########################################
#
# Dungeon features
#
########################################
%%%%
An opulent altar of Gozag

“Mother, I kneel before gold,
 my lover and beloved;
 and knowing I adore him,
 he turns melancholic yellow.
 Because he follows his every lust
 whether doubloon or dust,
 a mighty knight
 is Don Dinero.”
    -Francisco de Quevedo, _Poderoso caballero es don Dinero_. 1603.
     trans. Christopher Johnson, 2009.
%%%%
A broken pillar

“Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar,
 which is in the king's dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in
 remembrance...”
    -KJV Bible, 2 Samuel 18:18.
%%%%
calcifying dust cloud

“There is shadow under this red rock,
 (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
 And I will show you something different from either
 Your shadow at morning striding behind you
 Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
 I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
    -T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”. 1922
%%%%
A crumbling gateway

<Desolation>
%%%%
A faded altar of an unknown god

“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I
 perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and
 beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN
 GOD.”
    -KJV Bible, Acts 17:22-23.
%%%%
A flagged portal

“We made an expedition;
 We met a host and quelled it;
 We forced a strong position,
 And killed the men who held it.
 ...
“Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
 We met them, and o’erthrew them:
 They struggled hard to beat us;
 But we conquered them, and slew them.”
    -Thomas Love Peacock, “The War Song of Dinas Vawr”. 1829.
%%%%
A gateway back into the Dungeon

“O Progeny of Heaven! Empyreal Thrones!
 With reason hath deep silence and demur
 Seized us, though undismayed. Long is the way
 And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”
    -John Milton, _Paradise Lost_. 1674 (2nd Ed.).
%%%%
A gateway leading deeper into the Abyss.

<Abyss>
%%%%
A gateway to Hell

“I am the way into the city of woe.
 I am the way to a forsaken people.
 I am the way into eternal sorrow.

 Sacred justice moved my architect.
 I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
 Primordial love and ultimate intellect.

 Only those elements time cannot wear
 Were made before me, and beyond time I stand.
 Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
    -Dante Alighieri, _The Divine Comedy_, “Inferno”, Canto III. ca. 1315.
     trans. John Ciardi, 1954.
%%%%
A gateway to a ziggurat

“Captain: Take off every ‘zig’!!
 Captain: For great justice.”
    -_Zero Wing_. 1990.
%%%%
A gateway to the decaying netherworld of Tartarus

<Tartarus>
%%%%
A granite statue

“I met a traveller from an antique land
 Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
 Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
 Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
 And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
 Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
 The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
 And on the pedestal these words appear:
 ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
 Nothing beside remains: round the decay
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
 The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
    -Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”. 1818.
%%%%
A one-way gate to the infinite horrors of the Abyss

“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
    -Friedrich Nietzsche, _Beyond Good and Evil_ , Aphorism 146. 1886.

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you'd generally
 get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been
 doing.” “A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now here, you see, it takes
 all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get
 somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
    -Lewis Carroll, _Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There_,
ch. 2 “The Garden of Live Flowers”. 1871.
%%%%
The open sea

“I mused upon the mystery of fish, their strange and mindless beauty, how—
 innocently evil—they prey upon each other, devouring the weaker and smaller
 without rage or shout or change of countenance. There, in the realm of water,
 which is also earth and air to them, the great fish passed up and down,
 growing old without aging and enjoying eternal growth without the softness of
 obesity. It was a world without morality, a world without choices, a world of
 eating and spawning and growing great. I envied the great fish, and (in other,
 smaller ponds) the lesser fish, darting and flashing and sparkling gold.

 They speak of ‘the beast in man,’ and of ‘the law of the jungle.’ Might they
 not (so I reflected, strolling underneath a sky of clouds as blue and as white
 as the tiles and marble of the Altar of Heaven), might they not better speak
 of ‘the fish in man’? And of ‘the law of the sea’? The sea, from which they
 say we came...?”
    -Avram Davidson, “Dagon”, 1959.
%%%%
A portal to a secret trove of treasure

“He saw a large cavern and a vaulted [roof], in height equalling the stature
 of a full-grown man and it was hewn in the live stone and lighted up with
 light that came through air-holes and bullseyes in the upper surface of the
 rock which formed the roof. He had expected to find naught save outer gloom in
 this robbers' den, and he was surprised to see the whole room filled with
 bales of all manner stuffs, and heaped up from sole to ceiling with
 camel-loads of silks and brocades and embroidered cloths and mounds on mounds
 of vari-colored carpetings; besides which he espied coins golden and silvern
 without measure or account, some piled upon the ground and others bound in
 leathern bags and sacks. Seeing these goods and moneys in such abundance, Ali
 Baba determined in his mind that not during a few years only but for many
 generations thieves must have stored their gains and spoils in this place.”
    -_The Arabian Nights_. trans. Sir Richard F. Burton, 1885.
%%%%
A portal to somewhere

“The hole now stood some three meters in diameter beginning from the dais -
 though its outline shrank and dilated slightly like a pulsing, living thing.
 Through it we could see shapes seething and changing constantly with the
 colors and the light. Purple trees grew upside down from a pink sky, changing
 into black flowers and the flowers into feathery tongues of giant yellow worms
 lumbering over a shaking, exploding desert. It was as if the world couldn't
 make up its mind what to be yet. Looking at the scene for even a moment gave
 me a headache, and anyone looking at it for long would surely go mad.”
    -Laurence Yep, _Dragon War_. 1992.
%%%%
A rock wall

“I know not whether Laws be right,
   Or whether Laws be wrong;
 All that we know who lie in gaol
   Is that the wall is strong;
 And that each day is like a year,
   A year whose days are long.”
    -Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”. 1898.
%%%%
A sacrificial altar of Ru

“Then I began taking off my hands. I put them in the top drawer. I removed my
 feet and put them into the closet, along with my legs. I put my head in a box
 and hung my torso up on a hanger. Then I walked out of the apartment, climbed
 up the stairs to the roof. I opened the door and stepped out into a beautiful
 green meadow.”
    -Celestial Navigations, “The Sniper”. 1995.
%%%%
A shaft

“Gravity, a mere nuisance to Christian, was a terror to Pope, Pagan, and
 Despair. To the mouse and any smaller animal it presents practically no
 dangers. You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on
 arriving at the bottom it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided
 that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a
 horse splashes.”
    -J.B.S. Haldane, “On Being The Right Size”. March 1926.
%%%%
A shimmering altar of Xom

the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke:
 “theres actually zero difference between good & bad things.
 you imbecile. you fucking moron”
    -wint, @dril Twitter. June 1, 2014
# https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312/
%%%%
A staircase leading out of the dungeon

“We shall not cease from exploration
 And the end of all our exploring
 Will be to arrive where we started
 And know the place for the first time.”
    -T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”, _Four Quartets_. 1943.
%%%%
A staircase to the Ecumenical Temple

<Temple>
%%%%
A staircase to the Elven Halls

<Elven Halls>
%%%%
A staircase to the Orcish Mines

<Orcish Mines>
%%%%
A staircase to the Shoals

<Shoals>
%%%%
A staircase to the Tomb

“A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough.”
    -Alexander the Great's epitaph.
%%%%
A stormy altar of Qazlal

“The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is
 turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what
 we call progress.”
    -Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”. 1940.
   trans. Harry Zohn, 1969.
%%%%
A tree

“I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than
 other things do.”
    -Willa Cather, _O Pioneers!_. 1913.
########################################
#
# Dungeon branches
#
########################################
%%%%
Abyss

“Out here in the zones, you never even knew when your bone marrow might book an
 exotic vacation and neglect to invite you along. Thinking square thoughts under
 a violet endomoon could redefine every third cell in your body as a verb. There
 were sneakers that ate feet, bifocals that ate eyeballs, strawberry yogurt that
 ate small intestines. Farther out there, _so_ much farther, there were
 wavelengths of something ancestral to light that could crawl into your past and
 eat the day you were born.

 Nobody so much as batted an eye or quivered a flange when these things happened
 to the unnaturally branchinated, the puzzling and comical tourists that blipped
 in and out from the forgettable grey. Things like herself, or Fern, or the
 plank maze loser were little more than _weird bugs_ to most entities, a quaint
 curiosity at best and more often an unwanted parasite. Infinite layers of
 reality, and it still felt, in the worst way, like she'd never left home.”
    -Jonathan Wojcik, _Awful Hospital_. 2021.
%%%%
Desolation

“In the salt mines
 I saw the salt
 in this shaker.
 I know you won’t believe me,
 but there
 it sings,
 the salt sings, the skin
 of the salt mines
 sings
 with a mouth choking
 on dirt.
 Alone
 when I heard
 the voice
 of salt,
 I trembled
 in the empty
 desert.
 Near Antafagusta
 the whole
 salted plain
 shouts out
 in its
 cracked
 voice
 a pitiful
 song.”
    -Pablo Neruda, “Ode to Salt”, 1957.
     trans. Philip Levine, published 2013
%%%%
Elven Halls

“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
 Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.
 Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
 Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
 Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
 Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
 The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you
 want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
 No one ever said elves are _nice_.
 Elves are _bad_.”
    -Terry Pratchett, _Lords and Ladies_. 1992.
%%%%
Orcish Mines

“You load sixteen tons, what do you get
 Another day older and deeper in debt
 Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
 I owe my soul to the company store.”
    -Merle Travis, “Sixteen Tons”. 1946.
%%%%
Shoals

“I often think about that old metaphor, the one that says we are all islands on
 a wide sea. Especially these days, now that things are more difficult than
 before and the world appears to be harsher than we once imagined it to be.

 We are all like islands, the philosopher said. Perhaps it's true. Yet I cannot
 help but remember an older saying scratched on a cave wall somewhere by a
 long- forgotten prophet: In the end the sea will claim everything.

 The ancient words crash into my mind like waves, waking me from sleep, filling
 me with feelings I cannot fully understand. We are like islands. Does it mean
 we are connected? Do we share a common origin? Or just the common fate of
 sinking?”
    -“The Sea Will Claim Everything”. 2012.
%%%%
Tartarus

“There is a drear and lonely tract of hell
 From all the common gloom removed afar:
 A flat, sad land it is, where shadows are,
 Whose lorn estate my verse may never tell.”
    -Edward Arlington Robinson, “Supremacy”. 1897.
%%%%
Temple

“And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go
 your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.”
    -KJV Bible, Revelations 16:1.
%%%%
Tomb

“In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the
 lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence,
 and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest
 at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this,
 when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the
 imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power
 of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your grieves may slumber, and
 the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain.”
    -Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Haunted Mind”. 1835.
########################################
#
# Spells and abilities
#
########################################
%%%%
Agony spell

<Curse of Agony spell>
%%%%
Alistair's Walking Alembic spell

Despite its unwieldy appearance, it is widely considered Alistair's most popular
work; countless variations of this spell can be found in surface libraries,
customised to prepare everything from floor polish to vegetable soup. In the
depths of the dungeon, however, most mages favor the combat utility of the
classic iteration.
%%%%
Animate Dead spell

“Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more
 certainly shine in the heavens, than that which I now affirm is true. Some
 miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct
 and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I
 succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became
 myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.”
    -Mary Shelley, _Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus_,
     Vol. I, Chapter 3. 1818 (1st Ed.)
%%%%
Awaken Armour spell

"A blacksmith shapes the heart of their steel just as much as any leader shapes
the hearts of their soldiers. If this armour of mine could speak, I know it
would say that we fight for the same cause."
%%%%
Awaken Forest spell

 • Hel: [She died to] Infection! She's mine!
 — Thor: From a splinter that she got bravely fighting an elm!
 • Hel: Trees are inanimate plants, you buffoon!
 — Thor: Bravery knows no limits!
    -Rich Burlew, _Order of the Stick_, #874.

%%%%
Banishment spell

“An immense river of oblivion is sweeping us away into a nameless abyss.”
    -Ernest Renan, Souvenirs
%%%%
Bat Form ability

“The bats have left the bell tower
 The victims have been bled”
    -Bauhaus, “Bela Lugosi's Dead”. 1979.
%%%%
Bend Time ability

“It's astounding
 Time is fleeting
 Madness takes its toll”
    -Richard O'Brien, “Time Warp”. 1975.
%%%%
Brain Bite spell

“Lister: I know what you want. It's pink and it's moist and it's in my head. And
         that's where it's staying.”
    -Red Dwarf, _Psirens_. 1993.
%%%%
Call Canine Familiar spell

“There seemed a strange stillness over everything. But as I listened, I heard
 as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's
 eyes gleamed, and he said.

 ‘Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!’ Seeing, I
 suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added, ‘Ah, sir, you
 dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter.’”
    -Bram Stoker, _Dracula_. 1897.
%%%%
Cause Fear spell

“And when Miranda sang
 Everyone turned away
 Used to the noose, they obey”
    -The Mars Volta, “Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore”. 2005.
%%%%
Chain Lightning spell

“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools,
 but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”
    -traditionally attributed to Samuel Clemens.
%%%%
Charm spell

“He held up his hand, and they all stopped, and I thought he seemed to be
 saying, ‘All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater,
 through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!’ And then a red
 cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes, and before I
 knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him,
 ‘Come in, Lord and Master!’”
    -Bram Stoker, _Dracula_. 1897.
%%%%
Corrupt ability

“I fumbled to the window to experience the world
 And to hear my Madness singing, sitting on the kerbstone
 [A blind old drunken man who sings and mutters,
  With broken boot heels stained in many gutters]
 And as he sang the world began to fall apart . . .”
    -T.S. Eliot, “Prufrock's Pervigilium”. 1912 (published 1996).
%%%%
Curse of Agony spell

“Unbearable, isn't it? The suffering of strangers, the agony of friends. There
 is a secret song at the center of the world, Joey, and its sound is like
 razors through flesh.”
    -Pinhead, _Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth_. 1992.
%%%%
Dragon's Call spell

“This is where the dragons went.
 They lie...
 Not dead, not asleep. Not waiting, because waiting implies expectation.
 Possibly the word we're looking for here is...
 ...dormant.
 And although the space they occupy isn't like normal space, nevertheless
   they are packed in tightly. Not a cubic inch there but is filled by a claw,
   a talon, a scale, the tip of a tail, so the effect is like one of those
   trick drawings and your eyeballs eventually realise that the space between
   each dragon is, in fact, another dragon.
 They could put you in mind of a can of sardines, if you thought sardines
   were huge and scaly and proud and arrogant.
 And presumably, somewhere, there's the key.”
    -Terry Pratchett, “Guards! Guards!”. 1990.
%%%%
Duel ability

DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two enemies.
Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly
performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences sometimes ensue.
A long time ago, a man lost his life in a duel.
    -Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_, 1906.
%%%%
Ensorcelled Hibernation spell

“Sweet dreams are made of this; who am I to disagree?”
    -Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”. 1983.
%%%%
Eringya's Surprising Crocodile spell

A popular legend states that Eringya first demonstrated this spell as the
closing remark of a particularly acrimonious debate about wetlands conservation,
but most modern scholars consider this apocryphal.
%%%%
Fire Storm spell

“Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They're
 dead.”
    -Jaya Ballard, task mage (Magic: the Gathering).
%%%%
Frozen Ramparts spell

”And as you cross the circle line
 Well, the ice wall creaks behind
 You're a rabbit on the run”

    -Jethro Tull, “Skating Away (on the Thin Ice of a New Day)”.  1974.
%%%%
Irradiate spell

“Reflex in the sky warn you you're gonna die
 Storm coming, you'd better hide from the atomic tide
 Flashes in the sky turns houses into sties
 Turns people into clay, radiation minds decay”
    -Black Sabbath, “Electric Funeral”. 1970.
%%%%
Iskenderun's Battlesphere spell

“Maxim 4: Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.”
    -Howard Tayler, _The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries_,
     in _Schlock Mercenary_. 2008.
%%%%
Lee's Rapid Deconstruction spell

“Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines
 were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women,
 that beheld while Samson made sport.

 And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray
 thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at
 once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.

 And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and
 on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other
 with his left.

 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with
 all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that
 were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which
 he slew in his life.”
    -KJV Bible, Judges 16:27-30.
%%%%
Magic Dart spell

“Wie die Mächtigen es schon seit jeher wissen,
 Es gibt immer einen Kniff;
 Denn als Guter bist du niemals so gerissen,
 Ein Zauberpfeil der immer trifft!

