Nymphlopedia
Entry 97: Avian Nymphs
Beginning AN:
WE'RE IN THE ENDGAME! This is it, the final day, just three more "regular" entries to go! And then we're off to the end of Part 4, and after that is the big finish!
(...Again for the First Edition. Whatever that will mean...)
Also I'll be honest I kinda sped through these since... yeah last night after publishing Chapters 93-96 I didn't work at all on the mini-stories of any of these, just mostly finishing up Romancing the Last Dryad and working a bit on the Dryad Entry.
As usual, the trio were not walking but flying their ways around the world. They had been doing that since Tania and Sonata grew their wings, and Vince followed them shortly after when he simply bought some old leaf wings from Xirigua.
When they approached some certain tall pillars sticking up to the sky, it was Vince who was the first of them to gasp and try turning around-
It was already too late.
The entire trio was bombarded by blurs hitting them from all directions. Or... all directions that were at least going 'up' in some way, pushing them to the skies.
"THIS AGAIN?!" Sonata shouted. She broke free from her attacker, as did Vince and Tania, and whipped her Star Wrath out. "No! This is the fifteenth time we've flown somewhere and got tackled!"
That made the flying Nymphs - not just the three that attacked the gang, but an additional... about like thirty more of them - to land on top of the pillars with confused expressions. They were purple and had feathers all around their arms.
"...So we have competition?" One of them asked.
"I mean. We Nymphs always do." Sonata replied. "With everything and everyone. I thought you knew that."
Tania really did not want to admit she agreed with that, but it was almost as if Nature herself compelled her to nod. That's not what happened but still, she nodded out of instinct. "To just name one example, we had a bad history with a group of Spiral Nymphs - that we have since allied with - dive-bombing us."
That caused some chatter among the Avian Nymphs. A few birds - normal birds - flew in to get in on the commotion as well. Many of them turned to a given Nymph with a 'surprised' look (at least as surprised as birds could look) and even squaked in horror.
"Okay, we'll deal with you later. Right now we want to go to the nearest Spiral Zone."
"The Spiral Zone where this happened was on a completely different island." Said Tania.
"Don't care. You said Spiral Nymphs, we want to be better than Spiral Nymphs. We want to set up a competition."
"Does it change any matters that they attacked us from above, while you guys were... hitting us from below?" Vince asked.
That started another conversation. All but one of the birds left, seemingly in boredom or annoyance.
"Actually, it does." The Avian Nymph said. "We'll still look in to it and try to upstage some Spiral Nymphs, but in the meantime, now your asskickings come first."
Vince groaned. "Oh... so there's no way to not have an 'asskicking' with us at all? We're tired and in some ways on vacation from fighting Cthulhu, we're getting a little sick of checking every single biome we haven't been in before and appeasing to Nymphs."
"Well, Vince and I are." Sonata said. "Tania's, like, a masochist for that sort of thing."
Tania, once again very reluctantly, nodded. "I wouldn't say... 'masochist...'"
"Yeah between the three of us you are the least masochistic."
Another nod from her, if way more enthusiastic.
"By the way!" Said Sonata. "Before we fight with the local Nymphs again, if you see any Pirate-allied Parrots... well first, check if they believe in this 'Horny Jail' nonsense. And if they do, punch them in the fucking faces for me?"
"We already do that! In that order!" Said the Avian Nymph. "What, you think that just because we're bird-themed, we're friends to all birds? No, we believe heavily in Rule #1! Except for these feathers they don't count."
Sonata gave a hearty chuckle. "Alright! You sound awesome, maybe we don't even need to fight at all!"
"No," a different Avian Nymph said, "we do."
Avian Nymphs.
Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... Nymphs that take kindly to feathered fiends. Close friends of the Harpies and twice as annoying.
Preferred Environment: Avian Pillars.
Environment Threat Level: Dangerous.
Environment Stats: Wet. Cool. Moderate-Fantastic. Uncommon. Grassy pillars, usually on the surface, with purple patterns on them that can connect to the skies. Some of the plants have what look like "feathers" growing from them.
Other Names: Bird Nymphs, Ziz Nymphs, Feather Nymphs.
Affinity: Wind.
Color: Dull Purple.
Traditional Costume Weapon: Clusters of feathers mostly around their arms, and with a few small, vaguely (featherless normally, can be feathered with magic) wing-like growths around their backs. Helps them with flight-based and air-based magic. Also, they can communicate with various birds or bird-like animals.
Vince's Comment: Ah! Finally! I think I've finally found a Nymph Variant that really, really hates getting wet! It's nothing critical and if one still really wants you dead, you'll be dead, but still! It's... something!
(...Yes I'm a fighter, I'm still bitter about Nymphs not having any "real weakness" that most people don't already have.)
(Note from Sonata: Hahaha suck it up motherfucker.)
Sonata's Comment: The spires are really inspiring. The creatures there are... yick, they swoop down around you, really annoyingly. The Nymphs? Yeah, they're nice enough.
Tania's Comment: Avian Nymphs.
Nymphae Avis.
One keeping track of the Variants might be tempted to ask, what's the difference between some of these? Winged Nymphs, or Gust Nymphs? That is that this is another one of the more animalistic-themed biomes, tied to a group of feathered creatures. They have their own natural "built-in wings," (Note from Sonata: Some assembly required) often elaborate and colorful, that let them tie to the birds moreso than the air. They are also... naturally good at examining pillar structure? Biomes with certain "structural traits" to them often have Nymphs with a fondness for those structures. Jungles and Forests are mostly shapeless blobs, so I can't really relate. Tundra Nymphs for some reason are good with dissecting anything trapezoidal, with any number of dimensions, I guess because island Tundras tend to have an overall three-dimensional trapezoid shape?
Beginning AN:
So we begin our final day with a wimper, not a bang. Kind of a weird one, I originally wrote this as "Rainforest" but... felt it would be better to have one last "animal themed" one, we've had land animals, sea animals, reptiles, technically even parasites (but I originally didn't consider them grouped up with the rest of them, and I still don't), but not flying animals. Again if I "expand" this there will likely be more. But, I'm not sure if I said it this exact way before, I'm not too fond of "animal people" so that's why Nymphs themed moreso around animals than around environmental regions are super rare.
Ah... and sorry I couldn't worm in the Harpies with this one. I actually do like the Harpies... in terms of design. In terms of being enemies, they're annoying in the earlygame.