Nymphlopedia

Entry 26: Jagged Nymphs

"He who dares to enter the Jaggeds..." Vince heard a voice around him, followed by several other, more distant but still fairly close to him, voices echoing in the dark pink chambers of the underground. "What brings you over here...?"

Vince was stoned-faced, even as the Nymphs began to emerge from the darkness. A dark/royal violet-pink in color, most of them had short hair that stuck out in spikes, with long claws and teeth that looked as though they could cut through metal. Because they could. Most of them were crawling along the purple stone, even stabbing their claws in it to move.

"Hi." He said. "We're just going around the world, getting stuff needed to be a hero. It's became my job now, since apparently I got too good at 'kill monsters to get gold' and now I'm some kind of famous monster-slaying hero."

One of them merely tapped his shoulder, catching him off guard and the mere tapping made his shoulder bleed even though his new Cobalt Armor, but he stayed looking stoic as he spun around to face her.

"Monster-slayer? Are you trying to challenge us?" The one that caught him off guard said.

"No. That's the thing. You see, earlier me and some friends-"

Sonata dropped down, having these weird dull green and brown rocky vine-looking things with eyes on them extending from her back. They creeped back in as she landed.

"HI!" She waved. "I'm horny!"

Tania also landed - by that point, "wearing" nothing but some vines around her arms and legs, a few around her neck as well. She too had similar vines with eyes emerging from her back forming wings and slithering back in to her skin as she landed, except they were made of a more lush and plant-like green texture.

"I am Tania and I am offended by being associated with someone who just made that comment."

The Jagged Nymph nearest to Vince drew a hand across a stone, carving it cleanly in two. She didn't even look like she was trying. "Why should we join you?"

"Well, if sex isn't enough of a convincer, we now have a reason:" Sonata said with a wink, "You know that bigass splotch of this ugly purple shit that started appearing in the caves? I'm not talking about your caves, I mean the Corruption. Well, we're on a mission to clean that all up! And, eventually, the fairytale shit that popped up!"

"Wait, did you say something about sex?"

Tania facepalmed. "Yes... yes, she did."

She pointed at Vince, which would have poked and drawn blood from his arm had he not stepped back. "Wait, is this Human your... partner or something?"

"Business partner and lover partner." Sonata replied.

"Just to be clear, I'm not involved in any of the sex stuff." Tania explained.

"Yeah we knew that, because you're you. Anyway, we're interested, and next time please don't tell us what the Corruption is like we don't know already. It's a stupid thing to do. We're long-lived Nature Spirits, of course we know."

Jagged Nymphs.

These Nymphs like to remind people that if you see extra-dark, extra-deep pits in a cave lined with extra-sharp rocks, going down there is probably not a good idea...

Preferred Environment: Jagged Crags/Jaggeds.

Environment Threat Level: Severe.

Environment Stats: Dry. Cold. Moderate-Fantastic. Rare. A stony biome characterized by several dark, deep jagged canyons. Almost resembles the Corruption and its chasms at a glance.

Other Names: Abyss Nymphs, Crag Nymphs, Sharp Nymphs, Knife Nymphs. (They are some times mistakenly called "Wraiths," which is a different being altogether. While some Nymphs of any type may become Wraiths, this is a rare occurrence.)

Affinity: Earth.

Color: Dark Fuchsia.

Traditional Costume Weapon: Sharp bits of rock stuck on to their arms (obviously, a blunt side is pseudo-"glued" there), and artificial "nails" - yes, even the men - on top of their already sharp claws. Aides them in cutting through things, not just physically but with magic spells, and helps them control the specific earths of the Jaggeds.

Vince's Comment: SHARP! SHARP! Everything about these Nymphs screams SHARP, from their teeth to their weapons to the stone in their domain! Their claws can cut through diamond! I'm not exaggerating, I have LITERALLY seen that happen and I am using literally CORRECTLY!

Sonata's Comment: They bite, haha. No but seriously, these are probably some of the scariest Nymphs out there. You do not want to piss them off. Well you don't wanna piss of any type of Nymph but especially not these folk, dear Pan. They're not "scary" in terms of being powerful so much as they're just really creepy when they want you dead.

Tania's Comment: Jagged Nymphs.
Nymphae Cultrum.
Biomes of Terraria are curious locations, some of them clearly seem to be themed more on concept than on ecology or temperature/rainfall, and the Jagged Crags are one of them. Studying biomes is easier if one looks at them conceptionally, which is something Mollie and I disagree on. The Crags are another Natural Biome that has been mistaken for an Evil one, but rest assured, these large chasms that can lead straight to Hell were definitely a natural phenomina of the past, and are not going to spread unless someone (VINCE) were to plant Sharpstone around. (This is how the "Jaggeds" form on the surface... none of those were natural.) The Nymphs here, frankly, believe heavily in taking what they see. To use a term that young people use, they are the embodiment of "Finder's Keepers" when you get past the sharp claws. Except what they "find" was often entire people.

Closing AN:

Compared to the mammoth that was Entry 25, I don't really have "that much" say about this one... not much going on here.

Except that, to stroke my own ego, I like this biome idea a bit. It's like what happens if you double-down on personifying "spooky dark cave" and make it in to something more like an actual surreal nightmare, but without outright surreal stuff. That was Entry 25, and we don't be seeing more of that for a while.

Also originally this chapter was going to have the joke that Vince could simply use his hook to leave the Jaggeds, and the Nymphs genuinely weren't expecting that.

I know I like playing around with anachronic order and setting things out so that maybe in the future you could make a concrete timeline, but... there's a pretty good chance that this is set after Entry 25, that this is the first "Hardmode one" while 25 was the last "Pre-Hardmode one." Maybe not.

Okay I have a bit to say about this one: You've just got the first glimpse of... well, I don't want to say it's Sonata and Tania's "true forms" exactly, but it's... a little quirk of Nymph biology that I haven't mentioned until now. And yeah, they couldn't do their wing thing until Hardmode. Confirming for sure that Hardmode did, in fact, power them up.