 [As the powerful have known all along,
 There is always a trick;
 Because as a good person, you'll never be so cunning,
 A magic arrow that always hits!]”
    -ASP, "Verwandlungen I-III". 2008

# translation by me, nicolae
%%%%
Mass Confusion spell

“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not
 understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence
 upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.”
    -KJV Bible, Genesis 11:7-8.
%%%%
Maxwell's Portable Piledriver spell

While originally designed for use in industrial construction, enterprising
copycats were quick to discover a multitude of other problems that could be
solved by moving one object into another, very, very quickly.
%%%%
Mephitic Cloud spell

“Seit mehreren Jahren schon hatte die indische Cholera eine verstärkte
 Neigung zur Ausbreitung und Wanderung an den Tag gelegt. Erzeugt aus
 den warmen Moraesten des Ganges-Deltas, aufgestiegen mit dem
 mephitischen Odem jener üppig-untauglichen, von Menschen gemiedenen
 Urwelt- und Inselwildnis, in deren Bambusdickichten der Tiger kauert,
 hatte die Seuche in ganz Hindustan andauernd und ungewöhnlich heftig
 gewütet, hatte östlich nach China, westlich nach Afghanistan und
 Persien übergegriffen und, den Hauptstraßen des Karawanenverkehrs
 folgend, ihre Schrecken bis Astrachan, ja selbst bis Moskau getragen.”
    -Thomas Mann, _Der Tod in Venedig_, 1911.
%%%%
Mercury Arrow spell

“During the course of the treatise, each element is allowed time to tout its
 own virtues and usefulness to mankind, but when it comes time for Mercury,
 he announces that he presides over all of the beings that have come before
 him. Mercury is mother and father. He gives other metals their splendor and
 makes them useful to humanity. Without Mercury, the other metals would have no
 (use) value. Perhaps a seat on the throne would restrict him to a fixed
 position of sovereignty. He reigns, but he must be mobile.”
    -Karen Pinkus, _Alchemical Mercury: A Theory of Ambivalance_, 2009
%%%%
Nazja's Percussive Tempering spell

Scholars long considered the hammer mere theatrics to mask the complex
structural enhancement magics which must underpin this spell, and yet every
attempt to remove it from the incantation has caused the spell to lose its
effectiveness. The implications of this remain hotly debated.
%%%%
Passwall spell

“He says the best way out is always through.”
    -Robert Frost, _A Servant to Servants_. 1915.
%%%%
Petrify spell

“Any pose held too long calcifies.
 A belief believed too long becomes dogma.
 Any expression held long enough will harden into a mask.
 And who is the _real_ us
 that hard exterior
 or the soft uncertain self we keep beneath?”
    -Dorothy Gambrell, _Cat and Girl_, 2011.
%%%%
Poison Arrow spell

“I saw in a hall an arrow pointing the way and I thought that this inoffensive
 symbol had once been a thing of iron, an inescapable and fatal projectile that
 pierced the flesh of men and lions and clouded the sun at Thermopylae and gave
 Harald Sigurdarson six feet of English earth forever.”
    -Jorge Luis Borges, _Mutations_. 1960.
     trans. Mildred Boyle
%%%%
Sacrifice Love ability

“Every thing is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin;
 the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it
 is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is
 given, in language which painted your own horrors, and rendered mine
 ineffaceable. I sickened as I read. ‘Hateful day when I received life!’ I
 exclaimed in agony. ‘Cursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that
 even you turned from me in disgust? God in pity made man beautiful and
 alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more
 horrid from its very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to
 admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.’”
    -Mary Shelley, _Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus_,
     Vol. II, Chapter 7. 1818 (1st Ed.)
%%%%
Shatter spell

“So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to
 pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted
 with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up
 into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young
 and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.”
    -KJV Bible, Joshua 6:20-21.
%%%%
Slimify ability

“Rumack: It starts with a slight fever and dryness of the throat. When the
 virus penetrates the red blood cells, the victim becomes dizzy, begins to
 experience an itchy rash, then the poison goes to work on the central nervous
 system, severe muscle spasms followed by the inevitable drooling.
 [Oveur does all of the above as Rumack describes each one]
 Rumack: At this point, the entire digestive system collapses accompanied by
 uncontrollable flatulence.
 [Oveur begins to fart uncontrollably]
 Rumack: Until finally, the poor bastard is reduced to a quivering wasted piece
 of jelly.”
    -Airplane! 1980.
%%%%
Slouch ability

“I remember doing the Time Warp
 Drinking those moments when
 The blackness would hit me
 And the void would be calling”
    -Richard O'Brien, “Time Warp”. 1975.
%%%%
Spellspark Servitor spell

<spellspark servitor>
%%%%
Sticky Flame spell

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm
 for the rest of his life.”
    -Terry Pratchett, “Jingo”. 1997.
%%%%
Step From Time ability

“It's so dreamy
 Oh, fantasy free me
 So you can't see me
 No, not at all
 In another dimension”
    -Richard O'Brien, “Time Warp”. 1975.
%%%%
Summon Demon spell

“'Tis now the very witching time of night,
 When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
 Contagion to this world.”
    -William Shakespeare, _The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, III, 2.
%%%%
Summon Illusion spell

“I am just a copy of a copy of a copy
 Everything I say has come
 before
 Assembled into something into something into something
 I don’t know for certain anymore

 I am just a shadow of a shadow of a shadow
 Always trying to catch up with myself
 I am just an echo of an echo of an echo
 Listening to someone’s cry for help

 Look what you had to start
 Why all the change of heart?
 You need to play your part
 A copy of a copy of a—”
    -Nine Inch Nails, “Copy Of A”. 2013

# Sadly, player illusions don't seem to work with the database, so I can't
# associate this quote with player illusions themselves.
%%%%
Summon Seismosaurus Egg spell

Zoologists famously considered this animal to have been extinct for centuries
until copies of this spell were unearthed among the affairs of a misanthropic
hermit who'd finally made the wrong noble's hair fall out.

Several well-funded expeditions were launched in the wake of the discovery, but
despite (or perhaps because of) the sometimes-violent competitiveness these
naturalists had for each other, the location of the lizards' nesting grounds
remains unknown to this day.
%%%%
Swiftness spell

“JUST WALK OUT
 you can leave!!!
  work
  social thing
  movies
  home
  class
  dentist
  clothes shoppi
  too fancy weed store
  cops if your quick
  friend ships
 IF IT SUCKS... HIT DA BRICKS!!
 real winners quit” [sic]
   -Admin, @dasharez0ne Twitter. March 30, 2018
# https://twitter.com/dasharez0ne/status/979810839749210112/
%%%%
Temporal Distortion ability

“With a bit of a mind flip
 You're into the time slip
 And nothing can ever be the same”
    -Richard O'Brien, “Time Warp”. 1975.
%%%%
Waterstrike spell

“Water dissolving
 And water removing
 There is water
 At the bottom of the ocean
 Under the water
 Carry the water
 Remove the water
 At the bottom of the ocean”
    -Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”. 1980.

########################################
#
# Items
#
########################################

%%%%
acid dragon scales

<steam dragon scales>
%%%%
amulet

“Gringoire put out his hand for the little bag, but she drew back. ‘Do not
 touch it! It is an amulet, and either you will do mischief to the charm, or it
 will hurt you.’”
    -Victor Marie Hugo, _Notre Dame de Paris_, Book II, chapter VII “A Wedding
     Night”. 1831.
%%%%
amulet of faith

<amulet>
%%%%
amulet of guardian spirit

<amulet>
%%%%
amulet of magic regeneration

<amulet>
%%%%
amulet of reflection

<amulet>
%%%%
amulet of regeneration

<amulet>
%%%%
amulet of the acrobat

<amulet>
%%%%
amulet of nothing

<amulet>
%%%%
animal skin

“He killed the noble Mudjokivis.
 Of the skin he made him mittens,
 Made them with the fur side inside,
 Made them with the skin side outside.
 He, to get the warm side inside,
 Put the inside skin side outside;
 He, to get the cold side outside,
 Put the warm side fur side inside.
 That's why he put the fur side inside,
 Why he put the skin side outside,
 Why he turned them inside outside.”
    -Anonymous, in Wells' _A Parody Anthology_, p. 120. 1904.
%%%%
arbalest

“(Tell enters with his crossbow)
 W. TELL:
 My precious jewel now, —my chiefest treasure—
 A mark I'll set thee, which the cry of grief
 Could never penetrate,—but thou shalt pierce it,—
 And thou, my trusty bowstring, that so oft
 For sport has served me faithfully and well,
 Desert me not in this dread hour of need,—
 Only be true this once, my own good cord,
 That hast so often wing'd the biting shaft:—
 For shouldst thou fly successless from my hand,
 I have no second to send after thee.”
    -Friedrich Schiller, _Wilhelm Tell_, IV, iii. 1804.
     trans. Sir Theodore Martin, 1898.
%%%%
bardiche

“The republic always maintains seven or eight thousand regular troops on the
 frontiers, to prevent the incursions of the Tartars. The King does not
 maintain these troops; he only pays the Heydukes, the Semelles, and the
 Janizaries. The first-mentioned are dressed in blue, with large buttons and
 plates of tin, and have bonnets made of felt upon their heads. They have
 firelocks, and the bardiche, which they say is a very good weapon.”
    -John Pinkerton, _A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting
     Voyages and Travels in all parts of the World, many of which are now first
     translated into English. Digested on a New Plan_. 1808.
%%%%
battleaxe

“On Carian coins, indeed of quite late date, the labrys, set up on its long
 pillar-like handle, with two dependent fillets, has much the appearance of a
 cult image.”
    -Sir Arthur John Evans, “Mycenaean tree and pillar cult and its
     Mediterranean relations,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ XXI, p. 109. 1901.
%%%%
book

“On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll;
 On plastic clay and leathern scroll,
 Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed,
 And lo! the Press was found at last!”
    -John Greenleaf Whittier, _The Library_, st. 4.
%%%%
boomerang

“The weapon, thrown at 20 or 30 yards distance, twirled round in the air with
 astonishing velocity, and alighting on the right arm of one of his opponents,
 actually rebounded to a distance not less than 70 or 80 yards, leaving a
 horrible contusion behind, and exciting universal admiration.”
    -The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 23 December 1804
%%%%
broad axe

“Weapon, shapely, naked, wan!
 Head from the mother's bowels drawn!
 Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!
 Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown!
 Resting the grass amid and upon,
 To be lean'd, and to lean on.”
    -Walt Whitman, _Song of the Broad-Axe_, l. 1-6. 1867.
%%%%
buckler

“Let who will boast their courage in the field,
 I find but little safety from my shield.
 Nature's, not honour's, law we must obey:
 This made me cast my useless shield away,
 And by a prudent flight and cunning save
 A life, which valour could not, from the grave.
 A better buckler I can soon regain;
 But who can get another life again?”
    -Archilochos. 7th cent. B.C.
     trans. William H. Goodwin, 1878.
%%%%
cloak of the Thief

“so long suckers! i rev up my motorcylce and create a huge cloud of smoke.
 when the cloud dissipates im lying completely dead on the pavement”
    -wint, @dril Twitter. July 26, 2016
# https://twitter.com/dril/status/757914951868485632/
%%%%
chain mail

<leather armour>
%%%%
cloak

“O Bell my wife, why dost thou flyte?
   Now is now, and then was then:
 Seek now all the world throughout,
   Thou kens not clowns from gentlemen:
 They are clad in black, green, yellow and blue,
   So far above their own degree.
 Once in my life I'll take a view;
   For I'll have a new cloak about me.”
    -Anonymous, “The Old Cloak”. 16th Century.
%%%%
club

“I have always been fond of the West African proverb: ‘Speak softly and carry a
 big stick; you will go far.’ If I had not carried the big stick, the
 organization would not have gotten behind me, and if I had yelled and
 blustered, as Pankhurst and the similar dishonest lunatics desired, I would
 not have had ten votes.”
    -Theodore Roosevelt, in a letter to Henry L. Sprague. January 26, 1900.
%%%%
dagger

“He drew his dagger, that was sae sharp,
   That was sae sharp and meet,
 And drave it into the nut-browne bride,
   That fell deid at his feit.

 ‘Now stay for me, dear Annet,’ he sed,
   ‘Now stay, my dear,’ he cry'd;
 Then strake the dagger untill his heart,
   And fell deid by her side.”
    -English traditional ballad, “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet”, circa 1650.
%%%%
dark maul

“This caliber should be appropriate.”
    -prince Dajmiech, “Kajko and Kokosz: The Battle with Dajmiech”, Janusz
Christa
%%%%
demon blade

“Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit: occidentis telum est.”
 “A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer.”
    -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, _Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium_, Letter LXXXVII:
     Some arguments in favor of the simple life, l. 30. ca. 65 A.D.
     trans. Richard Mott Gummere, 1917.
%%%%
demon trident

“At these words he started up, and beheld—not his Sophia—no, nor a Circassian
 maid richly and elegantly attired for the grand Signior's seraglio. No;
 without a gown, in a shift that was somewhat of the coarsest, and none of the
 cleanest, bedewed likewise with some odoriferous effluvia, the produce of the
 day's labour, with a pitchfork in her hand, Molly Seagrim approached.”
    -Henry Fielding, _The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling_, Book V, ch. X.
     1749.
%%%%
demon whip

“With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and
 vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and
 curled about the wizard's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered, and
 fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss.”
    -J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Fellowship of the Ring_. II, 5, “The Bridge of
     Khazad-dûm”. 1954.
%%%%
dire flail

“‘Ah! ah! ah!’ laughed his two men, ‘how the Norman villains will be humbled
when they see their doughty knight's skull beaten in by our brave countryman.’”
    -_Tales of Chivalry; or, Perils by Flood and Field_. 1830.
%%%%
dreamdust necklace

<dreamshard necklace>
%%%%
dreamshard necklace

“I never knew, I never thought,
 Such bliss as this could fill me with a love divine,
 I'm afraid I'll wake and find it was only in my mind,
 Was it a dream, or are you really mine?”
    -Dick Powell, "Was It a Dream?". 1928.
%%%%
eudemon blade

<demon blade>
%%%%
eveningstar

“It is said to have been the favourite weapon of the Norman priest, who,
 objecting to the shedding of blood, had no scruple about the dashing out of
 brains.”
    -T. M. Allison, “The Flail and Kindred Tools (from a historical and
     literary standpoint)”, _Archaeologia Aeliana_, Third Series, vol. IV.
     1908.
%%%%
eveningstar "Brilliance"

“‘But I am frightened of what is dark, urZah.’

 ‘With reason,’ the urRu replied. ‘Darkness imprisons the light. Darkness
  destroys all beings, covets all energy. It is evil.’

 ‘What is evil?’ Jen asked.

 ‘Evil does not exist,’ urZah answered. ‘Evil is disharmony between existences.
  Now go, Gelfling, with your questions.’”
    -A. C. H. Smith, _Jim Henson’s “The Dark Crystal”: The Novelization_. 1982.
%%%%
executioner's axe

“She danced, and was compelled to dance—to dance in the dark night. The shoes
 carried her on over thorn and brier; she scratched herself till she bled; she
 danced away across the heath to a little lonely house. Here she knew the
 executioner dwelt; and she tapped with her fingers on the panes, and
 called,—‘Come out, come out! I cannot come in, for I must dance!’

 And the Executioner said,—‘You probably don't know who I am? I cut off the bad
 people's heads with my axe, and mark how my axe rings!’

 ‘Do not strike off my head,’ said Karen, ‘for if you do I cannot repent of my
 sin. But strike off my feet with the red shoes?’

 And then she confessed all her sin, and the Executioner cut off her feet with
 the red shoes; but the shoes danced away with the little feet over the fields
 and into the deep forest.

