Nymphlopedia
Entry 44: Granite Nymphs
Beginning AN:
Whoo, finally, the biome everyone's been waiting for: GRANITE! On a more serious note, the Marble Biome is actually one of the last ones of this set of 100. So we won't be seeing that one for a while.
Tania, Vince, and Sonata were all brushing a hand across the walls of the large Granite Cave they were in, for different reasons. Tania to examine it. Sonata, kind of just one of her habits. Vince, because the other two were doing it and his mind wandered a little bit.
"Alright," said Vince, "now that I finally have Cobalt Pants on, let's see what the Awakening did to this place."
Tania took a whiff in. "It's definitely seen a surge in magic. The sort of magic unique to the Granite entities, in fact."
"That glowy blue shit?" Sonata asked. Tania sighed.
"Glowy cerulean shit, Sonata." She replied.
"Right."
And, as usual by that time, they were caught off guard:
"Hey."
All three of them jumped at different heights - Tania the least, then Sonata, then Vince the highest. He even took out his Hellwing Bow for good measure.
Yeah, blue- cerulean Nymphs. Two of them, both with short hair and armbands made of granite. They looked rather bored.
"We've heard about you, but we're not sure if we trust you..." one of them said. "We're thinking of taking you around the corner and asking for your story. Or we'll use our Granite Cleavers to attack you."
The other one nodded in agreement. "Nymph, I want your story first. If you may, follow me."
Sonata shrugged. "Sure thing! I mean, even if you're lying and trying to split us up just to fight, we can Recall or manage you on our own. I don't think you're as scary as the fucking Black Recluses that have been popping up."
As they walked off, Sonata already started talking. And don't worry, once Romancing the Last Dryad is out, you may see the story itself:
"Okay, so, I was just in the caves like usual for the last several dozens of years. But then, one day, this dork with no armor or tools came in to my old home, this shitty abandoned wooden shack I found ages ago. I was hungry so I wanted to kill and eat him, but I was aso horny and thinking about making a 'Nymph Harem,' lucky for the dork's life, Vince, he blurted out right before I clawed at him that he also wanted a Nymph Harem..."
And that left Tania and Vince together. They both looked at the Granite Nymph, and then each other.
"You can go whatever, just don't interupt the Nymph's story." Said the remaining Granite Nymph. "We prefer talking things out one on one."
"Y-yeah..." Tania said, coughing a bit. "We- we knew that from... yeah.
Vince looked at Tania and scratched the back of his neck. "So uh..."
"So what?" Tania replied.
Vince turned his face away. "Um. Nothing. It's just. ...Are we bad at talking to each other when Sonata isn't around?"
"I mean..." Tania actually kicked at the granite floors. "Maybe? Most of the time I was telling you things about the land and... now you're caught up. With what I know."
"Mmm..." Said Vince.
...
"I can't think of anything to say." Vince added.
They both had trouble looking at each other.
"So. Human." Said Tania. "How... much... um... no, I asked that to someone two hundred years ago..."
"What's your... favorite flower?" Vince asked.
Tania's answer was a sharp and fast "Sutera cordata."
...
And after that, just silence and gaze-averting.
"How long will Sonata take?" Vince asked.
"Well, she's probably telling the whole story. So a lot. Even though she started with the moment she met you."
"Yeah, thank Pan for that."
"If you were trying to flatter me, my deity is Gaia, not Pan. That's Sonata's."
"Right! Shit, sorry."
Granite Nymphs.
Oozing through the Granite Caves are a variety of Nymph that always have magic at their palms. They are the reason why you should beware the power of granite!
Preferred Environment: Granite Caves.
Environment Threat Level: Moderate.
Environment Stats: Dry. Cool. Moderate on the fantastic-mundane scale. Semi-common underground; almost always made artificially on the surface. Cavern spaces made mainly of mystic granite,
Other Names: Enchant Nymphs, Magicstone (Note from Tania: No, I don't know what that means or where that came from) (Note from Sonata: Neither do I) Nymphs.
Affinity: Earth.
Color: Dark Cerulean.
Traditional Costume Weapon: Granite arm bands. Lets them control that specific material, as well as other earths in general, and the light energies - these sort of energies can be seen from various granite entities.
Vince's Comment: I WISH THEY'D STOP STALLING BY MAKING THEMSELVES INVULNERABLE! AUGH! Yes, some of the ones I sparred with confirmed that they do it just to annoy me!
Sonata's Comment: Okay, a lot of the biomes Pan came up with are kind of, let's be frank, weird. Volt Lakes? Jagged Crags? Those "Hostlands" filled with parasites? But this one's also kinda oddly-specific, it's just cooler. I like this. Good job, Pan, you came up with a neat biome for once.
Tania's Comment: Granite Nymph.
Nymphae Vicus.
This biome is actually far more elaborate and mystical than it may seem to be, "granite" is vastly oversimplifying the sheer levels of earth magic that go in to these cerulean caverns. Glowing, swirling energies that hold great potential can be found here, and these Nymphs harness this potential, to the point where they could even, in theory, reshape continents. These Nymphs also have an ability shared by the Golems of their region that enables them to be almost completely invincible, even to the most powerful of attacks, at the cost of mobility. Research in to this defensive spell is underway.
Closing AN:
Damn this biome was really done dirty in the vanilla game. No Hardmode enemies or... really much of anything, it's just there and I don't think 1.4 updated it much except to make Granite Elementals less annoying. Pretend that there's a huge expansion with Granite stuff here, including a surface version and maybe even a Pylon for it.
Anyway, so we went from a vanilla-ish biome (more like a structure) to an actual vanilla (mini-)biome, and remember how I said that it seems like Vince and Sonata and Sonata and Tania are doing all the interactions but not Vince and Tania? Yeah, well, this chapter was me trying to come up with a plot specifically around that. I promise I'll have Tania and Vince interact more, or even edit past chapters to do that (and I might leave this in), since I don't want this chapter to come off as "If we point out our flaws, we don't have to fix them." I hate that in writing.
Oh, I should probably also say this at the beginning, everyone has permission to draw or write or whatever the Nymph types or make up their own, I am not gonna get ultra-defensive and claim these as "my own and my own only," same goes for any new characters I introduce here. I would actually love that, it's how I feel about the .GIFfany copies. The only two things I request are to not paywall (especially don't "nipple sell," having censored free teasers with the uncensored one behind a paywall. (If you like that term check out Joy Roy over on my Fictionpress page, it's where I first used that.) Comissions though are fine, if someone really wants you to draw one of my characters so badly that they'll pay you that's great), and that if you come up with an idea, don't get mad if there's one that's similar.
I won't, however, be taking suggestions per-say for now. I'll be looking around for inspirations but I kind of want at least the "first 100" to be my ideas rather than a collaboration. A way of testing myself.