Nymphlopedia
Entry 5: Harvest Nymphs
"So this was your place, huh?" Sonata said as the duo advanced through the orange - or red-orange to go with their color theming - path. "Nice."
The wind breezed through the vermilion Nymph's short hair as she walked with her arms out, behind them with nothing but a smile and a few matching leaves on her shoulders. She almost always had her eyes closed like a few of the allies Vince and Sonata already met, but opened them in one instance to turn to the pair. "Yes! I'm happy you like this fore- ...Wait, what are you talking about 'my place' and 'nice?' You mean my old home? No, that was terrible! It's why I moved to your community household in the first place!"
"Heh! Hehheh..." Sonata leaned forward and put her hand on her chest, giving the most smug look Vince had seen her give yet. And that's saying a lot. "No no no, I don't do 'community homes.' That's Human and Dryad stuff. I'm building an empire. A fortress."
Both that Nymph of the Autumn Forest and Vince laughed.
"Pan are you still going on about your giant diagram with the moat and the pet dragon or whatever?" Said the Harvest Nymph. "I'm sorry I really want to keep a straight face but dream bigger, Sonata!"
"It's a decently-sized dream!" Sonata said. Which only got them to laugh harder. "Average-sized! Not too big! It's small, even! I don't have any spaceships or anything like that!"
Vince had to inhale pretty hard when he was catching his breath. "SO! Anyway, what can you tell me about this Pumpking?"
"The way we are now?" She paused, as the wind blew through yet again. A small handful of leaves passed by and she stuck her hand out. A single red-orange leaf in particular drifted to her hand, and with seemingly no effort on her part, its stem landed perfectly on her fingertip.
"He'd massacre all three of us. But thankfully he won't even notice us unless we have some Ectoplasm harvested and... don't worry about it. Right now, just focus on getting the Dryad's attention. You know, think small."
"I am thinking small!" Said an offended Sonata. "Tiny! MICROSCOPIC!"
More laughs from the Harvest Nymph and Vince.
"Anyway," said the former, "I just raked up a lot of leaves to move to my new home. Want to sort them by color with me?"
"Normally I'd say 'No,' but something tells me you're going to make that fun some how."
They both walked off ahead of the trail, while Sonata just stood in place, frustrated.
"OH YEAH?" She shouted. "Okay, you'll get closer to her at first, but... but... I'm gonna convince her to tattoo my face on her ass-"
"You absolutely will not." The autumn warrior replied.
"-And when I do! I'll have the last laugh! AAAAHH HAHAHAHA!"
Harvest Nymphs.
The closest Nymph type to be agents to the Pumpkin Moon, although they disagree strongly with the Pumpking's political practices. Like the Autumn leaves, they are diverse in both looks, and ways to kill you. Okay maybe that other part isn't like the Autumn leaves.
Preferred Environment: Autumn Forest.
Environment Threat Level: Calm.
Environment Stats: Dry. Cool. Moderate-Mundane. Semi-common. Resembles basic Forests, with a slightly higher tree density and in a year-around state of Autumn.
Other Names: Fall Nymphs, Pumpkin Nymphs, Jack-O-Nymphs, Halloween Nymphs.
Affinity: Wind.
Color: Bright Vermilion.
Traditional Costume Weapon: Shoulder and upper-arm decorations made of leaves of various colors, usually ranging red to yellow. (A few of them use "exotic" pink or lime leaves. Fewer don green-blue, blue, or purple leaves - NOT leaves infected with the Corruption, Mist, or any of the blue-green Evil Biomes.) They can create forces comparable to the winds, and form energy attacks similar in composure to the Pumpking's Flame Scythes.
Vince's Description: These Nymphs are very ninja-esque. I can't find them, but they'll find me. Makes me scared of Autumn, honestly. Their camo skills are really good. One time, I jumped on a friendly one by accident while messing around with a raked up leaf pile, cleaning up my base. We both laughed pretty hard. That was great.
Sonata's Description: You're probably wondering if Dryad clothes rot and fall off in Autumn. Yes, yes they do. Yes, these kinds of Nymphs can help that happen outside of Autumn. But no, I do not approve of that. That's sexual harassment. And that's a line I'm not willing to cross. I mean, shit, if I see a Dryad - okay at this point THE Dryad, Tania - put on clothes I WILL do everything in my power to CONVINCE her to take them back off, but I would never force them off of her. Oh yeah, Harvest Nymphs. They grow pumpkins and I love pumpkins. And to circle back to Tania... I think she's fond of them too, she sells their seeds all year 'round. I think she likes having her leaf-clothes rot off... damn I need to focus more.
Tania's Description: Harvest Nymphs.
Nymphae Autumna.
I would like to preface this by saying that "Autumn" is merely a prefix for simplification. They do not literally represent the time of the year of that season, as Tundra Nymphs do not represent the Winter itself, Flower Nymphs do not represent the Spring, and neither us nor Tropical Nymphs represent the Summer. But the forests that house them involve special plant specimen that use an alternative pigment to cholorophyll to undergo photosynthesis. This results in a rather unique farming ground for populous crops, including and especially pumpkins. This is best looked at as an alternative forest, similar to the other biomes. The Nymphs that reside here have adapted to the unique soil that makes such plants possible, bonding a link with these specific plants, leading to their standard link. What is more surprising is that this biome, and like all biomes its Nymph residents, are more diverse than they appear, with subsets of "yellowleaf," "orangeleaf," "redleaf," "vermilionleaf," "goldenleaf," and so on plants, each with their own associated co-culture and specialized alternative to photosynthesis. When these all unite, the pumpkins taste especially delicious. Is the popular opinion. That I hear, that is. I am not trying to sell you their pumpkins. Is what my lawyers told me to say.
Closing AN:
You know what I'd like to see more of? Fanart of the Dryad losing her leaf clothes in Autumn. You know what I'd also like to see more of? Saying "fuck it" to the whole vine/leaf bikini thing and portraying the Dryad as being naked by default, which is what the Zenith Nymph series will be doing. (Or at the very least, topless by default.) These two ideas however conflict with each other a bit. The more "effective" the gag of the Dryad losing her clothes to Autumn, the less "naked by default" she'd have to be. Dilema, dilema...
Anyway speaking of which I feel like I should finally just confirm something, Tania will be joining Vince and Sonata in the stories proper... probably by Entry 25, and she'll probably be in all the stories since then? Again, they're not in chronological order (the Magma Nymph one definitely takes place before the three before it, I'll say right now, like Vince said she's one of the first to join them), but if you look through you might notice that every single Nymph so far except the Oreads has been called "Bright" in coloration. Well, the Nymph Varaints kinda stick by those "groups" like that... sort of. Basically in Romancing the Last Dryad, the gang's just gonna meet "bright" Nymphs first for a bit. Also, in some of these stories set later (I'll be honest, I haven't figured out the exact order of chronology yet) even with the "bright" ones, there's a chance that they already met Tania, but for the sake of some "consistency" and to "build hype for the Dryad's introduction" like in RTLD proper, there's just some dumb excuse as to why she's not coming along with them.
Also I'm not too proud of this bite-sized story, might be my least favorite so far. I wanted there to be more pumpkin-eating in it.