 And he cut her a pair of wooden feet, with crutches, and taught her a psalm,
 which the criminals always sing; and she kissed the hand that had held the
 axe, and went away across the heath.”
    -Hans Christian Andersen, “The Red Shoes”, _Nye Eventyr. Første Bind.
     Tredie Samling._. 1845.
%%%%
falchion

“I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
 I would have made them skip: I am old now,
 And these same crosses spoil me.”
    -William Shakespeare, _King Lear_, V, iii. 1608.
%%%%
fire dragon scales

<steam dragon scales>
%%%%
flail

“Even after forcing their way, with great effort and loss, through this double
 defence, [the Germans] still found themselves at a disadvantage; for their
 armour scarce enabled them to contend on equal terms with the uncouth but
 formidable weapons of their adversaries. The Bohemians were armed with long
 iron flails, which they swung with prodigious force. They seldom failed to
 hit, and when they did so, the flail crashed through brazen helmet, skull and
 all.”
    -James A. Wylie, _The History of Protestantism_, vol. I, book 3, ch. 15
     “John Huss and the Hussite Wars”. 1878.
%%%%
frozen axe "Frostbite"

“Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
    -Klingon proverb, _Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan_. 1982
%%%%
giant club

“Therewith the gyant buckled him to fight,
 Inflamd with scornefull wrath and high disdaine,
 And lifting up his dreadful club on hight,
 All armed with ragged snubbes and knottie graine,
 Him thought at first encounter to have slaine.”
    -Edmund Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_, Book I, “The Legend of the Knight of
     the Red Crosse”, Canto VIII, stanza vii, l. 55-9. 1590.
%%%%
giant spiked club

 oni-ni-kanabō
 “oni with a spiked iron club”
    -Japanese proverb indicating overwhelming power
%%%%
glaive

“To know the perfect length of your ſhort ſtaffe, or half Pike, Forreſt bil,
 Partiſan or Gleue, or ſuch like weapons of vantage and perfect lengths, you
 ſhall ſtand vpright, holding the ſtaffe vpright cloſe by your body, with your
 left hãd, reaching with your right hand your ſtaffe as high as you can, and
 then allow to that length a ſpace to ſet both your hands, when you come to
 fight, wherein you may conueniently ſtrike, thruſt and ward, & that is the
 iuſt length according to you ſtature. And this note, that theſe lengths will
 commonly fall out to be eight or nine foot long, and will fit, although not
 iuſt, the ſtatures of all men, without any hindrance at all vnto them in their
 fight, becauſe in any weapon wherin the hands may be remoued, and at libertie,
 to make the weapon lõger or ſhorter in fight at his pleaſure, a foot of the
 ſtaffe behind the backmoſt hand doth no harme.”
    -George Silver,_Paradoxes of Defence_.1599.
%%%%
golden dragon scales

<steam dragon scales>
%%%%
gold piece

“Here it was that the ambassadors of the Samnites, finding him boiling turnips
 in the chimney corner, offered him a present of gold; but he sent them away
 with this saying; that he, who was content with such a supper, had no need of
 gold; and that he thought it more honourable to conquer those who possessed
 the gold, than to possess the gold itself.”
    -Plutarch, “Marcus Cato”, _Lives_. 75 AD.
    trans. John Dryden, 1683.
%%%%
great mace

“There will arise one named Feridoun, who shall inherit thy throne
 and reverse thy fortunes, and strike thee down with a cow-headed mace.”
    -Firdausi, _Shahnameh_. ca. 1000 A.D.
     trans. Helen Zimmern, 1883.
%%%%
great sword

<demon blade>
%%%%
halberd

“And Diarmid oh, Diarmid he perished in the strife;
 His head it was spiked upon a halberd high;
 His colours they were trampled: he had no chance of life
 If the Lord God Himself stood by!—
  Och, ochone!”
    -James Clarence Mangan , _A Farewell to Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan_.
     ca. 1840.
%%%%
hammer

“The hammah that John Henry swung,
 It weighed over nine poun',
 He broke a rib in his left han' side,
 And his intrels fell on the groun',
 And his intrels fell on the groun'.”
    -Onah L. Spencer, _John Henry_. Early 20th cent.
%%%%
hand axe

“Lizzie Borden took an axe
 And gave her mother forty whacks.
 When she saw what she had done
 She gave her father forty-one.”
    -A popular skipping-rope rhyme, after 1893.
%%%%
hand cannon

“I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of
 his father.
 I aim with my eye.
 I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face
 of his father.
 I shoot with my mind.
 I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of
 his father.
 I kill with my heart.”
    —Stephen King, “The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands”
%%%%
horn of Geryon

“So Joshua called together the priests and said, “Take up the Ark of the Lord's
 Covenant, and assign seven priests to walk in front of it, each carrying a
 ram's horn.

 When the people heard the sound of the rams’ horns, they shouted as loud as
 they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites
 charged straight into the town and captured it. They completely destroyed
 everything in it with their swords—men and women, young and old, cattle,
 sheep, goats, and donkeys.”
    -Joshua 6:6,20-21, New Living Translation
%%%%
ice dragon scales

<steam dragon scales>
%%%%
iron giant

"You're made of metal, but you have feelings, and you think about things,
 and that means you have a soul. And souls don't die."
    -_The Iron Giant_. 1999
%%%%
javelin

“Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife, and put a javelin
 through both of them, you would be justified, and they would atone for their
 sins, and be received into the kingdom of God.”
    -Brigham Young, _Journal of Discourses_, 3:247. 1856.
%%%%
kite shield

“...for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.”
    -Charles Darwin, “The Origin of Species”. 1859.
%%%%
lajatang

“A weapon that comes down as still
 As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
 But executes a freeman's will,
 As lightning does the will of God.”
    -John Pierpont, “The Ballot”. ca. 1850.
%%%%
large rock

“Well, I run to the rock and I hide my face
 The rock cried out, No hiding place
 There's no hiding place down here.”
    -Negro spiritual. 19th cent.
%%%%
tower shield

<buckler>
%%%%
leather armour

“Nought can Deform the Human race
 Like to the Armours iron brace”
    -William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”, 99-100. 1803.
%%%%
long sword

“While we were at grips with this great army and their dreadful broadswords
 (maquahuitl [made of obsidian]), many of the most powerful among the enemy
 seem to have decided to capture a horse. They began with a furious attack, and
 laid hands on a good mare well trained both for sport and battle. Her rider,
 Pedro de Moron, was a fine horseman; and as he charged with three other
 horsemen into the enemy ranks—they had been instructed to charge together for
 mutual support—some of them seized his lance so he could not use it, and
 others slashed at him with their broadswords (maquahuitl), wounding him
 severely. Then they slashed at his mare, cutting her head at the neck so that
 it only hung by the skin. The mare fell dead, and if his mounted comrades had
 not come to Moron's rescue, he would probably have been killed also.”
    -Bernal Díaz del Castillo, _The Conquest of New Spain_. 1623.
     trans. J.M.Cohen, 1963.
%%%%
longbow

“Robyn bent a full goode bowe,
 An arrowe he drowe at wyll;
 He hit so the proud sherife
 Upon the grounde he lay full still.”
    -_A Gest of Robyn Hode_ Sixth Fytte, l. 120-123. ca. 1450.
%%%%
mace

“[My plan] does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling colony agents,
 who will require the interposition of your mace at every instant to keep the
 peace among them.”
    -Edmund Burke, “On Conciliation with America”, speech in Parliament. 1775.
%%%%
manual

“Manuals have their uses... but they are not to be confused with living.”
    -Robert Fulghum
%%%%
morningstar

“Little did then his pomp of plumes bestead
 The Azteca, or glittering pride of gold.
 Against the tempered sword; little his casque,
 Cay with its feathery coronal, or drest
 In graven terrors, when the Briton's hand
 Drove in through helm and head the spiked mace;
 Or swung its iron weights with shattering sway.
 Which, where they fell, destroyed.”
    -Robert Southey, _Madoc_. 1805.
%%%%
morningstar "Eos"

“But soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered, then gathered the folk
 about the pyre of glorious Hector.”
    -Homer, _The Iliad_, XXIV, 776.
     trans. A. T. Murray, 1857.
%%%%
pearl dragon scales

<steam dragon scales>
%%%%
phantom mirror

“Down at that far end of the hallway, the mirror hovered, shadowing us. We
 discovered (very late at night such a discovery is inevitable) that there is
 something monstrous about mirrors. That was when Bioy remembered a saying by
 one of the heresiarchs of Uqbar: ‘Mirrors and copulation are abominable,
 for they multiply the number of mankind.’”
    -Jorge Luis Borges, _Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius_. 1947
      trans. Andrew Hurley, 1998.
%%%%
potion

“Then gave I her, — so tutor'd by my art, —
 A sleeping potion; which so took effect
 As I intended, for it wrought on her
 The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo
 That he should hither come as this dire night,
 To help to take her from her borrow'd grave,
 Being the time the potion's force should cease.”
    -William Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_
%%%%
potion of curing

“But if when you say ‘whiskey’ you mean the oil of conversation,
 the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows
 get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on
 their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes...
 then certainly I am for it.”
    -Noah S. Sweat, Jr. “If By Whiskey”. 1952
%%%%
potion of enlightenment

“Let go your earthly tether. Enter the void. Empty, and become wind.”
    -_The Legend of Korra_. 2014
%%%%
potion of invisibility

“I shall never forget that dawn, and the strange horror of seeing that my hands
 had become as clouded glass, and watching them grow clearer and thinner as the
 day went by, until at last I could see the sickly disorder of my room through
 them, though I closed my transparent eyelids. My limbs became glassy, the bones
 and arteries faded, vanished, and the little white nerves went last. I gritted
 my teeth and stayed there to the end. At last only the dead tips of the
 fingernails remained, pallid and white, and the brown stain of some acid, upon
 my fingers.”
    -H.G. Wells, _The Invisible Man_, Chapter 20. 1897
%%%%
potion of lignification

“Before her prayer was ended, torpor seized
 on all her body, and a thin bark closed
 around her gentle bosom, and her hair
 became as moving leaves; her arms were changed
 to waving branches, and her active feet
 as clinging roots were fastened to the ground—
 her face was hidden with encircling leaves.”
    -Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, Book I:253-259, trans. Brookes More. 1922
%%%%
potion of moonshine

“If when you say ‘whiskey’ you mean the devil's brew, the poison
 scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones
 reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea,
 literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children...
 then certainly I am against it.”
    -Noah S. Sweat, Jr. “If By Whiskey”. 1952
%%%%
potion of resistance

“Aha! will fate play tricks upon me? Will the elements lay plots against me?
 Shall fire, air, and water make a combined attack against me? Well, they
 shall know what a determined man can do. I will not yield. I will not stir
 a single foot backwards, and it will be seen whether man or nature is to
 have the upper hand!”
    -Jules Verne, _Journey into the Interior of the Earth_. 1864
     trans. F.A. Malleson, 1877
%%%%
quarterstaff

“Then Robin he unbuckled his belt,
 And laid down his bow so long;
 He took up a staff of another oak graff,
 That was both stiff and strong.
 ‘But let me measure,’ said jolly Robin,
 ‘Before we begin our fray;
 For I'll not have mine to be longer than thine,
 For that will be counted foul play.’
 ‘I pass not for length,’ bold Arthur replied,
 ‘My staff is of oak so free;
 Eight foot and a half it will knock down a calf,
 And I hope it will knock down thee.’
 Then Robin could no longer forbear,
 He gave him such a knock,
 Quickly and soon the blood came down,
 Before it was ten o'clock.
 About and about and about they went,
 Like two wild boars in a chase,
 Striving to aim each other to maim,
 Leg, arm, or any other place.
 And knock for knock they hastily dealt,
 Which held for two hours and more;
 That all the wood rang at every bang,
 They plied their work so sore.”
    -Anonymous, “Robin Hood and the Tanner”.
%%%%
quick blade

“He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword...”
    -Julia Ward Howe, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. 1861.
%%%%
rapier

“Who was the first that forged the deadly blade?
 Of rugged steel his savage soul was made...”
    -Albius Tibullus, _Elegies_ I, xi. ca. 25 B.C.
     trans. James Grainger, 1822.
%%%%
ring

“A ring of gold and a milk-white dove
 Are goodly gifts for thee,
 And a hempen rope for your own love
 To hang upon a tree.”
    -Oscar Wilde, “Chanson”. 1881.
%%%%
ring of the Octopus King

“A mermaid who fancied to sing,
 Roused lust in the Octopus King.
 Her squiggly suitor,
 Tried hard to woo her,
 But she couldn't wear all his rings.”
%%%%
ring mail

<leather armour>
%%%%
ring of dexterity

<ring>
%%%%
ring of evasion

<ring>
%%%%
ring of fire

“Love is a burning thing
 And it makes a fiery ring”
    -June Carter and Merle Kilgore, “Ring of Fire”. 1963.
%%%%
ring of flight

“What surprised him the most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed
 so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn't understand why
 other men didn't have them too.”
    -Gabriel Garcia Marquez, _A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings_. 1955.
     trans. Gregory Rabassa. 1972
%%%%
ring of ice

“Some say the world will end in fire;
 Some say in ice.
 From what I've tasted of desire
 I hold with those who favor fire.
 But if it had to perish twice,
 I think I know enough of hate
 To say that for destruction ice
 Is also great
 And would suffice.”
    -Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”. 1920.
%%%%
ring of intelligence

“Hobbes: Did it work?
 Calvin: I think so.
         I feel smarter already.”
    -Bill Watterson, _Calvin and Hobbes_. November 19, 1993.
%%%%
ring of magical power

<ring>
%%%%
ring of poison resistance
 Buttercup:    “And to think, all that time it was your cup that was poisoned.”
 Man in Black: “They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building
                up an immunity to iocane powder.”
    -_The Princess Bride_. 1987
%%%%
ring of positive energy

<ring>
%%%%
ring of protection

<ring>
%%%%
ring of protection from cold

<ring>
%%%%
ring of protection from fire

“And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the
 midst of the burning fiery furnace.

 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake,
 and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst
 of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.

 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the
 fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

 Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and
 spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high
 God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came
 forth of the midst of the fire.

 And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counsellors, being
 gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor
 was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the
 smell of fire had passed on them.”
    -KJV Bible, Daniel 3:23-27.
%%%%
ring of resist corrosion

<ring>
%%%%
ring of see invisible

“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can
 see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
    -Antoine de Saint Exupéry, _The Little Prince_. 1943.
%%%%
ring of slaying

“Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than
 once.”
    -Thomas Huxley
%%%%
ring of stealth

“Then as part of the game
 She completely forgot where she'd hidden herself
 And she spent the rest of her time
 Trying to find the parts”
    -Howard Jones, “Hide and Seek”. 1984.
%%%%
ring of strength

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
    -Friedrich Nietzsche
%%%%
ring of willpower

“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.”
    -Pietro Aretino, letter to Mr. Agostino Ricchi, May 10th, 1537. from
      _The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian_,
      trans. Samuel Putnam. 1926
%%%%
ring of wizardry

<ring>
%%%%
robe

“CLEOPATRA: Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
 Immortal longings in me”
    -William Shakespeare, _Anthony & Cleopatra_, V, ii. ca. 1605.
%%%%
scale mail

<leather armour>
%%%%
scimitar

“The museum-cabinet and huge library arrogated to themselves the entire lower
 floor — there were the controversial and incompatible books that are somehow
 the history of the nineteenth century; there were scimitars from Nishapur, in
 whose frozen crescents the wind and violence of battle seemed to be living
 on.”
    -Jorge Luis Borges, _The Form of the Sword_. 1953.
     trans. Andrew Hurley.
%%%%
scroll

“To drift with every passion till my soul
 Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
 Is it for this that I have given away
 Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
 Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
 Scrawled over on some boyish holiday.”
    -Oscar Wilde, _Helas_. 1881.
%%%%
scroll of acquirement

He had stopped trying to think. He just repeated his litany over and over:
“I am an animal, you see that. I don’t have the words, they didn’t teach
me the words. I don’t know how to think, the bastards didn’t let me learn
how to think. But if you really are... all-powerful... all-knowing... then you
figure it out! Look into my heart. I know that everything you need is in there.
It has to be. I never sold my soul to anyone! It’s mine, it’s human! You
take from me what it is I want... it just can’t be that I would want something
bad! Damn it all, I can’t think of anything, except those words of his...
‘HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!’”
    -Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, “Roadside Picnic”. 1972.
    trans. Antonina W. Bouis, 1977.
%%%%
scroll of amnesia

“But revenge is hollow. I'd prefer amnesia.”
    -Tera Lynn Childs
%%%%
scroll of blinking

<scroll>
%%%%
scroll of brand weapon

<scroll>
%%%%
scroll of butterflies

“It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like
 big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements,
 but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by
 people totally out of touch with modern thought. The things that really change
 the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps
 its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of
 Europe...”
    -Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, _Good Omens: The Nice And Accurate
     Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_. 1990.

