Nymphlopedia

Entry 6: Canyon Nymphs

As soon as Vince was able to look over and see the beautiful cliffs down below, neighboring his Desert, he was sent flying up to the sky by a patch of orange rock below him rising to the air.

"AAAHHHH!" He screamed.

Sonata cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted: "YOU HAVE THE HORSESHOE, REMEMBER?! YOU'RE FINE!"

Yep. True to what it apparently does, he somehow landed perfectly well on his feet. Dangerously close to the cliff, but again, apparently the Lucky Horseshoe could protect against that too.

He did not want to test that yet.

"Hey man!" An orange-colored Nymph that looked like she just had some kind of mud bath stepped over to them, messy as all hell. She actually did just come from a mud bath, but she had since re-applied her nature weapon-outfit thingy. Vince still wasn't sure how that stuff worked, even after weeks of knowing them through Sonata. "What's a human doing around here? Like, man, you know you're not allowed on the Canyons, or us Canyon Nymphs'll get you!"

"Pan didn't you guys stay in caves or something?" Sonata asked her. "I mean, I know that's mostly my type, but still."

"Nah, Canyons we've got covered. Uh, the deep woods... Deepwoods Nymphs, you know? Hmmm..." The Canyon Nymph shrugged. "Actually, I think Humans can only be in, like, forests and cities and stuff? We've got Nymphs everywhere, now that I think about it."

"Isn't that a little unfair?!" Vince asked her.

The orange woman turned around and looked up in thought. She looked like she was about to stare in to the Sun before realizing that was a bad idea, but stopped just short of looking up there.

"Hm... yeah, you know, I guess it is!" She said.

"Hey," added Sonata, "I'm starting up a Naked Empire! It's mostly just so I can be this big world-dominating badass, but it'll also help Human and Nymph relationships."

"And Dwarves, too." Vince added.

"Yeah sure, we wanna prove that Nymphs aren't all just evil and Human-killers. Unlike Goblins, Lihzahrds, and Skeletons. If I see a friendly one of any of those, I'll pay everyone who joins my Empire a platinum coin. Pan it's a bet I'm not gonna lose."

"Sure thing!" The Canyon Nymph said.

"Awesome! That was easy! And do you have any friends in the Canyons that would want to join? I mean, I'm not trying to just have one of each Nymph Variant, but right now... well, any others that join, they just want to do desk work. The main lines, I just have one of each and it's kind of frustrating because it makes me look like someone with racist OCD. Sexist too, I haven't met a Satyr who wants to be on the combat lines."

And the earth-manipulator frowned. "Oh... I don't think so... they're not as willing to go with the flow as I am... I'll try talking to them, but chances are as soon as I say there's a Human they'll say 'Where? I wanna kill them!'"

"Aw."

"HUMAN?!" A voice was heard coming from below the cliffs. Followed by a lot of muttering. "WHERE?! I WANNA KILL THEM!"

The muttering got louder. The cliff edge even began to rumble.

"You should probably run, man!" The Canyon Nymph said cheerfully. "Run like the earth!"

"Isn't the phrase 'run like the wind?'" Asked Sonata.

"Well, in the canyon, it makes more sense to-"

Vince did not want to go over semantics, he just ran.

Canyon Nymphs.

Like the Canyons themselves, the Nymphs of the badlands are hardy and strong. They prefer to tackle their enemies, which hits like a Boulder.

Preferred Environment: Canyons.

Environment Threat Level: Moderate.

Environment Stats: Very dry. Hot. Mundane. Semi-common. Rocky badlands usually forming sharp cliffs, eroded through millions of years. (Or with enough Canyonrock settled down and planted artificially. Terrarians tend to be good at "terraforming.") The Canyons are considered rockier, angular cousins to the Deserts, and there is indeed great overlap between the two biomes.

Other Names: Earth Nymphs, Ground Nymphs, Badland Nymphs, Mesa Nymphs, Stone Nymphs, Rock Nymphs, Gnomes (not to be confused with the Gnomes that lurk near trees and turn in to lawn statues).

Affinity: Earth.

Color: Bright Orange.

Traditional Costume Weapon: Dried mud/orange-ish stony patches over their bodies, applied at random. Often they will gave "gloves" of mud/rock around their hands and lower arms. This enables them control over rock, mainly hard, firm, large rocks. Rarely, a plant or two may be growing out of one of the patches.

Vince's Comment: Be headstrong and think like a rock! I LOVE looking around canyons, so I hang around there a lot, so naturally I wound up sparring with a lot of them! And let me tell you what I learned from those sparring matches! There is no trickety-trick for fighting Canyon Nymphs, you just gotta face them head on! Like this! RAAARGH! ...Will this book have illustrations? You should put a drawing of me, clad in my full Shroomite Armor, rushing forward. With my head down and out. Yeah.

Sonata's Comment: Lots of the Canyon Satyrs and Transnymphs I've flirted around with and had some fun with are actually really... self-conscious about their "Stone Towers." It's pretty cute. I never noticed any overall "size difference" myself, and trust me, I've sampled a LOT, I know what I'm talking about. Satyr or Nymph, cis or trans, they've got some FIRM muscles though, even if they might not look that muscular. I would say have sex with them with caution, but that goes for all Nymphs.

Tania's Comment: Canyon Nymphs.
Nymphae Pylae.
The Nature Spirits of stone and cliff inhabit one of the more barren, harsher biomes, where life requires more effort put in to just finding food and water. Predictably, as Nymph types tend to reflect on the environment they are tied to, these bridge the gaps in life in an empty location such as a canyon by also connecting with the rocks. Canyon Nymphs are both watchers of the scorpions and snakes that make up the badlands, and geologists by heart that breathe with the rocks. Of course, they also have ties to the stone-based lifeforms, using their workings and bonds with the rocks of both living and nonliving to strenghen beings like Rock Golems, becoming friends with them. Canyon culture is an interesting example of finding and making life out of a lack of it. But it's still pretty dry and barren for my tastes.

Closing AN:

Day 2, done! Heads up: Day 3 will begin with the first biome (not counting Oreads' entry, Caverns and Underworld) that is actually in the game.

Also this chapter confirms that Nymphs can be trans. I'll just say right now that this isn't going to be one of those things where a character's identity is literally their entire personality, and leave it at that.