Nymphlopedia

Entry 62: Meadow Nymphs

"Tania?" Sonata asked. "It's not really... like you to be annoyed at just seeing the biome..."

"It's because we have a history of arguing over terminology and, well, on the technicality of 'my species was obliterated by a sanity-eating eldritch horror trying to protect the world and I was too busy managing the fallout to properly communicate with others about it.'"

"Okay I think I get why you're pissed. So what, have these Nymphs been proclaiming themselves as, like, angels or something?"

"Yes."

Sonata rolled her eyes. "Oh boy..."

Vince finally caught up to them, after lagging behind a bit sniffing the flowers of the vast, pleasant meadow fields with a few light (both in terms of all-around coloration and, should someone uproot them, weight) trees.

"Please try to limit smelling the flowers." Tania told him.

That line put Vince on high alert.

"JEEZ!" He said. "That's... not something you'd say!"

"She's been doing that a lot lately since we took a trip to here." Sonata told him. "Okay Vince, I think there's a chance that's not even Tania. If she starts at ALL talking about wearing clothes, we both go at her on three. You, pow pow. Me, slish-slice."

"They called themselves the 'Holy Nymphs.' This is so wrong it's not even funny."

"I've been here a lot though." Sonata said. "This place is kind of fine. I haven't seen anybody doing that 'pretending to be a god's messangers' thing they get flack for."

"Obviously they don't all do that, especially not now, but-"

In the patches of tall, flowery grass, there were a few trails indicating some things or some people were going through them.

"Meadow Nymphs." Tania said without even looking at the trails. "Just show yourselves already. I have a bad impression on you."

Five light green Nymphs popped out from the grass. "Okay, okay, sheesh! Can we let the past be the past? Here, I'll even introduce myself: I am Tupratta, a regular foot soldier in the Meadows."

Tania just went over to her face and started examining her.

"...Okay. I trust that you're not hiding something."

"Do you know any Psyche Nymphs? You can use their weapons and gear if you want proof."

"Yes, yes, yes... and we... might. Look, I'm sorry, you'll have to understand when I'm suspicious of you."

"Absolutely!" Said Tupratta. "I mean. We're a type of Nymphs. And Nymphs are known liars."

Sonata raised her hand. "That's a habit I've proudly kicked as part of being the new me! And hey, speaking of the new me, would you like to join our Naked Empire?"

"Okay."

"WAIT!" Tania said. "We should at least run a background check first..."

"Oh yeah, that's a good point!" Vince chimed in. "We haven't been doing that..."

"...At all." Sonata finished, looking at the ground. "Bad idea when dealing with a lot of liars."

Meadow Nymphs.

Looking pleasant and even having a history of appearing to humans as prophets of nature, the Meadows and their Nymphs hide a dark secret between their light petals.

Preferred Environment: Meadow/"Holy" Pastures.

Environment Threat Level: Moderate.

Environment Stats: Average humidity and temperature. Middle-fantastic. Common. Large fields with few small trees, several light green flowers. General ambiant luminscence, especially visible at night.

Other Names: Pasture Nymphs, Lightfield Nymphs, "Light Forest Nymphs." Confusingly, also "Flower Nymphs."

Affinity: Wind.

Color: Light Green.

Traditional Costume Weapon: Light green flower petals arranged in spirals around their legs. Helps them channel their powers to control their biome's unique sort of sharp flowers, as well as grass.

Vince's Comment: I'd say that if you're attacked by swarms of them there's some weed-killers that do a good job at taking out their biggest weapon - their fucking shuriken-like flowers - but that's a... hot topic. Sonata thinks that's brilliant. Tania on the other hand, she started coughing a lot and just tried to change the subject.

Sonata's Comment: Another case where the biome itself is okay (well not really some of the animals can really hurt you) but a lot of the time, the Nymphs around can be asses. Their looks are all cool. And the way they can have spinning death-flowers and death-grass and these "light trees" around you... lemme tell you, coolest way of being robbed. But it helped that I won that fight thanks to the Terra Blade and didn't actually get robbed.

Tania's Comment: Meadow Nymphs.
Nymphae Pratum.
Let's open a can of Devourers (I do not like the use of "can of worms" to mean something bad) and talk about something controversial: religion. What we do and do not know about Terraria is complicated, to say the least. At times, it may even feel like one or more creators are just making things up as they go along. We know the Torch God is real. Pan and Gaia on the other hand are more ambiguous. However, one common ground is to beware of false prophets, which these Nymphs have had a history of doing. At a glance, they seemed like some of the most pleasant and helpful of the Nymph Variants, growing flowers as signs of peace offering to them, and acting as though they are messangers from the gods as an attempt to bridge the growing gap between Humans and Nymphs. This was all just a trick to lure people to be consumed by them. I mention this because this all makes it... difficult for me - or most Nymphs, especially Meadow Nymphs - to try to get on good terms with other people. Really, the Meadow Nymph history is only one of many incidents, it is a little more common among them because they have more qualities that Humans are (mistakenly, especially as our experiences with the Hallow have taught us) associated with "forces of good."

Tupratta's Comment: Pfft... I bet Dryads don't have a clean slate themselves. Sorry Tania but you were kind of up your ass there.

Closing AN:

Um... this was supposed to be the "small and light 'good' forest" in contrast to the Deep Woods' "big and dark 'creepyish' forest" but I don't think I did as good of a job with that.

Alright, again, I haven't thought up most of the names aside from the ones I made a long time ago before actually planning this whole backstory thing out, so this chapter has another new name to it, a rarity. ...Did I ever name any "important" Nymphs in Part 2? I mean, I'll name the "Main Naked Empire Army" all eventually (so at least one of each Nymph Variant will get a name - sorry I'm kind of a sucker for worldbuilding with a lot of races or "types" and then having mostly just one representative of each, rather than something like say Avatar which has only four main "types" and we see a fair amount of each), but still. There's... a lot I'm not too proud of in this rough draft.

Speaking of roughs I'm not proud of... again. Run: .GIFocalypse. Tomorrow, a pretty shitty, rushed Chapter 2-2's gonna drop. Really just as motivation to myself to clean the whole damn thing up. Except maybe Chapter 1-1. But yeah, definitely 1-2 at least, since some big green tower was mentioned being in Domain 1 that went unused.

Also I hate that I, well at least what I personally think I pulled off, have given Tania and Sonata this increasingly-clear and role-settled dynamic of the straight woman and the jokester, but Vince... he's supposed to be a trio with them but right now he's kind of just "the guy that rolls with stuff and makes comments on things, he's a bit weird too but not as weird as Sonata."