%%%%
scroll of enchant armour

<scroll>
%%%%
scroll of enchant weapon

<scroll>
%%%%
scroll of fear

“I will revenge my injuries: if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.”
    -Mary Shelley, _Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus_,
     Vol. II, Chapter 9. 1818 (1st Ed.)
%%%%
scroll of fog

“Calvin: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized
         that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor
         reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be
         an intimidating and impenetrable fog!”
    -Bill Watterson, _Calvin and Hobbes_. February 11th, 1993.
%%%%
scroll of identify

“This, what is it in itself, and by itself, according to its proper
 constitution? What is the substance of it? What is the matter, or
 proper use? What is the form or efficient cause? What is it for in
 this world, and how long will it abide? Thus must thou examine all
 things, that present themselves unto thee.”
    -Marcus Aurelius, _Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - His Meditations concerning
     himselfe_, Book VIII, X. trans. Meric Casaubon, 1634.
%%%%
scroll of immolation

<scroll>
%%%%
scroll of revelation

“‘What a useful thing a pocket-map is!’ I remarked.
 ‘That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,’ said Mein Herr,
    ‘map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you
    consider the largest map that would be really useful?’
 ‘About six inches to the mile.’
 ‘Only six inches!’ exclaimed Mein Herr. ‘We very soon got to six yards to the
     mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest
     idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile
     to the mile!’
 ‘Have you used it much?’ I enquired.
 ‘It has never been spread out, yet,’ said Mein Herr: ‘the farmers objected:
     they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So
     we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does
     nearly as well.’”
    -Lewis Carroll, _Sylvie and Bruno Concluded_, Chapter XI. 1895
%%%%
scroll of noise

“The nature of the place where the Library was founded—a sanatorium rumored to
 harbor the pitiably deformed—had proven a lure to people with no desire at all
 for ‘regular human communication.’ I remember the case of a man who was normal
 in every respect, in words, in reasoning, in the practice of his profession,
 but strayed from this ‘normalcy’ in only one way: his inexplicable need to fill
 thousands of sheets of foolscap paper with seemingly meaningless words,
 phonemes close to wailing sounds, cries of fury and pain in relentless
 successions, fragments of sentences and pleas addressed to God-knows-whom.”
    -Giorgio de Maria, _The Twenty Days of Turin_, 1975.
     trans. Ramon Glazov, 2016
%%%%
scroll of silence

“And in the naked light I saw
   Ten thousand people, maybe more.
 People talking without speaking,
   People hearing without listening;
 People writing songs
   That voices never shared:
 No one dared
   Disturb the sound
   Of silence.”
    -Simon & Garfunkel, _The Sound of Silence_. 1964.
%%%%
scroll of summoning

“When thou attended gloriously from heaven, Shalt in the sky appear, and from
 thee send Thy summoning archangels to proclaim Thy dread tribunal.”
    -John Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book III, 1667.
%%%%
scroll of teleportation

“Eiris sazun idisi
 sazun hera duoder
 suma hapt heptidun
 suma heri lezidun
 suma clubodun
 umbi cuoniouuidi
 insprinc haptbandun
 inuar uigandun

 [Once sat women,
 they sat here then there.
 some fastened bonds,
 some impeded an army,
 some unraveled fetters:
 Escape the bonds,
 flee the enemy!]”
    -First Merseburg incantation, trans. Patricia Giangrosso, 2001
%%%%
scroll of torment

<scroll>
%%%%
scroll of vulnerability

<scroll>
%%%%
scythe

“It was instinct. Illogical as lightning striking and not hurting. Each day the
 grain must be cut. It had to be cut. Why? Well, it just did, that was all. He
 laughed at the scythe in his big hands. Then, whistling, he took it out to the
 ripe and waiting field and did the work. He thought himself a little mad.
 Hell, it was an ordinary-enough wheat field, really, wasn't it?”
    -Ray Bradbury, _The Scythe_. 1943.
%%%%
shillelagh "Devastator"

“‘Hurrah! my boys,’ says I, my shillelagh I let fly.
 Some Galway boys were by, they saw I was a hobbling;
 Then with a loud ‘hurrah!’ they joined me in the fray.
 Faugh-a-ballagh! Clear the way! for the rocky road to Dublin!”

    -D.K. Gavan, _Rocky Road to Dublin_. 19th Century.
%%%%
shortbow

“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
    -Khalil Ghibran, _The Prophet_, “On Children”. 1923.
%%%%
short sword

“Who was the first that forged the deadly blade?
 Of rugged steel his savage soul was made”
    -Albius Tibullus, _Elegies_ I, xi. ca. 25 B.C.
     trans. James Grainger, 1822.
%%%%
sling

“And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and
 smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead;
 and he fell upon his face to the earth.”
    -KJV Bible, 1 Samuel 17:49.
%%%%
greatsling "Punk"

“Thrice whirling round his head
 The whistling thong, Mezentius took his aim.
 Clean through his temples hissed the molten lead,
 And prostrate in the dust, the gallant youth lay dead.”
    -Virgil, Aeneid 9
     trans. E. Fairfax Taylor
%%%%
giant club "Skullcrusher"

“Or burst the vanish’d Hero’s lofty mound;
 Far on the solitary shore he sleeps:
 He fell, and falling nations mourn’d around;
 But now not one of saddening thousands weeps,
 Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps
 Where demi-gods appear’d, as records tell.
 Remove yon skull from out the scatter’d heaps:
 Is that a temple where a God may dwell?
 Why ev’n the worm at last disdains her shatter’d cell!

 Look on its broken arch, its ruin’d wall,
 Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:
 Yes, this was once Ambition’s airy hall,
 The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul:
 Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
 The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit
 And Passion’s host, that never brook’d control:
 Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
 People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?”
    -Lord Byron, _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, Canto the Second, Stanzas V-VI
%%%%
spear

“The halberd is inferior to the spear on the battlefield. With the spear you
 can take the initiative; the halberd is defensive. In the hands of one of two
 men of equal ability, the spear gives a little extra strength.”
    -Miyamoto Musashi, _The Book of Five Rings_. 1645.
%%%%
staff

“Bashō Osho said to his disciples, ‘If you have a staff, I will give you a
 staff. If you have no staff, I will take it from you.’

 Mumon's Comment

 It helps me wade across a river when the bridge is down. It accompanies me to
 the village on a moonless night. If you call it a staff, you will enter hell
 like an arrow.”
    -Mumon Ekai, _The Gateless Gate_, case 44. 1228.
     trans. Katsuki Sekida
%%%%
staff of air

<staff>
%%%%
staff of alchemy

<staff>
%%%%
staff of cold

<staff>
%%%%
staff of conjuration

<staff>
%%%%
staff of necromancy

“'I am Aed Abaid of Ess Rúaid, that is, the good god of wizardry of the Tuatha
 Dé Danann, and the Rúad Rofhessa, and Eochaid Ollathair are my three names.’

 And thus he was, with Cermait Milbél, one of his sons, on his back, who had
 fallen in fight and combat by Lug, son of Cian, High King of Ireland. The
 Dagda betook himself to his knowledge and learning, and therefore frankincense
 and myrrh and herbs were put around the body of Cermait, and he lifted Cermait
 on his back, and bearing Cermait he searched the world, and came to the great
 eastern world.

 He met three men going the road and the way with their father's treasures. The
 Dagda asked news of them, and they said ‘We are three sons of one father and
 mother, and we are sharing our father's treasures.’
 ‘What have ye?’ said the Dagda.
 ‘A shirt and a staff and a cloak,’ said they.
 ‘What virtues have these?’ said the Dagda.
 ‘This great staff that thou seest,’ said he, ‘has a smooth end and a rough
 end. One end slays the living, and the other end brings the dead to life.’”
    -Osborn Bergin, “How the Dagda Got His Magic Staff”, _Medieval Studies in
     Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis_. 1927.
%%%%
staff of earth

<staff>
%%%%
staff of fire

“The wizard suddenly remembered the words of the god. He remembered that of all
 the creatures that people the earth, Fire was the only one who knew his son to
 be a phantom. This memory, which at first calmed him, ended by tormenting him.
 He feared lest his son should meditate on this abnormal privilege and by some
 means find out he was a mere simulacrum. Not to be a man, to be a projection
 of another man's dreams—what an incomparable humiliation, what madness!”
    -Jorge Luis Borges, _The Circular Ruins_. 1940.
    trans. Anthony Bonner, 1962.
%%%%
steam dragon scales

“His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is so
 near to another, that no air can come between them. They are joined one to
 another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.”
    -KJV Bible, Job 41:15-17.
%%%%
stone

“How happy is the little Stone
 That rambles in the Road alone,
 And doesn't care about Careers
 And Exigencies never fears —
 Whose Coat of elemental Brown
 A passing Universe put on,
 And independent as the Sun
 Associates or glows alone,
 Fulfilling absolute Decree
 In casual simplicity —”
    -Emily Dickinson, “How happy is the little Stone”. ca. 1865.
%%%%
storm dragon scales

<steam dragon scales>
%%%%
storm talisman

“Stormform is said to cause
 A tempest of winds and showers,
 Beware its powers, beware its powers.
 Though its coming brings the gods their night,
 It obliges a bloodred spren.
 Beware its end, beware its end.”
    -Brandon Sanderson, “Words of Radiance”. 2014.
%%%%
swamp dragon scales

<steam dragon scales>
%%%%
talisman of death

“Don’t sing if you want to live long
 They have no use for your song
 You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead
 You’re dead and outta this world

 You’ll never get a second chance
 Plan all your moves in advance
 Stay dead, stay dead, stay dead
 Stay dead and outta this world”
    -Norma Tanega, “You’re Dead”. 1966
%%%%
throwing net

“The look of a scared thing
 Sitting in a net!”
    -Edna St. Vincent Millay, “When the Year Grows Old”. 1917.
%%%%
tower shield of Ignorance

“Don't try to rise above it, it's better below
 When life is going by you, you'll never know
 When everything is simple, it's really sublime
 Don't try to rise above it, below it is fine”
    -Daryl Hall & John Oates, “No Brain, No Pain”. 1979.
%%%%
trident

“Without noticing the occupations of an intervening day or two, which, as they
 consisted of the ordinary sylvan amusements of shooting and coursing, have
 nothing sufficiently interesting to detain the reader, we pass to one in some
 degree peculiar to Scotland, which may be called a sort of salmon-hunting.
 This chase, in which the fish is pursued and struck with barbed spears, or a
 sort of long shafted trident, called a waster, is much practised at the mouth
 of the Esk, and in the other salmon rivers of Scotland.”
    -Sir Walter Scott, _Guy Mannering_, ch. XXVI. 1815.
%%%%
triple crossbow

“Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow;
 decision, to the releasing of a trigger.”
    -Sun Tzu
%%%%
triple sword

<demon blade>
%%%%
troll leather armour

“THE TROLL KING: Now, listen, Prince Peer, and give way to reason!
 You're cut out for a Troll. Why, look, already
 You bear yourself quite in a Troll-like fashion!
 And you want to become one, don't you?
 PEER GYNT: Of course.
 In return for a bride and a well-found kingdom
 I'm not unwilling to sacrifice something;
 But all things have their natural limit.
 I have taken a tail, it is true; but, then,
 I can undo the knots that our friend has tied
 And take the thing off. I have shed my breeches;
 They were old and patched; but that won't prevent me
 From putting them on if I have a mind to.
 I shall probably find it just as easy
 To deal with your Trollish way of living.
 I can easily swear that a cow's a maiden;
 An oath's not a difficult thing to swallow.
 But to know that one never can get one's freedom —
 Not even to die as a human being —
 To end one's days as a Troll of the mountains —
 Never go back, as you tell me plainly —
 That is a thing that I'll not submit to.”
    -Henrik Ibsen, _Peer Gynt_ . 1867.
%%%%
wand

“[The principle of selection] is the magician's wand, by means of which he may
 summon into life whatever form and mould he pleases.”
    -William Youatt, _Sheep: their breeds, management, and diseases; to which
     is added the Mountain Shepherd's Manual_, ch. III. 1837.
%%%%
wand of acid

<wand>
%%%%
wand of charming

“But it isn't charm as veneer, as facilitating ooze or unguent,
 but charm that identifies and goes out to meet itself in others
 wherever it may be met with.”
    -Michael Hofmann, “Hell, he'll be frozen stiff!”, London Review of Books,
     2022.

“He held up his hand, and they all stopped, and I thought he seemed to be
 saying, ‘All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater,
 through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!’ And then a red
 cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes, and before I
 knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him,
 ‘Come in, Lord and Master!’”
    -Bram Stoker, _Dracula_. 1897.
%%%%
wand of digging

“Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and
 things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.”
    -H.P. Lovecraft, “The Festival”. 1925
%%%%
wand of flame

<wand>
%%%%
wand of iceblast

<wand>
%%%%
wand of light

<wand>
%%%%
wand of mindburst

<wand>
%%%%
wand of paralysis

<wand>
%%%%
wand of polymorph

“Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in
 seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.”
    -Franz Kafka, _Die Verwandlung_. 1915
%%%%
wand of quicksilver

<wand>
%%%%
wand of roots

<wand>
%%%%
wand of warping

<wand>
%%%%
war axe

“‘God speed the kiss,’ said Max, and Katie sigh'd,
 With pray'rful palms close seal'd, ‘God speed the axe!’”
    -Isabella Valancey Crawford, “Malcolm's Katie: A Love Story”, Part I, _Old
     Spookses' Pass, Malcolm's Katie and Other Poems_. 1884.
%%%%
whip

“Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
 Nor with a Stone —
 A Whip so small you could not see it
 I've known
 To lash the Magic Creature
 Till it fell,
 Yet that Whip's Name
 Too noble then to tell.”
    -Emily Dickinson, “Not with a Club, the Heart is broken”. ca. 1865.
########################################
#
# Unique monsters
#
########################################
%%%%
Aizul

Wasn't it beautiful running wild 'til you fell asleep
Before the monsters caught up to you?
    -Taylor Swift, _Innocent_, 2010.
%%%%
Asterion

“The fact is that I am unique. What a man can pass unto others does not
 interest me; like the philosopher, I think nothing is communicated by the art
 of writing. Annoying and trivial minutiae have no place in my spirit, a spirit
 which is receptive only to whatsoever is grand.”
  -Jorge Luis Borges, “The House of Asterion”. 1947.
   trans. Antonios Sarhanis, 2008.
%%%%
Antaeus

“That country was then ruled by Antaeus, son of Poseidon, who used to kill
 strangers by forcing them to wrestle. Being forced to wrestle with him,
 Hercules hugged him, lifted him aloft, broke and killed him; for when he
 touched earth so it was that he waxed stronger, wherefore some said that he
 was a son of Earth.”
    -Pseudo-Apollodorus , _Library and Epitome_, 2.5.11. ca. 150 BC.
    trans. Sir James George Frazer, 1913.

“The head foreman in the mine, called Antaeus,
 was an obese giant with a thick black beard
 who actually seemed to draw his strength from Mother Earth.”
    -Primo Levi, “The Periodic Table”. 1975.
%%%%
Asmodeus

“For myself, I have other occupations:  I make absurd matches; I marry
 greybeards with minors, masters with servants, girls with small fortunes with
 tender lovers who have none. It is I who introduced into this world luxury,
 debauchery, games of chance, and chemistry. I am the author of the first
 cookery book, the inventor of festivals, of dancing, music, plays, and of the
 newest fashions; in a word, I am ASMODEUS, surnamed The Devil on Two Sticks.”
    -Alain René Le Sage, _Asmodeus: Or, The Devil on Two Sticks_. 1707.
%%%%
Azrael

“And Allah said,
 ‘As thou the deed hast done, so now the office shall be thine, O Azrael,
  to gather up for me the souls of men and women when their time has come;
  the souls of saints and sinners, of beggars and of princes,
  of the old or young, whate'er befall; and even though friends weep,
  and hearts of loved ones ache with sorrow and with anguish,
  when bereft of those they love.’
 So Azrael became the messenger of Death.”
    -J. E. Hanauer, _Folk-lore of the Holy Land, Moslem, Christian and Jewish_.
1907.
%%%%
Crazy Yiuf

“There was an Old Man with a beard,
 Who said, ‘It is just as I feared!
 Two Owls and a Hen,
 Four Larks and a Wren,
 Have all built their nests in my beard!’”
    -Edward Lear, _A Book of Nonsense [No. 1]_. 1846.
%%%%
Dispater

“Hoc idem magis ostendit antiquius Iovis nomen: nam olim Diovis et Diespiter
 dictus, id est dies pater; a quo dei dicti qui inde, et dius et divum, unde
 sub divo, Dius Fidius. Itaque inde eius perforatum tectum, ut ea videatur
 divum, id est caelum. Quidam negant sub tecto per hunc deierare oportere.
 Aelius Dium Fidium dicebat Diovis filium, ut Graeci Dioskopon Castorem, et
 putabat hunc esse Sancum ab Sabina lingua et Herculem a Graeca. Idem hic Dis
 pater dicitur infimus, qui est coniunctus terrae, ubi omnia ut oriuntur ita
 aboriuntur; quorum quod finis ortuum, Orcus dictus.”
    -Marcus Terentius Varro, _De Lingua Latina_, Liber V, circa 40 BC.
%%%%
Dowan

“Skill and grace, the twin brother and sister, are dancing playfully on your
 finger tips.”
    -Rabindranath Tagore, _Chitra_, Act I, Scene iv. 1914.
%%%%
Duvessa

“Twin children: the Girl, she was plain;
 The Brother was handsome & vain;
 ‘Let him brag of his looks,’
 Father said; ‘mind your books!
 The best beauty is bred in the brain.’”
    -Aesop & Walter Crane, _The Baby's Own Aesop_, 36: “Brother & Sister”.
1887.
%%%%
Edmund

“And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
 Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper.—
 Now, gods, stand up for bastards!”
    -William Shakespeare, _King Lear_, I, ii. 1606.

