be really surprised if you hadn't) each of the mystery beings is slightly themed around a particular attribute(s). I'm in the process of making a rough table of all 29 of them, which consists of three columns: Directed mystery beings, Undirected mystery beings, and neutral mystery beings (can be either Directed or Undirected).

Anyway, here are the new ones!


Ahalah (singular Ahalatl) are peculiar leaping beings that look something like a kangaroo, a frog, and a salamander all mixed together. They seem to be capable of soaring to great heights with each leap, and also of moving incredibly fast at times. They can be both extremely adventurous and extremely timid.

Eternitugas are tortoise-like beings that seem to be made out of some kind of crystalline substance that's partially translucent and partially opaque depending on the angle. They seem to have a strange ability to make infinite clones of themselves going upward or downward, creating a massive tower of eternitugas that can then possibly reach very high or very low places. The top (or bottom) of the stack will then just step off and leave the rest to fade away one by one, leaving only a single Eternituga at its destination.

Eternitugas never really seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere at all, though.

Veriasauruses are beings that strongly resemble theropod dinosaurs; they are usually white or a similarly light colour with a darker colour as a border. They always seem to be wandering around in search of something, though nobody knows what. Sometimes they will just pause in one area, standing there like some kind of strange numen, before eventually moving on.

Hlardraho are hexart-like beings with very sharp needle-like projections on their bodies and often bright, dazzling colourations. Unlike hexarts, though, they seem to be capable of spewing fire out their mouths, and this fire seems to have a strange piercing quality to it that allows it to obliterate practically everything in a narrow radius of its path for many metres, leaving only an incredibly long blackened tunnel in its place.

These beings are usually fairly calm and docile, but can sometimes be extremely violent and destructive thanks to this piercing fire ability. Because of this, a lot of people are afraid of them in places where they have appeared.

Adumbrators are unusual floating beings with a four-part "shield" surrounding them and a somewhat normal-looking upper body that gradually fades into a constantly-reforming cloud-like lower body with spikes randomly coming in and out of it. The "shield" revolves around very slowly and stays very close to the body most of the time, but sometimes it will start whirling very rapidly and move further away, the cloud-like part of the body churning much more violently and tending to become much spikier. This most often happens when the Adumbrator is stressed, angry, or feeling some kind of danger approaching.

Shoǔshi are large white quadrupeds that look vaguely like fulvopards, and also a lot like gigantic hands. They have the ability to use all four of their legs to grasp things, and their grip is said to be incredibly strong. From time to time, they seem to like to grab random things and run off with them, using their powerful tails to somehow just sort of swim through the air, though it's not really known what they do with said things. It's thought that at least a few times, they've simply set them down other random places in a "Robin Hood" fashion, though.

When they're not travelling around empty-handed looking for things to steal (which is most of the time), they're almost always seen carrying or batting around large pearl- or gem-like orbs, which they seem to be highly possessive of when they have them. It's unclear how many orbs an individual typically has, as no one is definitely sure of having seen the same Shoǔshi more than once, and nobody has ever found a cache of spare orbs anywhere. Actually, nobody even has any idea where the orbs come from, or what kind of function they serve, if any. One idea is that they may be a kind of status symbol.