Nymphlopedia
Entry 47: Brine Nymphs
Beginning AN:
There's probably more appropriate songs for this one, but: Bigmouth Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy.
"It's water... underwater?" Vince asked, staring at the... lake-thing. Under the sea. And the lake-thing stretched out to the horizon.
"Yes and no." Replied Tania. "It's high concentrations of salt, so much so that it has difficulty mixing with regular seawater, forming its own plane."
"Okay..." said Vince.
In case it wasn't obvious, they were using Gill Potions and Flipper Potions.
Sonata was just poking at the brine pool with her Adamantite Sword. "Yeah. No. Do we really need to go in?"
"Technically, no." Said Tania. "If we could just skim some salt off the rims-"
Then a purple arm reached out and pulled Tania below, grabbing her leg.
Sonata gave Vince a surprised look. "Oh fuck oh fuck, what do we do?! Normally it's me or you that's in a tight situa-"
Another one reached out and dragged her down, that time by the hair.
"SHIT!" Vince stumbled, taking two steps back. "I- I'm coming to save you!"
Ultimately though it wasn't his decision either. Another arm grabbed him and pulled him down.
...
Below was a bizarre, hazy, thick field with nearly-barren plains. And a lot of creatures that looked like... someone vomitted up a bunch of parts together. More giant cell-looking beings similar to the Bacteria Patches. Worms with six arms each out in a different side. Beings 'crawling' on the ground with three arm-looking legs, and several seemingly useless fins sticking from them. Giraffes, that had multiple mouths on them. A lot of them were purple, just as the patron Nymphs, which... looked relatively normal. By Nymph-standards.
'Normal' meant in terms of not looking weirdly 'mutated.' It also meant in terms of expression, so pissed off.
"We found another meal, girls!" The one holding Sonata said. "And it's a good one! A juiced-up Human, the Last Dryad, and... well, I guess we'll eat the Nymph first."
"Oh, fuck you!" Sonata protested. "I'm the most special of them all! ...Some how?"
Brine Nymphs.
"Water" lakes underwater, the extreme depths of the sea will see that you become their prey.
Preferred Environment: Brine Lakes.
Environment Threat Level: Severe.
Environment Stats: Aquatic/Underwater. Usually cold. "Mundane," yet based on locations relatively not understood by humans. Rare... in areas of Terraria that we have actually explored, at least. Most of the deepest depths of the ocean are still unknown to us.
Other Names: Depths Nymphs, Salt Nymphs, "Lost River Nymphs" (Note from Tania: ?).
Affinity: Water.
Color: Dark Purple.
Traditional Costume Weapon: Salt lightly sprinkled around their bodies, always below the neck. Lets them control brine concentrations and regulate pH balance. The latter doesn't sound impressive, but they can make harmless lakes extremely corrosive if they are good enough.
Vince's Comment: Deep in the caves, deep in the ocean... either way, running in to these regions creep me out. Adventurers, you pretty much have no reason to go near there unless you're friends with a resident who lives down there or you already know what you're doing. Be sure you know what you're doing; the Nymphs here can come at you like a fucking train.
Sonata's Comment: Bodies of waters under ocean! Holy shit! That kid cartoon about the water-soaking thing was right! I thought that was just a joke! Are there "extra ultra-salty lakes" under THOSE lakes too?! How many layers does this go?! ...Wait Tania says there arn't, or at least not in huge biomes, bummer.
Uh, right, the Nymphs. If you don't mind the salty taste, a good icebreaker is to have fun going through ways to make up for the difference in pressure.
Tania's Comment: Brine Nymphs.
Nymphae Muria.
They can be thought of as an "extreme middle" to Acid Nymphs and Base Nymphs, if such a thing was a real concept. High levels of salt, they tend to leave their designated biome for venturing to other, almost equally-dangerous parts of the sea that even most ocean life dare not enter.
Closing AN:
"Why are they running in to crowds of Nymph Variants but we've just seen Sonata for Oreads when Oreads are supposed to be the most common?" Well... I mean, for now that's just convention. The bite-sized stories are about each Nymph Variant, so I felt it would be appropriate to not also throw in a lot of Oreads. Meanwhile, the Oread one... was just some dumb character thing for Sonata herself.
Plus, a lot of Oreads (not "all but Sonata" that would be stupid), at least on the main island that would basically serve as the player character's world, are living by Lindsey. And... well...
Lindsey I'm saving up for later. While she'll show up early on in RTLD, I didn't want to just blow that in what's basically the preview for it.
Also semi-relevant I'm actually re-considering that I might make a teen friendly "alternate story" after all (it's not just gonna be RTLD minus the sexy stuff because that would be stupid, it would be a new story entirely), the main reason being that I've been thinking about... minions, and I've grown to like them too much to go with my original plan of just shoving them late in an NSFW story when they don't fit with that story at all. (You'll see what I mean when you see them.) The closest exception... I might have show up in both, especially after rethinking a few traits of him. Originally he was just going to be an annoying joke but... well, all I'll say is this:
Beware of Dave.