“When the forces stood in array Edmund proposed to decide their claims by
 single combat; but Canute saying that he, a man of small stature, would have
 little chance against the tall athletic Edmund, proposed, on the contrary, for
 them to divide the realm as their fathers had done.”
    -Thomas Keightley, _The History of England_. 1839.
%%%%
Frederick

“I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are
 dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly
 and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill
 him.”
    -Mark Twain, _Autobiography of Mark Twain_. 1924.
%%%%
Geryon

“Khrysaor, married to Kallirhoe, daughter of glorious Okeanos, was father to
 the triple-headed Geryon, but Geryon was killed by the great strength of
 Herakles at sea-circled Erytheis beside his own shambling cattle on that day
 when Herakles drove those broad-faced cattle toward holy Tiryns, when he
 crossed the stream of Okeanos and had killed Orthos and the oxherd Eurytion
 out in the gloomy meadow beyond fabulous Okeanos.”
    -Hesiod, _Theogony_, circa 700 BCE.
%%%%
Harold

“One, you lock the target
 Two, you bait the line
 Three, you slowly spread the net
 And four, you catch the man

 You catch the man
 You catch the man
 I’m looking for this man to sell him to other men
 To sell him to other men at ten times the price at least”
    —Front 242, “Headhunter”
%%%%
Ilsuiw

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
 By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
 Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
    -T.S. Eliot, _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_. lines 129-131. 1915.
%%%%
Khufu

“And then I looked farther, beyond the pallid line of the sands, and I saw a
 Pyramid of gold, the wonder Khufu had built. As a golden wonder it saluted me,
 as a golden thing it greeted me, as a golden miracle I shall remember it.”
    -Robert Hichens, _The Spell of Egypt_. 1910.
%%%%
Kirke

“Lo, thy comrades yonder in the house of Kirke are penned like swine in
 close-barred sties. And art thou come to release them? Nay, I tell thee, thou
 shalt not thyself return, but shalt remain there with the others.”
    -Homer, Odysseia
%%%%
Lernaean hydra

“The second Labour which he undertook was the slaying of the Lernaian Hydra,
 springing from whose single body were fashioned a hundred necks, each bearing
 the head of a serpent. And when one head was cut off, the place where it was
 severed put forth two others; for this reason it was considered to be
 invincible, and with good reason, since the part of it which was subdued sent
 forth a two-fold assistance in its place. Against a thing so difficult to
 manage as this Herakles devised an ingenious scheme and commanded Iolaos to
 sear with a burning brand the part which had been severed, in order to check
 the flow of the blood.”
    -Diodorus Siculus, _Bibliotheca Historica_. [4. 11. 5.]. c. 100.
%%%%
Lodul

“Cat:  But who can say what a thing is worth.
 Girl: The free market, supposedly.
 Cat:  What _price_ do we put on a _soul_?
 Girl: $7.25 an hour.”
    -Dorothy Gambrell, _Cat and Girl_, 2010.
%%%%
Mara

“This night the Lord of Illusion passed among you, Mara, mighty among dreamers,
 mighty for ill. He did come upon another who may work with the stuff of dreams
 in a different way. He did meet with Dharma, who may expel a dreamer from his
 dream. They did struggle, and the Lord Mara is no more. Why did they struggle,
 deathgod against illusionist? You say their ways are incomprehensible, being
 the ways of gods. This is not the answer.”
    -Roger Zelazny, “Lord of Light”. 1967.

“He who lives looking for pleasures only,
 his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his food,
 idle, and weak, Mara will certainly overthrow him,
 as the wind throws down a weak tree.”
    -The Buddha, _Dhammapada_, 1:7.
     trans. F. Max Muller

%%%%
Maurice

“‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ There is a magic in the sound. The tradesman leaves
 his counter, and the car-man his waggon; the butcher throws down his tray; the
 baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy his parcels; the
 school-boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the child his battledore.
 Away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash: tearing, yelling,
 screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners, rousing up
 the dogs, and astonishing the fowls: and streets, squares, and courts, re-echo
 with the sound.”
    -Charles Dickens, _Oliver Twist_. 1838.
%%%%
Menkaure

“Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king!
 I go, and I return not. But the will
 Of the great Gods is plain; and ye must bring
 Ill deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil
 Their pleasure, to their feet; and reap their praise,
 The praise of Gods, rich boon! and length of days.”
    -Matthew Arnold, _Mycerinus_
%%%%
Murray

“Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!”
    -Guybrush Threepwood, _The Secret of Monkey Island_
%%%%
Natasha

“It dooth appéere that there is in Cats as in all other kindes of beasts, a
 certaine reason and language wherby they vnderstand one another. But as
 touching this Grimmalkin: I take rather to be an Hagat or a VVitch then a Cat.
 For witches haue gone often in that likenes, And therof hath come the prouerb
 as trew as common, that a Cat hath nine liues, that is to say, a witch may
 take on her a Cats body nine times.”
    -William Baldwin, “Beware the Cat”, 1584
%%%%
Nikola

“One can prophesy with a Daniel's confidence that skilled electricians will
 settle the battles of the near future.”
    -Nikola Tesla, “The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires As a
Means for Furthering Peace”, _Electrical World and Engineer_. January 7, 1905.
%%%%
Norris

“Death and death alone gives meaning to life and this meaning is entirely
negative.”
    -Georges Poulet
%%%%
Parghit

“What are you going to do with that big bat? Gonna hit me? Better make it
 count. Better make it hurt. Better kill me in one shot.”
   -Mr. Baseball, @MisterBaseball5 Twitter. 2017
%%%%
Polyphemus

“...as soon as he had got through with all his work, he clutched up two more of
 my men, and began eating them for his morning's meal. Presently, with the
 utmost ease, he rolled the stone away from the door and drove out his sheep,
 but he at once put it back again—as easily as though he were merely clapping
 the lid on to a quiver full of arrows.”
    -Homer, _The Odyssey_, Book IX.
    trans. Samuel Butler, 1900.
%%%%
Prince Ribbit

“Princess! youngest princess!
 Open the door for me!
 Dost thou not know what thou saidst to me

 Yesterday by the cool waters of the fountain?
 Princess, youngest princess!
 Open the door for me!”
    -Brothers Grimm (Margaret Hunt), _The Frog King, or Iron Henry_
%%%%
Sigmund

“But Sigmund turned him about, and he said: ‘What aileth thee, son?
 Shall our life-days never be merry, and our labour never be done?’

 But Sinfiotli said: ‘I have looked, and lo, there is death in the cup.’

 And the song, and the tinkling of harp-strings to the roof-tree winded up;
 And Sigmund was dreamy with wine and the wearing of many a year;
 And the noise and the glee of the people as the sound of the wild woods were
 And the blossoming boughs of the Branstock were the wild trees waving about;

 So he said: ‘Well seen, my fosterling; let the lip then strain it out.’”
    -William Morris, _The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the
Niblungs_. 1891.
%%%%
Tiamat

“He saith that Tiamat our mother hath conceived a hatred for us,
 With all her force she rageth, full of wrath.
 All the gods have turned to her,
 With those, whom ye created, they go at her side.
 They are banded together, and at the side of Tiamat they advance;
 They are furious, they devise mischief without resting night and day.
 They prepare for battle, fuming and raging;
 They have joined their forces and are making war.
 Tiamat who formed all things,
 Made in addition weapons invincible; she spawned monster-serpents,
 Sharp of tooth, and merciless of fang;
 With poison, instead of blood, she filled their bodies.
 Fierce monster-vipers she clothed with terror,
 With splendor she decked them, she made them of lofty stature.
 Whoever beheld them, terror overcame him,
 Their bodies reared up and none could withstand their attack.”
    -Enuma Elish, Third Tablet. circa 668 BCE.
%%%%
Urug

“_Urug_, tumbled down, fallen by crumbling down. Slipped down, as earth from a
 hill-side, stones which have been piled up or the like. To fall as water at a
 cascade. To fill up a hollow by putting earth into it. To lay gravel or
 materials on a road. A landslip.

 _Ururugan_, apparently a plural form of 'Urug'. To go with a number of men to
 any work. To make war, to attack with an army. To set upon in numbers, as it
 were to tumble upon in masses.”
   -Jonathan Rigg, A dictionary of the Sunda language of Java. 1862.
%%%%
Vv

“Beside the man stands a woman - of sorts. Her emulation of the human gender is
 only superficial, a courtesy. Likewise the loose drapelike dress she wears is
 not cloth. She has simply shaped a portion of her stiff substance to suit the
 preferences of the fragile, mortal creatures among whom she currently moves.
 From a distance the illusion would work to pass her off as a woman standing
 still...

 When she turns to the man - slowly; stone eaters are slow aboveground, except
 when they aren't - this movement pushes her beyond artful beauty into something
 altogether different. The man has grown used to it, but even so, he does not
 look at her. He does not want revulsion to spoil the moment.”
    -N.K. Jemisin, “The Fifth Season”. 2015.

########################################
#
# Vault monsters
#
########################################
%%%%
Cigotuvi's Monster

“I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had
 created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if
 eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened,
 and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin
 wrinkled his cheeks.”
    -Mary Shelley, _Frankenstein_. 1818.
%%%%
Cloud Mage

“And when
 His master plan is unfurled
 There stands a handsome bid
 On the weather systems of the world”
    -Andrew Bird, “Banking on a Myth”. 2005.
%%%%
ghost-faced bat

<bat>
%%%%
giga bat

<bat>
%%%%
ice bat

<bat>
%%%%
mad acolyte of Lugonu

“And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
    -Friedrich Nietzche, “Beyond Good and Evil”. 1886.
%%%%
microbat

<bat>
%%%%
phase bat

<bat>
%%%%
rotten bat

<bat>
%%%%
skeletal bat

<bat>
%%%%
spriggan baker

“Blood, sweat, and tea, sister! That's what it takes to achieve all great and
 terrible things.”
    -Emory R. Frie, _Wonderland_. 2016.
%%%%
witch

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
    -KJV Bible, Exodus 22:18.
########################################
#
# Monster glyphs
#
########################################

%%%%
__c_suffix

“When Peleus, some distance away, saw him torn apart by the frightful wound he
 shouted: ‘Accept this tribute to the dead, at least, Crantor, dearest of
 youths’, and with his powerful arm, he hurled his ash spear, at full strength,
 at Demoleon. It ruptured the ribcage, and stuck quivering in the bone. The
 centaur pulled out the shaft minus its head (he tried with difficulty to reach
 that also) but the head was caught in his lung. The pain itself strengthened
 his will: wounded, he reared up at his enemy and beat the hero down with his
 hooves. Peleus received the resounding blows on helmet and shield, and
 defending his upper arms, and controlling the weapon he held out, with one
 blow through the arm he pierced the bi-formed breast.”
    -Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, XII, 330. 8 AD.
%%%%
__d_suffix

“Trogdor was a man!
 I mean, he was a dragon-man!
 Or... maybe he was just a dragon.
 ...
 And the Trogdor comes in the night!”
    -The Brothers Chaps, “Trogdor”. 2003.
%%%%
__q_suffix

<__d_suffix>
%%%%
__r_suffix

HAMLET [Drawing his sword.]: How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead
       [Stabs through the arras.]
    -William Shakespeare, _The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, III, 4.
1603.
%%%%
__cap-D_suffix

“On the other hand, Confucius is made to say to his disciples, ‘I know how
 birds can fly, how fishes can swim, and how animals can run. But the runner
 may be snared, the swimmer may be hooked, and the flyer may be shot by the
 arrow. But there is the dragon. I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind
 through the clouds, and rises to heaven. Today I have seen Lao-tsze, and can
 only compare him to the dragon.’”
    -Life of Confucius

“This Dragon had Two furious Wings
   Each one upon each Shoulder;
 With a Sting in his Tail as long as a Flail,
   Which made him bolder and bolder.
 He had long Claws, and in his Jaws
   Four and forty Teeth of Iron;
 With a Hide as tough, as any Buff,
   Which did him round environ.”

    -“An Excellent Ballad of a most dreadful Combat, fought between Moore of
Moore-Hall, and the Dragon of Wantley”, retold by Ambrose Philips, _A
Collection of Old Ballads. Corrected from the Best and Most Ancient Copies
Extant. With Introductions Historical, Critical, Or Humorous_. 1723.
%%%%
__cap-K_suffix

“The Parts Septentrionall are with these Sp'ryts Much haunted.. About the
 places where they dig for Oare. The Greekes and Germans call them Cobali.”
    -Thomas Heywood, _The Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels_, Book IX, l. 568.
1635.
%%%%
__cap-S_suffix

“The latter lived in the country, and before his house there was an oak, in
 which there was a lair of snakes. His servants killed the snakes, but Melampus
 gathered wood and burnt the reptiles, and reared the young ones. And when the
 young were full grown, they stood beside him at each of his shoulders as he
 slept, and they purged his ears with their tongues. He started up in a great
 fright, but understood the voices of the birds flying overhead, and from what
 he learned from them he foretold to men what should come to pass.”
    -Pseudo-Apollodorus , _Library and Epitome_, 1.9.11. circa 150 BC.
    trans. Sir James George Frazer, 1913.

“A snake, with mottles rare,
 Surveyed my chamber floor,
 In feature as the worm before,
 But ringed with power.”
    -Emily Dickinson, “In Winter In My Room”. circa 1860.
%%%%
__cap-T_suffix

“Buckshank bold and Elfinstone,
 And more than I can mention here,
 They caused to be built so stout a ship,
 And unto Iceland they would steer.

 They launched the ship upon the main,
 Which bellowed like a wrathful bear;
 Down to the bottom the vessel sank,
 A laidly Trold has dragged it there.”
    -George Borrow, _Lavengro: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest_. 1851.
########################################
#
# Non-unique monsters
#
########################################

%%%%
adder

ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays
to the other expenses of living.
    -Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_, 1906.
%%%%
alderking

““My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
 Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last.”

 The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
 He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
 He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,
 The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.”
    -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, _Erlkönig_, 1782.
    trans. Edgar Alfred Bowring, 1853.
%%%%
alligator

“Alligators commit errors of diet.”
    -Bennet Bowler, M.D., _Contributions to the Natural History of the
     Alligator, (Crocodilus Mississipiensis), with a Microscopic Addendum_,
     p. 17. 1846.
%%%%
apocalypse crab

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws
 scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
    -T.S. Eliot, _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_. 1915.
%%%%
arcanist

<occultist>
%%%%
basilisk

“Be thou like the imperial Basilisk
 Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!
 Gaze on Oppression, till at that dread risk
 Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk:
 Fear not, but gaze—for freemen mightier grow,
 And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe:—
 If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail,
 Thou shalt be great—All hail!”
    -Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”. 1824.
%%%%
bat

“The sun was set; the night came on apace,
 And falling dews bewet around the place;
 The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings,
 And the hoarse owl his woeful dirges sings.”
    -John Gay, Shepherd's Week, Wednesday; or, The Dumps.

“Ere the bat hath flown
 His cloister'd flight.”
    -William Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, III, 2, line 40. 1605.
%%%%
battlesphere

“I'm your only friend
 I'm not your only friend
 But I'm a little glowing friend
 But really I'm not actually your friend
 But I am”
    -They Might Be Giants, “Birdhouse in Your Soul”. 1989.
%%%%
bes kemwar

# would prefer a more prose-like passage translating Teoh's Bes Hyang Dney or
# Werner's Jah-hět of Malaysia, Art and Culture, but until then:
“The Bès Kěmwar, “maggot spirit”, is one of the many _bès_ or disease spirits
 known to the Jah Hut of Malaysia. A polyvalent spirit, it is depicted as a
 maggot or caterpillar, with variants distinguished by hair, thorns, wings, and
 other details. It eats rice, vegetables, and other crops. It is responsible for
 aches in bones, joints, and muscles. If its caterpillar hair falls into water
 and that water is drunk, it causes coughing and bleeding in the throat. Maggot
 spirits are also known to live in rotten tree trunks and feed in them. Anyone
 who approaches the fallen tree will be bitten in the leg by the spirit, causing
 redness, swelling, and itching. All the toenails fall off but the swelling will
 be gone by two or three months.”
    - _A Book of Creatures_, 2020.
%%%%
boggart

“He thinks every bush a boggart.”
    -John Ray, _A Compleat Collection of English Proverbs_. 1768.

