Nymphlopedia

Entry 64: Taiga Nymphs

Beginning AN:

Alright! Super Entry 64!

"OOF!" Cried Sonata.

Vince sat on a rock sticking up from the shallow snow, eating a pizza slice. (Those were always tasty. Fuck Medusae.) For some reason seeing Sonata and Tania trading 'tackle practice' never got old. In any case, what he just witnessed was Tania ramming her head in to Sonata's gut, sending her falling on her ass to the Taiga's snow.

The Taiga itself looked pretty nice. Basically, it was like a Tundra without an overwhelming amount of snow and ice everywhere. He could actually see the fucking grass.

Sonata quickly got up, then brought her hands out. "No! We're not switching yet! Do me one more time, I can dodge! Or block! Or parry! Or counter with my swords!"

"Don't use your swords on me!" Tania replied. "The ones without any magic are fine, but the ones that fire beams are out of the question!"

"What's wrong? I'm okay with you shooting your magic nature staves at me."

"Which I don't do!"

"...Vince shoots me with his arrows."

Vince didn't want to talk with his mouth full, so he just raised his hand and waved it. That, expectedly, got Tania to shoot him a look.

"You WHAT?!"

Vince finally gulped down that bite of pizza. "Hey! Remember, she tried to kill me when we first met! And in that dank, cold, awful cave!"

"And I deny none of that." Sonata added. "See? He's venting some steam! Plus, he only uses wooden arrows."

Just like that, Tania became as cool as their surroundings. "Oh, wood? Why didn't you say so? Okay, that's fine. Just keep any magic-charged weapons out of training."

"So I can still swing the Influx Waver at him?" She gave Tania the biggest grin imaginable. "I mean, it's not technically magic, but... science..."

Tania sighed. "Please tell me you're just trolling me and you didn't actually-"

"She did, but once," said Vince, "because one of those lightning swords hit my leg and it hurt WAY more than I thought it would."

"Wait. Was that last week when you had that bizarre visit with Madeline?"

Vince sighed. "Yeah..."

Tania facepalmed. "I thought that was a sex thing."

"Hey, that was the coverup I was going for!" Sonata said. "Sounds like Vince did a convincing job at playing along with my acting! Go Vince!"

Then she was tackled to the snow from behind by a quick, minty-green blur. Yeah, a Taiga Nymph.

"Okay now I see what we're training for." Said Sonata, who was lying on her front with the Taiga Nymph having quickly moved from her knees being on her to her feet being on her. "And we're still not ready."

"No," said Tania, "we can be ready if-"

Then she was tackled too. By a Taiga Satyr.

Vince rolled his eyes. "Ah, shit. Well, if both of you got hit, there's no way I can-"

And he got slammed too. And a rarity happened with Nymphs: his attacker was also a Satyr, so two in a group of three. But none of the Trio realized that at the time, he was trans and had yet to drink a Gender Change Potion. (It's hard to get your hands on Deathweed, even if you're a Nymph, especially after the Evil Biomes shot up in danger after the Awakening.)

"We were originally going to kick your asses for having the Last Dryad on our land, but we heard that you're good with loopholes."

"I'm not only good at making loopholes," said Sonata, "I'm also good at closing them! Like when someone says that I could still 'technically' be naked if I just 'weave something out of my hair-' no, if it looks like clothes, it's fucking clothes, okay?!"

The trio of Nymphs muttered with each other in agreement. "Sounds interesting." Sonata's tackler continued. "We want to hear things out. Maybe after a little brawl with Tania though? We've been trying to find her for decades. When we did, she was secure in your fortress."

Tania almost laughed. "That thing isn't really a fortress! It's barely safe to even live in, let alone protect someone whose life is as important to keeping this planet alive as me!"

"I mean... tip, you shouldn't just tell people that."

"I thought it was obvious!"

Taiga Nymphs.

A common saying goes: Snow Falls, Nymphs slam. The colder the forests, the more energy they have to tackle.

Preferred Environment: Taiga.

Environment Threat Level: Calm.

Environment Stats: Below-moderate rainfall. Freezing. Mundane. Common. Colder forests that see some snowfall, but not so much as to overwhelm them as with Tundras.

Other Names: Chill Nymphs, Frostsoil Nymphs, Frost Nymphs, Cool Nymphs, "Snowish Nymphs," "Winter Nymphs" when not used for Tundra Nymphs.

Affinity: Earth.

Color: Light Teal.

Traditional Costume Weapon: A small mixture of snow/ice and thin vines and leaves forming a "wireframe" around their general bodies. Helps them with the raw earth below the snow as well as the snow itself, and can strengthen their freezing blasts of "coldness."

Vince's Comment: Like I keep telling Sonata, range conquers all! I noticed a lot of the Nymphs here and the one Taiga Satyr I fought like using straightforward charges, tackles, and headbutts. So, just be a ranger. Like me. Don't really have to worry about that. :)

Sonata's Comment: Surprisingly, even though my fat ass freezes off in the Tundra, it's okay with the Taiga. I guess it's like RIGHT on the threshold for being not too cold for me? Feels refreshing. Speaking of refreshing, the sex. That too.

Tania's Comment: Taiga Nymph.
Nymphae Gelu.
The lesser-known relatives to Tundra Nymphs. Rather than directly harnessing the powers of the ice, they channel their ties to the greater amounts of grass and trees and focus on that, blended with the raw coldness, for a rather unique melee-oriented combat style. This lead to the average Taiga Nymph being able to take on the average Tundra Nymph and win in a fight - which happens often, as the two biomes are frequently close to one-another. I have mentioned this to many and will continue to mention this, but while plenty of biomes overlap in characterisitics, no biome is truly "just" another one, but more extreme or larger. As you move across the temperature and precipitation grid, there are by necessity some things gained and some things lost from a region to another. Yes, this even includes Forests with Jungles, or the Meadows or Deepwoods.

Closing AN:

Day 21! Tomorrow is "SatRGday" as I like calling it ("Soos and the Real Girl"-day) and I am completely unprepared for it, so that should be fun!

How am I doing on the "early just write the damn story" thing? Terrible. I only did like half the story of Entry 61 last night. So the other three and a half chapters were my usual of just doing it on the day. They're rushed. Just like the next RGR chapter will be even though I had an entire year for that. And... since I'm going to be having the stories written in intervals of four anyway, unless I really get ahead and manage to write up six stories a day similar to my old rough draft schedule, I don't think I'll ever really "be ahead" by multiple days until this ends. And yeah... yeah, we'll see.

By the way, Tania's weapons are not supposed to correlate with any actual in-game weapon or item. I just thought that if she fought everything with the Dryad's Blessing it would be kind of lousy, and well, I'm not sure how well it'd fit her if she just grabbed whatever canon random shit in progression she could find like it would with Sonata and Vince. (I'm only using canon/vanilla gear for now because it's... easy to keep track of. They do have new weapons and the like they'll use on occasion.)