Nymphlopedia
Entry 27: Bone Nymphs
"I'm serious!" Said Sonata. "Satan, and this skeleton with wings! And the skeleton was talking about how you should be jealous and you're not the one sucking his-"
"I believe that video exists!" Tania replied. "I just... why?"
"Hey, we're going near a Boneyard. We should probably not talk about Skeletons, or the Nymphs will get pissed off.
It was a surface Boneyard, to be specific - they were walking among the surface since, well, it was the easiest way to detect Corruption.
Anyway, in spite of the similar looks, it was obvious to tell which of the Bone Spires were made of normal Bonestone and which were made of Ebonestone.
(That is such a stupid pun but the Nymphs there came up with is so, whatever. Their homes, their names.)
The regular Bone Spires, mighty, sticking from the ground, hard and smooth. Also with little holes. Corrupt Ebone Spires, looking kind of... fuzzy. A deeper, darker sort of purple. Also lately Corrupt patches were breaking out in green Cursed Flames, yay.
Anyway, more of the usual. Vince, Sonata, and Tania all whipped out their Clentaminators and went for it.
"I love Ada's invention." Tania said. "It's so convenient."
"It does your job, but better." Laughed Sonata.
Tania rolled her eyes. "I keep telling you! I am using long-distance telekinesis to purify the Corrupt Mainland! Which has gotten even worse after the Wall of Flesh was killed, and it's too dangerous to use my large-scale tools on the islands! Do you want me to show you them?!"
"Yeah!"
"Vince?"
Vince nodded. "I can get the rest of this."
Tania whipped out a pair of Teleportation Potions again. From her hair, as with Sonata's cards. Her hand glowed green, making the potions also get a soft glow in their centers.
"There, I have controlled where the potion will lead us."
"I didn't know you could do that." Said Vince.
"It's a vague and complex spell. It only works for large-scale targets, and it still teleports you randomly. Sonata, chug-"
Sonata drank hers first and disappeared. In a panic, Tania followed.
Finally the dark pink Nymphs climbed out from behind some of the various stacks of the Bonestone.
"...Are you the one purifying our land?" One of them asked.
"Well yeah but I have this party. Everybody else is out somewhere else, and my two teammates are... checking out the Corrupt Mainland."
A few of them manifested bone-shaped rocks from plucking some of it from the ground, holding on to them like clubs.
"Thank you, but I'm surprised a Human is doing this..."
Tania and Sonata's 'teleport back' was a good distance away from the Boneyard, so instead of blinking back in, they had to fly down from a good distance. Sonata was laughing like an idiot, also looking unfocused. Her skin paler than usual.
"Hahaha, that was a lot of worms..." said Sonata.
"And I want you to learn how to drop a Purification Nuke like what I just showed you." Tania said.
"What did you see?" Asked Vince.
Sonata shook her head, suddenly looking completely fine again. "Tania would love to teleport you over there too some time."
"I'm good-"
"I knew you'd say that, so that's why I also took some pictures! Check your email. Anyway..." She looked towards the Bone Nymphs.
"Hiya! Would any of you like to join our cause?"
They murmured among themselves. One of them yelled out "NO!" But one in the front shrugged.
"You saved us, so okay?"
"We're also very sex-positive."
Oh that caused a bit more chatter in favor. The one who shouted "NO!" earlier changed that to a "FUCK YES!"
Bone Nymphs.
In spite of their little relation to the Skeletons lurking below, Nymphs of the Boneyard still have just as much of a bone to pick with everybody else. They can pick bones pretty good too.
Preferred Environment: Boneyard. (Not to be confused with graveyards. Depending on how you look at it, this is either more or less literal.)
Environment Threat Level: Dangerous.
Environment Stats: Damp. Cold. Fantastic. Rare. Large spires of what appears to be bone, but is really just a form of odd, extra-dry rock. Has plenty of lakes with... assorted fluids in them, few are completely pure water. (Most of them are mineral-heavy water. For people with their heads in the gutters.)
Other Names: Bone Spire Nymphs, or just Spire Nymphs, "Skeleton Nymphs."
Affinity: Water. (Not Earth, this may be hard to remember for those looking at the Variants overall.)
Color: Dark Pink.
Traditional Costume Weapon: Bands of their bone-like rock around their ankles. They can not only command the "bone-rock" of their lands, but also stones and, oddly, several fluids in general.
Vince's Comment: Not as creepy as the last one! In fact, they're some of the friendliest Nymphs we met! They're better than some of the Oreads (well, Sonata at least) at controlling the mindless hostile skeletons!
Sonata's Comment: They hold high respect for bones and skeletons and stuff. They hate sports where it's common to break them with a burning passion. They really like golf though. Billy Bones (HAHA oh that is SUCH a stupid coincidence) gets along nicely with them. He really likes how their settings make for good golf courses, and Tania likes how he can golf there without needing to destroy all the grass. Everyone's happy. :)
Tania's Comment: Bone Nymphs.
Nymphae Ossa.
Curiously, they have firm skeletons yet skin and muscle that are weaker than the usual for Nymphs. This would on a basic, magic-less scientific level seem like it would defeat its purpose. However, they shine in bone-related rituals, practicers of the "Dark Arts." I could go on a tangent to say how I feel the "Dark Arts" are misrepresented and even material taken from Evil Biomes need not be used automatically for evil, the first example being my allies using the very ore birthed from the Corruption as the next building blocks in their tools to slay other abominations against the planet. So I will: No type of magic or association needs to be "evil" by default, simply what it is used for.
Closing AN:
Day 9, done! Fwew, even ignoring Tania now being a mainstay, just two chapters in and I felt like I already did a good job at making Part 2's mini stories feel "different" from Part 1. (Or at least Hardmode feeling different from Pre-Hardmode.) Sorry for this being a little later than the other days, but... yeah, Entry 25 was bit. Hopefully I should be done with the roughs before Entry 50 and thus I'll have more time to handle tweaking and writing up the stories of the "big chapters" so this won't happen again.
Speaking of roughs, remember how I mentioned doing 13 of them in one day to "catch up" to my "being ahead schedule?" Yeah well I pulled that off. The roughs, except for the bite-sized story and just a few little details I put off for a bit, are now up to 75, I have all those biomes done. And after this I plan to pound out six more.
I should start a list of which chapters I should rewrite to focus more on the Nymphs in sexy scenarios... this would be up there high.
The whole "there's an unseen Mainland that's infected way worse with the Corruption/some Evil Biome(s) and the Dryad is actually focussing energy on that long-distance" is my headcanon as to why she's bothering you to purify and selling you shitty powder that rarely does anything while the Demolitionist and Steampunker are better than her at selling stuff to get rid of it.
Don't worry, you probably won't see the Corrupt Mainland here, but you definitely will in Romancing the Last Dryad. This isn't gonna be one of those "It's really bad but I'm not gonna show it to you ever, just take what the characters say and take that to your grave." But yeah there's no jokes of "Why isn't the Dryad doing anything about the Corruption?!" That actually is a valid joke I think, but it doesn't work when your story is trying to present her as a serious, badass, confident Nature Warrior.
Oh yeah randomly dropping this here instead of some "big chapter" but: If you hate copypasta as much as me, don't worry, the Dryad Entry won't just have the "Bestiary description" copy-pasted from the game. The Nymph/Oread entry combining the Lost Girl and Nymph entries and tweaking them is the most you'll see.