“A BOGGART intruded himself, upon what pretext or by what authority is unknown,
 into the house of a quiet, inoffensive, and laborious farmer; and, when once
 it had taken possession it disputed the right of domicile with the legal
 mortal tenant, in a very unneighbourly and arbitrary manner. In particular, it
 seemed to have a great aversion to children. As there is no point on which a
 parent feels more acutely than that of the maltreatment of his offspring, the
 feelings of the father and more particularly of his good dame, were daily, ay,
 and nightly, harrowed up by the malice of this malignant and invisible
 boggart.”
    -C.J.T., _Folk-lore and Legends: English_  1890.
%%%%
bullfrog

“Hello, my baby
 Hello, my honey
 Hello, my ragtime gal

 Send me a kiss by wire
 Baby, my hearts on fire

 If you refuse me
 Honey, you'll lose me
 Then you'll be left alone

 Oh baby, telephone
 And tell me I'm your own.”
    -Ida Emerson and Joseph E. Howard, “Hello My Baby!”
%%%%
bush

“And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the
 midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and
 the bush was not consumed.”
    -KJV Bible, Exodus 3:2.
%%%%
butterfly

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your
 grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
    -Nathaniel Hawthorne
%%%%
cacodemon

“We'll call him Cacodemon, with his black Gib there, his Succuba, his Devil's
 Seed, his Spawn of Phlegethon, that o’ my Consience was bred o’ the Spume of
 Cocytus.”
    -John Fletcher, _The Knight of Malta_. 1647.
%%%%
catoblepas

“So passed he over into the island, taking with him the two brothers of
 Anaxius; where he found the forsaken knight attired in his own livery, as
 black as sorrow itself could see itself in the blackest glass: his ornaments
 of the same hue, but formd into the figures of ravens which seemed to gape for
 carrion: only his reins were snakes, which finely wrapping themselves one
 within the other, their heads came together to the cheeks and bosses of the
 bit, where they might seem to bite at the horse, and the horse, as he champed
 the bit, to bite at them, and that the white foam was engendered by the
 poisonous fury of the combat. His impresa was a Catoblepta, which so long lies
 dead as the moon (whereto it hath so natural a sympathy) wants her light. The
 word signified, that the moon wanted not the light, but the poor beast wanted
 the moon's light.”
    -Sir Philip Sidney
%%%%
cherub

“The glory of Yahweh mounted up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold
 of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full
 of the brightness of Yahweh's glory.

 The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as
 the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.”
    -WEB Bible, Ezekiel 10:4-5
%%%%
chonchon

# would prefer a more prose-like passage translating Aguirre's Mitos De Chile or
# Coluccio's Diccionario Folklórico Argentino, but until then:
“In its simplest form it is a bird of the night, an owl (_Strix rufipes_) that
 flies on silent wings during the night to announce illness, death, or some
 other unwelcome event. When its croaking is heard it is advised to throw ash
 into the air and utter a few prayers in the hopes of turning away its evil.

 The chonchón is also said to be a _calcu_ or evil sorcerer in disguise. It
 resemble a human head, with oversized wing-like ears that allow it to fly.
 During the night, these sorcerers’ heads detach themselves from their bodies
 and fly around to cause mischief, invisible to most, their ominous _tué, tué,
 tué_ call announcing misfortune. They have the same powers as sorcerers do,
 and have been known to suck the blood of sleepers.”
    - _A Book of Creatures_, 2015.
%%%%
crimson imp

“The Devil, too, sometimes steals human children; it is not infrequent for him
 to carry away infants within the first six weeks after birth, and to
 substitute in their place imps.”
    -Martin Luther
%%%%
crocodile

“How doth the little crocodile
  Improve his shining tail,
 And pour the waters of the Nile
  On every golden scale!

 How cheerfully he seems to grin,
  How neatly spreads his claws,
 And welcomes little fishes in
  With gently smiling jaws!”
    -Lewis Carroll, _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, 1865.
%%%%
curse skull

“Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear,
 To dig the dust enclosed here.
 Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
 And cursed be he that moves my bones.”
    -Epitaph on William Shakespeare's grave
%%%%
daeva

“Between these twain the Daevas also chose not aright, for infatuation came
 upon them as they took counsel together, so that they chose the Worst Thought.
 Then they rushed together to Violence, that they might enfeeble the world of
 men.”
    -the Avesta, Yasna XXX, 6, Ahunavaiti Gatha.
    trans. Christian Bartholomae, 1951.
%%%%
demonspawn soul scholar

“Xinchub: At least you're conceding that I've got a soul.
   Petey: Yes, but it is battered, twisted, and drenched in the blood of the
          innocent.
 Xinchub: Mmm... yeah.
   Petey: When you stop being pleased by that we'll know you're making
          progress.”
    -Howard Tayler, _Schlock Mercenary_. February 8, 2008.
%%%%
diamond obelisk

“As one example of the meanings inherent in a form, let us examine a particular
 form of vertical stone marker, variously called stele, obelisk, standing-stone,
 and memorial column. These have been historically and commonly used to
 commemorate honored phenomena. So, when a people wish to remember an important
 relationship, event or personage, a location is dedicated to it and often
 marked with an enduring and aspiring vertical form or sets of them. In natural
 language, a vertical stone means: an aspiring connector between us (on earth)
 and an ideal (up there); that we ‘stand up’ with pride about this honored
 phenomenon. The marker is a symbolic inhabitation of the place it occupies. Its
 size and workmanship is a sacrifice of much work and resources to a memory. It
 is a strong suggestion (because we left it to them and it is of durable
 material) that future people also give honor to the memorialized phenomenon.
 When we use this particular physical form of the vertical marker, both its
 historic use as an honorific and its meanings in natural language may well send
 a message that this is an honored place, a place about a ‘good’ both in our
 culture and in the culture of future observers.”
    -“Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the
      Waste Isolation Pilot Plant”, Sandia National Laboratories report. 1993
%%%%
oblivion hound

“Standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a
 great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever
 mortal eye has rested upon. And even as they looked the thing tore the throat
 out of Hugo Baskerville...”
    -Arthur Conan Doyle, _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. 1902.
%%%%
dream sheep

“How undisturbed, the sleep of the foolish.”
    -Philip K. Dick
%%%%
dryad

 • Roy Quixote: Wait, what's my beef with clean energy again?
 — Durkon Pansa: Dunno, but if'n ye prefer, I know a grove o'peach trees tha've
   been gettin' fresh wit tha locals.
    -Rich Burlew, “Haleo and Julean”
%%%%
efreet

“When the hoopoe returned to Solomon (he told him the news), and he responded
 (to Sheba's people): “Are you giving me money? What GOD has given me is far
 better than what He has given you. You are the ones to rejoice in such gifts.”
 (To the hoopoe, he said), “Go back to them (and let them know that) we will
 come to them with forces they cannot imagine. We will evict them, humiliated
 and debased.” He said, “O you elders, which of you can bring me her mansion,
 before they arrive here as submitters?” One afrit from the jinns said, “I can
 bring it to you before you stand up. I am powerful enough to do this.”
    -The Quran, Sura 27 Al-Naml
%%%%
eidolon

“No sooner had sleep caught him, dissolving all his grief
 as mists of refreshing slumber poured around him there—
 his powerful frame was bone-weary from charging Hector
 straight and hard to the walls of windswept Troy—
 than the ghost of stricken Patroclus drifted up...
 He was like the man to the life, every feature,
 the same tall build and the fine eyes and voice
 and the very robes that used to clothe his body.
 Hovering at his head the phantom rose and spoke:
 ‘Sleeping, Achilles? You’ve forgotten me, my friend.
 You never neglected me in life, only now in death.
 Bury me, quickly—let me pass the Gates of Hades.
 They hold me off at a distance, all the souls,
 the shades of the burnt-out, breathless dead,
 never to let me cross the river, mingle with them...
 They leave me to wander up and down, abandoned, lost
 at the House of Death with the all-embracing gates.’”
    -Homer, _The Iliad_, XXIII, 72-88.
     trans. Robert Fagles, 1990.
%%%%
electric golem

“I sing the Body electric”
    -Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric”, _Leaves of Grass_. 1867.
%%%%
elephant

“And the King went to where the blind men were, and drawing near said to them:
 ‘Do you now know what an elephant is like?’
 ‘Assuredly, Lord: we now know what an elephant is like.’
 ‘Tell me then, O blind men, what an elephant is like.’
 And those blind men, O Bhikkhus, who had felt the head of the elephant, said:
 ‘An elephant, Sir, is like a large round jar.
 Those who had felt its ears, said: 'it is like a winnowing basket.’
 Those who had felt its tusks, said: ‘it is like a plough-share.’
 Those who had felt its trunk, said: ‘it is like a plough.’
 Those who had felt its body, said: ‘it is like a granary.’
 Those who had felt its feet, said: ‘it is like a pillar.’
 Those who had felt its back, said: ‘it is like a mortar.’
 Those who had felt its tail, said: ‘it is a like a pestle.’
 Those who had felt the tuft of its tail, said: ‘it is like a broom.’
 And they all fought amongst themselves with their fists, declaring, ‘such is
 an elephant, such is not elephant, an elephant is not like that, it is like
 this.’”
 And the King, O Bhikkhus, was highly delighted.
    -_Udāna_, VI “Jaccandhavagga”. ca. 5th cent. B.C.
     trans. Dawsonne Melanchthon Strong, 1902.
%%%%
emperor scorpion

“Portents had occurred indicating [Titus Flavius Vespasianus'] approaching end,
 such as the comet which was visible for a long time and the opening of the
 mausoleum of Augustus of its own accord. When his physicians chided him for
 continuing his usual course of living during his illness and attending to all
 the duties that belonged to his office, he answered: ‘The emperor ought to die
 on his feet.’”
    -Cassius Dio, _Roman History_, LXVI, xvii, 2. 222 A.D.
     trans. Earnest Cary, 1925.
%%%%
endoplasm

“Sea horses floundering in the slimy mud,
 Tossed up their heads, and dashed the ooze about them.”
    -John Dryden. _All For Love_, I, i, 15-17. 1678.
%%%%
entropy weaver

“SEE! warp is stretched
 For warrior’s fall;
 Lo, weft in loom,
 ’Tis wet with blood;
 Now, fight foreboding,
 ’Neath friends’ swift fingers
 Our gray woof waxeth
 With war’s alarms,
 Our warp blood-red,
 Our weft corse-blue.

 This woof is y-woven
 With entrails of men;
 This warp is hard weighted
 With heads of the slain;
 Spears blood-besprinkled
 For spindles we use,
 Our loom iron-bound,
 And arrows our reels;
 With swords for our shuttles
 This war-woof we work;
 So weave we, weird sisters,
 Our war-winning woof.

 Now war-winner walketh
 To weave in her turn,
 Now Sword-swinger steppeth,
 Now Swift-stroke, now Storm;
 When they speed the shuttle
 How spear-heads shall flash!
 Shields crash, and helm-gnawer
 On harness bite hard!”
    -_The Story of Burnt Njal_, trans. George Dasent. 1861
%%%%
ettin

“But he had not been long in his hiding-hole, before the awful Ettin came in;
 and no sooner was he in, than he was heard crying:
 ‘Snouk but and snouk ben,
  I find the smell of an earthly man,
  Be he living, or be he dead,
  His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.’”
    -Joseph Jacobs, _The Red Ettin_
%%%%
Executioner

“Behold the Lord High Executioner
 A personage of noble rank and title —
 A dignified and potent officer
 Whose functions are particularly vital!
 Defer, defer
 To the Lord High Executioner!
 Defer, defer
 To the noble Lord, to the noble Lord
 To the Lord High Executioner!”
    -Gilbert and Sullivan, “Behold the Lord High Executioner”,
      _The Mikado_. 1885
%%%%
fenstrider witch

“All the infections that sun sucks up
 From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
 By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me
 And yet I needs must curse.”
    -William Shakespeare, _The Tempest_, II, 2. 1611.
%%%%
fire crab

“The planet brought forth scintillating jewelled scuttling crabs, which the
 Vogons ate, smashing their shells with iron mallets; tall aspiring trees with
 breathtaking slenderness and colour which the Vogons cut down and burned the
 crab meat with; elegant gazellelike creatures with silken coats and dewy eyes
 which the Vogons would catch and sit on.”
    -Douglas Adams, _The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy_. 1979.
%%%%
flayed ghost

“Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.”
    -Christopher Marlowe, _Doctor Faustus_. 1604
%%%%
formless jellyfish

“From this story it is evident that in former times the jellyfish once had a
shell and bones something like a tortoise, but, ever since the Dragon King's
sentence was carried out on the ancestor of the jelly fishes, his descendants
have all been soft and boneless just as you see them to-day thrown up by the
waves high upon the shores of Japan.”
    -“The Jellyfish and the Monkey”, adapted by Yei Theodora Ozaki, _Young
     Folk's Treasury_, vol. II. 1909.
%%%%
ghost moth

“Always in focus
 You can't feel my stare.
 I zoom into you
 You don't know I'm there.”
    -Judas Priest, “Electric Eye”. 1982.
%%%%
ghoul

“In the desert
 I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
 Who, squatting upon the ground,
 Held his heart in his hands,
 And ate of it.
 I said, ‘Is it good, friend?’
 ‘It is bitter — bitter’, he answered,
 ‘But I like it
 Because it is bitter,
 And because it is my heart.’”
    -Stephen Crane, _The Black Riders and Other Lines_. 1895.
%%%%
glass eye

“El ojo que ves
 no es ojo porque tú lo veas,
 es ojo porque te ve.”
    -Antonio Machado, Campos de Castilla. 1912-1917.
%%%%
gnoll

“Then he descended softly and beckoned to Nuth. But the gnoles had watched him
 through knavish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees, and the unearthly
 silence gave way, as it were with a grace, to the rapid screams of Tonker as
 they picked him up from behind — screams that came faster and faster until
 they were incoherent. And where they took him it is not good to ask, and what
 they did with him I shall not say.”
    -Lord Dunsany, “How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles”.
1912.
%%%%
goblin

“Swish, smack! Whip crack!
 Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
 Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
 While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
 Round and round far underground
 Below, my lad!”
    -J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Hobbit_
%%%%
golden dragon

“You do not come dramatically, with dragons
 That rear up with my life between their paws
 And dash me butchered down beside the wagons”
    -Philip Larkin, “To Failure”. 1949.
%%%%
golden eye

“No coveting nor envy burns
   In thy bright golden eye,
 That calm and innocently turns
   On all below the sky.”
    -Hannah Flagg Gould, _The Youth's Coronal_
%%%%
guardian golem

“‘Listen Reb _Golem_,’ the old man said, wagging his finger. ‘Pay attention to
  what I say—you understand?’
 ‘Understand...’
 ‘If you want to stay here, you got to do like Mr. Gumbeiner says.’
 ‘Do-like-Mr.-Gumbeiner-says...’
 ‘_That's_ the way I like to hear a golem talk. Malka, give here the mirror
  from the pocketbook. Look, you see your face? You see on the forehead, what's
  written? If you don't do like Mr. Gumbeiner says, he'll wipe out what's
  written and you'll be no more alive.’
 ‘No-more-alive...’
 ‘_That's_ right. Now, listen. Under the porch you'll find a lawnmower. Take
  it. And cut the lawn. Then come back. Go.’”
    -Avram Davidson, “The Golem”, 1955.
%%%%
guardian sphinx

“The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
 When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
 Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
 A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
 A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
 Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
 Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.”
    -W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming". 1920.
%%%%
harpy

“Bird-bodied, girl-faced things they are; abominable their droppings, their
 hands are talons, their faces haggard with hunger insatiable.”
    -Virgil, Aeneid 3

“And Phineus had scarcely taken the first morsel up when, with as little
 warning as a whirlwind or a lightning flash, they dropped from the clouds
 proclaiming their desire for food with raucous cries. The young lords saw them
 coming and raised the alarm. Yet they had hardly done so before the Harpyiai
 had devoured the whole meal and were on the wing once more, far out at sea.
 All they left was an intolerable stench.”
    -Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2. 179 — 434
%%%%
hell hound

“About her middle round
 A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked
 With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
 A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
 If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,
 And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled
 Within unseen.”
    -John Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book II, 1667.
%%%%
hell knight

“Ok, let's review. It's up to the fair young maiden to rescue the dragon from
 the fire breathing knights in shining armour.”
    -Exiern
%%%%
hobgoblin

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
 statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
    -Ralph Waldo Emerson, _Essays: First Series_, Essay II: Self-Reliance.
     1841.
%%%%
hog

“Fern came slowly down the stairs. Her eyes were red from crying. As she
 approached her chair, the carton wobbled, and there was a scratching noise.
 Fern looked at her father. Then she lifted the lid of the carton. There,
 inside, looking up at her, was the newborn pig. It was a white one. The
 morning light shone through its ears, turning them pink. “He's yours,” said
 Mr. Arable.  “Saved from an untimely death. And may the good Lord forgive me
 for this foolishness.”
    -E.B. White, _Charlotte's Web_
%%%%
hound

“A traveller, by the faithful hound, Half-buried in the snow was found, Still
 grasping in his hand of ice That banner with the strange device, Excelsior!”
    -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Excelsior”
%%%%
human

“Do you know
 Do I know
 What's this thing called ‘man’?
 God only knows what a man is!
 I only know his price.”
    -Bertolt Brecht, “The Measures Taken”. 1930.
%%%%
iguana

“Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was
 born an iguana. When he grew up he dwelt in a big burrow in the river bank
 with a following of many hundreds of other iguanas. Now the Bodhisatta had a
 son, a young iguana, who was great friends with a chameleon, whom he used to
 clip and embrace. This intimacy being reported to the iguana king, he sent for
 his young son and said that such friendship was misplaced, for chameleons were
 low creatures, and that if the intimacy was persisted in, calamity would
 befall the whole of the tribe of iguanas. And he enjoined his son to have no
 more to do with the chameleon. But the son continued in his intimacy.”
    -_Khuddaka Nikāya_, Jātaka 141 “Godha-jātaka”. ca. 4th cent. B.C.
     trans. Robert Chalmers, 1895.
%%%%
jackal

“Always ready to take advantage of every favourable opportunity, the Jackal is
 a sad parasite, and hangs on the skirts of the larger carnivora as they roam
 the country for prey, in the hope of securing some share of the creatures
 which they destroy or wound.”
    -John George Wood, _The Illustrated Natural History: Mammalia_. 1865.
%%%%
jelly

“Beware of the Blob!
 It creeps
 And leaps
 and glides and slides
 Across the floor
 Right through the door
 And all around the wall,
 A splotch, a blotch...”
    -Burt Bacharach and Mack David, “Beware of the Blob”. 1958.
%%%%
Killer Klown

“All the world loves a clown.”
    -Cole Porter, “Be a Clown”. 1948.
%%%%
kobold

“Kobolds are harmless.”
    -Bearand the Bold, epitaph (Magic: the Gathering)
%%%%
komodo dragon

“The three of us were sitting ashen faced as if we had just witnessed a foul
 and malignant murder. At least if we had been watching a murder the murderer
 wouldn't have been looking us impassively in the eye as he did it. Maybe it
 was the feeling of cold unflinching arrogance that so disturbed us. But
 whatever malign emotions we tried to pin on to the lizard, we knew that they
 weren't the lizard's emotions at all, only ours. The lizard was simply going
 about its lizardly business in a simple, straightforward lizardly way. It
 didn't know anything about the horror, the guilt, the shame, the ugliness that
 we, uniquely guilty and ashamed animals, were trying to foist on it. So we got
 it all straight back at us, as if reflected in the mirror of its single
 unwavering and disinterested eye.”
    -Douglas Adams, “Last Chance to See”. 1990.
%%%%
kraken

“... Kraken, also called the Crab-fish, which [according to the pilots of
 Norway] is not that huge, for heads and tails counted, he is no larger than
 our Öland is wide [i.e. less than 16 km] ... He stays at the sea floor,
 constantly surrounded by innumerable small fishes, who serve as his food and
 are fed by him in return: for his meal, if I remember correctly what E.
 Pontoppidan writes, lasts no longer than three months, and another three are
 then needed to digest it. His excrements nurture in the following an army of
 lesser fish, and for this reason, fishermen plumb after his resting place ...
 Gradually, Kraken ascends to the surface, and when he is at ten to twelve
 fathoms, the boats had better move out of his vicinity, as he will shortly
 thereafter burst up, like a floating island, spurting water from his dreadful
 nostrils and making ring waves around him, which can reach many miles. Could
 one doubt that this is the Leviathan of Job?”
    -Jacob Wallenberg, “Min son på galejan”. 1781.
%%%%
large abomination

<small abomination>
%%%%
lindwurm

“Freilich verbürgt uns keine Silbe die Existenz von solcherlei Thieren, wenn
 wir uns den Drachen oder Lindwurm als ein Ungeheuer vorstellen, dessen langer
 Hals in einen Adler-, Löwen- oder Delphinenkopf endigt; das auf dem breiten
 Rücken Greifs- oder Nachisittige trägt; und am vielfach
 gerollten Schweif einen Stachel mit Widerhaken hat; Feuer speit; sich in
 Mädchen verliebt und diese entführt; bald diese bald jene Gestalt annimmt; auf
 sauer erworbenen Schatzen ruht — kurz, als ein Ungeheuer, das alle
 Eigenschaften besitzt, welche die Fabel ihm andichtet; dann wäre es Wahnsinn,
 an Drachen und Lindwürmer glauben zu wollen. Nehmen wir aber dafür bloß ein
 furchtbares Ungeheuer überhaupt, welches nun aus unserem Welttheile vertilgt
 ist, so hat der Glaube daran nichts Lächerliches.”
    -Leopold Ziegelhauſer, _Schattenbilder der Vorzeit: Ein Kranz von
     Geschichten, Sagen, Legenden, Märchen, Skizzen und Heldenmahlen, Aus allen
     Gegenden Deutschlands und des österreichischen Kaiserstaates_. 1844.
%%%%
lost soul

“She walks in the twilight, her steps make no sound,
  Her feet leave no tracks on the dew-covered ground.
 Her hand gently beckons, she whispers your name—
  But those who go with her are never the same.”
    -Magic: the Gathering
%%%%
manticore

“Ctesias writeth, that in Aethiopia likewise there is a beast which he calleth
 Mantichora, having three rankes of teeth, which when they meet togither are
 let in one within another like the teeth of combes: with the face and eares of
 a man, with red eyes; of colour sanguine, bodied like a lyon, and having a
 taile armed with a sting like a scorpion: his voice resembleth the noise of a
 flute and trumpet sounded together: very swift he is, and mans flesh of all
 others hee most desireth.”
    -Pliny the Elder, _Natural History_, Book 8, Chapter XXI
%%%%
meliai

“And Heaven came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth
 spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth
 his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth,
 and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall
 behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody
 drops that gushed forth Earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bare
 the strong Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long
 spears in their hands, and the Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the
 boundless earth.”
    -Hesiod, _Theogony_, 182-187, trans. H.G. Evelyn-White. 1920
%%%%
merfolk

“Again at length my thought reviving came,
 When I no longer found my self the same;
 Then first this sea-green beard I felt to grow,
 And these large honours on my spreading brow;
 My long-descending locks the billows sweep,
 And my broad shoulders cleave the yielding deep;
 My fishy tail, my arms of azure hue,
 And ev'ry part divinely chang'd, I view.”
    -Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, XIII, 546-7. 8 A.D.
     trans. Garth, Dryden, et al.
%%%%
merfolk aquamancer

“Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
 What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
 What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
 Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
 Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
 Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
 Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
 All scattered in the bottom of the sea:
 Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes
 Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
 As ’t were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems.”
    -William Shakespeare, _King Richard III_, I, iv. 1597
%%%%
merfolk avatar

“Then up it raise the mermaiden,
 Wi the comb an glass in her hand:
 ‘Here's a health to you, my merrie young men,
 For you never will see dry land.’”
    -“Sir Patrick Spens”, Scottish folk song, version 58J in Francis James
     Child, _The English and Scottish Popular Ballads_. 1898.
%%%%
merfolk impaler

“Damn ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead, Winslow! HAAARK! Hark Triton, hark!
 Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury!
 Black waves teeming with salt-foam to smother this young mouth with pungent
 slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs ‘til ye turn blue and bloated with
 bilge and brine and can scream no more -- only when he, crowned in cockle
 shells with slitherin’ tentacled tail and steaming beard take up his fell
 be-finnéd arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and
 plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye -- a bulging bladder no more, but
 a blasted bloody film now -- a nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead
 sailors to peck and claw and feed upon, only to be lapped up and swallowed by
 the infinite waters of the dread emperor himself -- forgotten to any man, to
 any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any
 stuff or part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more,
 but is now itself the sea!”
    -Thomas Wake, _The Lighthouse_. 2019
%%%%
merfolk javelineer

<merfolk>
%%%%
merfolk siren

“Row'd on, in reach of an erected voice,
 The Sirens soon took note, without our noise,
 Tuned those sweet accents that made charms so strong,
 And these learn'd numbers made the Sirens' song:
 ‘Come here, thou worthy of a world of praise,
 That dost so high the Grecian glory raise,
 Ulysses! stay thy ship, and that song hear
 That none past ever but it bent his ear,
 But left him ravish'd, and instructed more
 By us, than any ever heard before.
 For we know all things whatsoever were
 In wide Troy labour'd; whatsoever there
 The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain'd
 By those high issues that the Gods ordain'd.
 And whatsoever all the earth can show
 T' inform a knowledge of desert, we know.’”
    -Homer, _The Odyssey_, XII, 268-82.
     trans. George Chapman, 1857.
%%%%
molten gargoyle

<war gargoyle>
%%%%
moth of wrath

“When within sight of their foe Berserks wrought themselves into such a state
 of frenzy, that they bit their shields and rushed forward to the attack,
 throwing away their arms of defence, reckless of every danger, sometimes
 having nothing but a club, which carried with it death and destruction.”
    -Paul Belloni Du Chaillu,_The Viking Age: the Early History, Manners, and
     Customs of the Ancestors of the English Speaking Nations_. 1889.
%%%%
mummy

“I see Egypt and the Egyptians — I see the pyramids and obelisks;
 I look on chisel'd histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs
     of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks;
 I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalm'd, swathed
     in linen cloth, lying there many centuries;
 I look on the fall'n Theban, the large-ball'd eyes, the side-drooping
     neck, the hands folded across the breast.”
    -Walt Whitman, “Salut au Monde”
%%%%
naga

“Amongst the deities and Asuras and celestial Rishis, O amiable lady, the Nagas
 are endued with great energy. Possessed of great speed, they are endued again
 with excellent fragrance. They deserve to be worshipped. They are capable of
 granting boons. Indeed, we too deserve to be followed by others in our train.
 I tell thee, O lady, that we are incapable of being seen by human beings.”
    -Mahābhārata, Santi Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, section CCCLX. ca. 500 B.C.
     trans. Kisari Mohan Ganguli, 1883.
%%%%
naga mage

<naga>
%%%%
nagaraja

“Then there have also come
 nagas from Lake Nabhasa,
 Vesali, and Tacchaka.
 Kambalas, Assataras,
 Payagas, and their kin.
 And from the River Yamuna
 comes the prestigious naga, Dhatarattha.
 The great naga Eravanna:
 He, too, has come
 to the forest meeting.”
    -Mahasamaya Sutta, _Dīgha Nikāya_, 20. ca. 500 B.C.
     trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu
%%%%
naga warrior

<naga>
%%%%
nameless horror

“Then the sallow oval between Ged's arms grew bright. It widened and spread, a
 rent in the darkness of the earth and night, a ripping open of the fabric of
 the world. Through it blazed a terrible brightness. And through that bright
 misshapen breach clambered something like a clot of black shadow, quick and
 hideous, and it leaped straight out at Ged's face.”
    -Ursula K. Le Guin, _A Wizard Of Earthsea_. 1968.
%%%%
necromancer

“Even now the intensity of his dread power can be felt
 Weakening the body and saddening the heart
 Ultimately they will become empty, mindless spectres
 Stripped of will and soul
 Only their thirst for freedom
 Gives them hunger for vengeance...”
    -Rush, “The Necromancer”. 1975.
%%%%
nekomata

“Humans, eh? Think they’re lords of creation. Not like us cats. We _know_ we
 are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.”
    -Terry Pratchett, “The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents”. 2001.
%%%%
neqoxec

“If thus mutation is influenced by natural selection, it implies, that any
 particular mutation must advance in a direction advantageous for the
 respective species, and, indeed, many examples of mutation known among fossil
 animals are apparently due to the advantage produced by the change. I must add
 here, however that probably not all mutations (in a palaeontological meaning)
 are due to natural selection, but that many do not imply an actual
 improvement.”
    -_Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society_, Volume XXV, no. 150.
     1896.
%%%%
occultist

“Each family or tribe has a wizard or conjuring doctor, whose office we could
 never clearly ascertain.”
    -Charles Darwin, _The Voyage of the Beagle_, ch. X. 1839.
%%%%
octopode

“In their brief time together Slothrop forms the impression that this octopus
 is not in good mental health, though where's his basis for comparing? But
 there is a mad exhuberance, as with inanimate objects which fall off of tables
 when we are sensitive to noise and our own clumsiness and don't want them to
 fall, a sort of wham! ha-ha you hear that? here it is again, WHAM! in the
 cephalopod's every movement, which Slothrop is glad to get away from as he
 finally scales the crab like a discus, with all his strength, out to sea, and
 the octopus, with an eager splash and gurgle, strikes out in pursuit, and is
 presently gone.”
    -Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_. 1973.
%%%%
ogre

“The little princess, asleep in her cradle, floated on the water, and at last
 she was cast up on the shore of a beautiful country, where, however, very few
 people dwelt since the ogre Ravagio and his wife Tourmentine had gone to live
 there-for they ate up everybody. Ogres are terrible people. When once they
 have tasted raw human flesh they will hardly eat anything else, and
 Tourmentine always knew how to make some body come their way, for she was half
 a fairy.”
    -Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d'Aulnoy, “'Orangier et
l'Abeille”. 1697.

“NO. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get
 it? We both have layers.”
    -Shrek. 2001.
%%%%
ogre mage

<ogre>
%%%%
oklob plant

“Carbonic acid is one of the three materials which together form the starting
 point of vegetable growth; the others being water and nitric acid. This acid is
 formed of carbon and oxygen in the proportion of one part of the former to
 two of the latter chemically combined. It is a colorless gas, having an acid
 taste and smell; is soluble in water; weighs one-half more than air and can be
 poured from one vessel to another, as a liquid may be; 100 parts of water
 dissolve 106 parts of this gas, and it is from this source that the roots of
 plants derive the needed supplies of it.”
    -Henry Stuart, _The Culture of Farm Crops: A Manual of the Science of
    Agriculture, and a Hand-book of Practice for American Farmers_, ch X. 1887.
%%%%
oklob sapling

<oklob plant>
%%%%
oni incarcerator

“The popularity and longevity of the oni myth is no doubt partially based on
 the beings’ conventional demonic accoutrements, which have remained
 relatively constant through the ages: they are dreadful super-natural
 beings emerging from the abyss of Buddhist hell to terrify wicked mortals;
 their grotesque and savage demeanor and form instill instant fear; and the
 oni’s omnipresence in the socio-historical and cultural archive of Japan is
 directly attributable to the moral, social, and religious edification that
 stories about oni engender.”
    -Noriko T. Reider, _Japanese Demon Lore: Oni from Ancient Times to the
     Present_, ch. 1, 2010.
%%%%
ophan

“As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside
 each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure
 of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike.
 Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they
 moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced;
 the wheels did not turn about as the creatures went. Their rims were
 high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.”
    -Ezekiel 1:15-18 (New International Version)
%%%%
orange demon

“In Sparkill buried lies that man of mark
 Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park,
 Redoubtable Commander H.H. Gorringe,
 Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for ‘orange.’”
    -Arthur Guiterman, “Local Note”. 1934.
%%%%
Orb Guardian

“X gon' give it to ya (what)
 Fuck waitin' for you to get it on your own, X gon' deliver to ya
 Knock knock, open up the door, it's real
 With the non-stop pop-pop from stainless steel
 [...]
 First we gonna rock, then we gonna roll
 Then we let it pop, go, let it go
 X gon' give it to ya, he gon' give it to ya
 X gon' give it to ya, he gon' give it to ya
    -DMX, “X Gon' Give It To Ya”. 2002
%%%%
orb of fire

“There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
 But in his motion like an angel sings,
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.”
    -William Shakespeare, _The Merchant of Venice_, V, i. 1597.
%%%%
pandemonium lord

“Mean while the winged heralds by command
 Of Sovran power, with awful Ceremony
 And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim
 A solemn Councel forthwith to be held
 At Pandaemonium, the high Capital
 Of Satan and his Peers...”
    -John Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book I, 1667.
%%%%
phantom

“Who wondrous things concerning our welfare, And straunge phantomes doth lett
 us ofte foresee.”
    -Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_ II. xii. 47
%%%%
pillar of salt

“Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the
 LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all
 the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But
 [Lot's] wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.”
    -KJV Bible, Genesis 19:24-26.
%%%%
player ghost

“Know thyself.”
    -Inscription in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
%%%%
polar bear

“The Polar Bear is an animal of tremendous strength and fierceness. Barentz, in
 his voyage in search of a north-east passage to China, had proofs of the
 ferocity of these animals, in the island of Nova Zembla, where they attacked
 his seamen, seizing them in their mouths; carrying them off with the utmost
 ease, and devouring them in the sight of their comrades. It is said that they
 will attack and attempt to board armed vessels, at a great distance from
 shore, and have sometimes been with much difficulty repelled.”
    -George Shaw, _General Zoology, or, Systematic Natural History_, vol. I,
     p. 2. 1800.
%%%%
profane servitor

“A spell was cast and the sky turned red
 The angel's heart froze to ice
 In the gloomy sky black clouds were gathering
 The silence was broken by cries
 A spell was cast and the sky turned red
 The angel's heart froze to ice
 In the gloomy sky — The silence where dead angels lie

 Touch the snow... Caress the lifeless sculptures
 Die!!!”
    -Dissection, “Where Dead Angels Lie”. 1996.
%%%%
program bug

“If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first
 woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.”
    -Gerald Weinberg, Weinberg's Second Law
%%%%
protean progenitor

“I call upon Proteus,
 key-holding master of the sea,
 first-born, who showed
 the beginnings of all nature,
 changing matter
 into a great variety of forms.
 Honored by all, he is wise,
 and he knows what is now,
 what was before,
 and what will be in the future.
 He has all at his disposal,
 transformed far beyond
 all other immortals
 who dwell on snowy Olympos
 and fly through the air
 and over land and sea,
 for Physis was the first to place
 everything in Proteus.
 Father, attended by holy providence,
 visit the mystic initiates,
 and bring a good end to a life
 of industry and prosperity.”
    -_The Orphic Hymns_, XXV.
     trans. Apostolos N. Athanassakis and Benjamin M. Wolkow, 2013.
%%%%
rakshasa

“Vaisampayana said, 'Not far from the place where the Pandavas were asleep, a
 Rakshasa by name Hidimva dwelt on the Sala tree. Possessed of great energy and
 prowess, he was a cruel cannibal of visage that was grim in consequence of his
 sharp and long teeth. He was now hungry and longing for human flesh. Of long
 shanks and a large belly, his locks and beard were both red in hue. His
 shoulders were broad like the neck of a tree; his ears were like unto arrows,
 and his features were frightful.”
    -_Mahābhārata_, Adi Parva, Hidimva-vadha Parva, section CLIV. ca. 500 B.C.
     trans. Kisari Mohan Ganguli, 1883.
%%%%
raven

“The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was ‘Why
is a raven like a writing-desk?’”
    -Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
%%%%
reaper

“All our times have come.
 Here but now they're gone.
 Seasons don't fear the reaper,
 Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain.
 We can be like they are.
 Come on baby, don't fear the reaper.”

    -Buck Dharma, Blue Öyster Cult, “(Don't Fear) The Reaper”. 1976.
%%%%
ribbon worm

“While the angels, all pallid and wan,
   Uprising, unveiling, affirm
 That the play is the tragedy, ‘Man’,
   And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.”
    -Edgar Allan Poe
%%%%
royal mummy

<mummy>
%%%%
salamander

“As for example: the Salamander made in fashion of a Lizard, marked with spots
 like to stars, never comes abroad and sheweth it selfe but in great showers;
 for in faire weather he is not seene. He is of so cold a complexion, that if
 hee do but touch the fire, hee wil quench it as presently, as if yce were put
 into it. The Salamander casteth up at the mouth a certaine venomous matter
 like unto milke, let it but once touch any bare part of a man or womans bodie,
 all the haire will fall off: and the part so touched will change the colour of
 the skin to the white morphew.”
    -Gaius Plinius Secundus, _Naturalis Historia_, Book X, ch. LXVII. 79 A.D.
     trans. Philemon Holland, 1601.
%%%%
scorpion

“Those poisonous fields, with rank luxuriance crown'd,
 Where the dark scorpion gathers death around”
    -Oliver Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village”, l. 351-2. 1770.
%%%%
seraph

“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne,
 high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered
 his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts:
 the whole earth is full of his glory.”
    -KJV Bible, Isaiah 6:1-3.
%%%%
shadowghast

“Between the idea
 And the reality
 Between the motion
 And the act
 Falls the Shadow
     For thine is the Kingdom

 Between the conception
 And the creation
 Between the emotion
 And the response
 Falls the Shadow
     Life is very long”
    -T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”. 1925.
%%%%
shadow demon

“As we grow old, we become aware that death is drawing near; his shadow falls
 across our path...”
    -Stefan Zweig, _Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman_. 1927.
%%%%
shadow dragon

“Crux sacra sit mihi lux / Non draco sit mihi dux
 Vade retro satana / Numquam suade mihi vana
 Sunt mala quae libas / Ipse venena bibas

 [Let the Holy Cross be my light / Let not the dragon be my guide
  Step back Satan / Never tempt me with vain things
  What you offer me is evil / You drink the poison yourself.]”
    -Full text of initials on the Saint Benedict Medal, worn to ward off evil
     spirits. Inscription from 11-15th century, formally approved by Pope
     Benedict XIV in 18th century.
%%%%
shadow wraith

“Yesterday, upon the stair,
 I met a man who wasn't there
 He wasn't there again today
 I wish, I wish he'd go away...”
    -Hughes Mearns ,_Antigonish_, 1-4. 1899.
%%%%
shambling mangrove

“There is unrest in the forest
 There is trouble with the trees
 For the maples want more sunlight
 And the oaks ignore their pleas”
    -Rush, "The Trees". 1978.
%%%%
shapeshifter

“And then th' old Sea-God crept
 From forth the deeps, and found his fat calves there,
 Survey'd, and number'd, and came never near
 The craft we used, but told us five for calves.
 His temples then dis-eased with sleep he salves;
 And in rush'd we, with an abhorred cry,
 Cast all our hands about him manfully;
 And then th' old Forger all his forms began:
 First was a lion with a mighty mane,
 Then next a dragon, a pied panther then,
 A vast boar next, and suddenly did strain
 All into water. Last he was a tree,
 Curl'd all at top, and shot up to the sky.”
    -Homer, _The Odyssey_, IV, 602-14.
     trans. George Chapman, 1857.
%%%%
silent spectre

“There is a silence where hath been no sound,
 There is a silence where no sound may be,—
 In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,
 Or in the wide desert where no life is found.”
    -Thomas Hood, “Silence”. Early 19th cent.
%%%%
simulacrum

“The simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact that there is none, that
 is to say, the continuation of Nothingness.”
    -Jean Baudrillard, “Radical Thought”. 1994.
     trans. François Debrix, 1995.
%%%%
sixfirhy

“I saw a mouth jeering. A smile of melted red iron ran over it. Its laugh was
 full of nails rattling. It was a child's dream of a mouth.
 A fist hit the mouth: knuckles of gun-metal driven by an electric wrist and
 shoulder. It was a child's dream of an arm.
 The fist hit the mouth over and over, again and again. The mouth bled melted
 iron, and laughed its laughter of nails rattling.
 And I saw the more the fist pounded the more the mouth laughed. The fist is
 pounding and pounding, and the mouth answering.”
    -Carl Sandburg, “Gargoyle”, _Cornhusker_. 1918.
%%%%
skeletal warrior

“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
 Who, with thy hollow breast
 Still in rude armor drest,
 Comest to daunt me!
 Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
 But with thy fleshless palms
 Stretched, as if asking alms,
 Why dost thou haunt me?”
    -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Skeleton in Armor”. 1841.
%%%%
skeleton

“God save us from the skeleton
 Who sitteth at the feast!”
    -James Jeffrey Roche, _The Skeleton at the Feast_. 1890.
%%%%
sky beast

“Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion
 that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.”
    -James Thurber, _My Life and Hard Times_. 1934.
%%%%
slime creature

“The very deep did rot: O Christ!
 That ever this should be!
 Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
 Upon the slimy sea.”
    -Samuel Tayor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. 1798.
%%%%
small abomination

“No — it wasn't that way at all. It was everywhere — a gelatin — a slime yet it
 had shapes, a thousand shapes of horror beyond all memory. There were eyes —
 and a blemish. It was the pit — the maelstrom — the ultimate abomination.
 Carter, it was the unnamable!”
    -H.P. Lovecraft, _The Unnamable_. 1925.
%%%%
smoke demon

“Why does the thin grey strand
 Floating up from the forgotten
 Cigarette between my fingers,
 Why does it trouble me?”
    -D.H. Lawrence, “Sorrow”. 1916.
%%%%
snapping turtle

“After a while they came to a village. ”Now then,“ said Snapping Turtle, ”in
 the morning at daylight, my friends, we will make on attack. I myself will
 first go to the place,“ the leader of the war party said to them.

 ”Good,“ said the other little one, ”thou art the one who sees to it what we
 shall do,“ they said to that Snapping Turtle. ”Now then,“ said Snapping
 Turtle, ”verily I am now going to tell you what I shall do.“ Thus he spoke.
 ”Now is the time I shall begin to walk toward this village. Verily at the time
 I shall kill the daughter of the chief will be when the light of day is
 breaking, and at the same instant the sky will glow with red in the direction
 whence the morrow comes. ‘Ho, there, our comrade has killed her!’ will thus be
 the thought in your hearts. Then is the time when you want to make a great
 noise, when you shall whoop all keep it up. Now is the time that you go to
 attack this village.“ Thus he spoke to those his young men.

 ”All right!“ said the other little fellows.”
    -“When Snapping Turtle went to War”, _Publications of the American
     Ethnological Society, Volume IX: Kickapoo Tales_. 1915.
     trans. Truman Michelson
%%%%
soul eater

“Negation is the mind's first freedom.”
    -E.M. Cioran, _The Temptation to Exist_. 1956.
%%%%
spatial vortex

“It was just a colour out of space—a frightful messenger from unformed realms
 of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence
 stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open
 before our frenzied eyes.”
    -H.P. Lovecraft, “The Colour out of Space”. 1927.
%%%%
spatial maelstrom

“In any composition, the solid narrates the anomalies generated by the void, or
 the infection of the void through the solid (where the void comes to the solid,
 it works as a convoluting plague, a coiling swirling epidemic rather than a
 nullifying process or a solid-annihilating agent); in a composition there is no
 pure solid but a defiled one, a diseased and deflowered solid.
 [...]
 The only way that the solid can initialize its architectonic and compositional
 activities (processes for survival, development, etc.) is by letting the void
 in. The dynamic traits of solid can only be actuated when solid is eaten,
 convoluted and messed up by the void. There is no other option for solid.”
    -Reza Negarestani, _Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials_. 2008
%%%%
spectral thing

“On the hungry craving wind
 My Spectre follows thee behind.”
    -William Blake, “Broken Love”. ca. 1800.
%%%%
spellspark servitor

“When you think
 Your toys have gone berserk
 It's an illusion
 You cannot shirk”
    -Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Spellbound”
%%%%
sphinx marauder

“Oedipus speaks: 'Far from me is the crime and shame of cowardice, and my
 valour knows not dastard fears[...] The Sphinx, weaving her words in darkling
 measures, I fled not; I faced the bloody jaws of the fell prophetess and the
 ground white with scattered bones. And when from a lofty cliff, already
 hovering over her prey, she prepared her pinions and, lashing her tail like
 a savage lion, stirred up her threatening wrath, I asked her riddle.
 Thereupon came a sound of dread; her jaws crashed, and her talons, brooking
 no delay, eager for my vitals, tore at the rocks. The lot's intricate,
 guile-entangled words, the grim riddle of the winged beast, I solved.'”
    -Seneca, _Oedipus_, 1st cent. A.D.
     trans. Frank Justus Miller, 1917.
%%%%
star jelly

"My colleagues may have dismissed the sightings as blink frog egg casings, but
today I shall prove that these creatures came from beyond the firmament. Let's
begin the dissection."
        -Ardun Idrick, cryptozoologist, last words
%%%%
starcursed mass

“Did you see that star go out?
 I seen it burn.

 That little star went out,
 your little eyes went out.

 Our burnt little dreams are hid
 up where the stars get lit.”
    -Thee Silver Mt. Zion, “I Built Myself a Metal Bird”. 2010.
%%%%
stone giant

“I really believe what you say, answered the knight; for, I have been engaged
 with the giant, in the most obstinate and outrageous combat that I believe I
 shall ever fight in all the days of my life: with one backstroke, slam went
 his head to the ground; and discharged such a quantity of blood, that it ran
 like rills of water, along the field.”
    -Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, _The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La
     Mancha_, IV, 10. 1605.
     trans. Carlos Fuentes, 1997.
%%%%
sun demon

“Behold him setting in his western skies,
 The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.”
    -John Dryden, “Absalom and Achitophel”, I, 268. 1681.

“The sky is sad and beautiful, like a vast altar.
 The sun has drowned in its congealing blood.”
    -Charles Baudelaire, _Flowers of Evil_, 43: Evening Harmony. 1857.
     trans. Ruth White, 1969.
%%%%
swamp drake

“Sweet is the swamp with its secrets,
 Until we meet a snake;
 'T is then we sigh for houses,
 And our departure take

 At that enthralling gallop
 That only childhood knows.
 A snake is summer's treason,
 And guile is where it goes.”
    -Emily Dickinson, “A Snake”. ca. 1865.
%%%%
swamp worm

“The fool, as I think, at the chasm's brink,
 Prone by the swamp or the marsh's side,
 Did, even as I, in the end rejoice,
 Since the voice of death must be His true voice.”
    -Arthur Edward Waite, “At The End of Things”. 1906.
%%%%
tengu

“A Bird came down the Walk —
 He did not know I saw —
 He bit an Angleworm in halves
 And ate the fellow, raw”
    -Emily Dickinson, “A Bird came down the Walk”. ca. 1865.
%%%%
tengu warrior

“I can puff up my feathers, look real mean
 Be the old man that this here's scene
 I'm a struttin' preenin' bantam rooster looking for a fight.”
    -Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, “Cock o' the Walk”. 1998.
%%%%
tentacled monstrosity

“Oozing and surging up out of that yawning trap-door in the Cyclopean crypt I
 had glimpsed such an unbelievable behemothic monstrosity that I could not
 doubt the power of its original to kill with its mere sight. Even now I cannot
 begin to suggest it with any words at my command. I might call it gigantic —
 tentacled — proboscidian — octopus-eyed — semi-amorphous — plastic — partly
 squamous and partly rugose — ugh!”
    -H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald, “Out of the Aeons”, _Weird Tales_, 25, No.
     4, pp. 478-96. April 1935.
%%%%
titan

“And on the other part the Titans eagerly strengthened their ranks, and both
 sides at one time showed the work of their hands and their might. The
 boundless sea rang terribly around, and the earth crashed loudly: wide Heaven
 was shaken and groaned, and high Olympus reeled from its foundation under the
 charge of the undying gods, and a heavy quaking reached dim Tartarus and the
 deep sound of their feet in the fearful onset and of their hard missiles. So,
 then, they launched their grievous shafts upon one another, and the cry of
 both armies as they shouted reached to starry heaven; and they met together
 with a great battle-cry.”
    -Hesiod, _Theogony_, 8th cent. B.C.
     trans. H.G. Evelyn-White, 1914.
%%%%
toadstool

“But the Seneschal gathered the toadstool fly-bane.”
    -Adam Mickiewicz, _Pan Tadeusz_, III. 1834.
     trans. G.R. Noyes, 1917.
%%%%
toenail golem

“Gentle socks pamper them by day, and shoes cobbled of leather fortify them,
 but my toes hardly notice. All they're interested in is turning out
 toenails—semitransparent, flexible sheets of a hornlike material, as defence
 against—whom?”
    -Jorge Luis Borges, “Toenails”. 1960.
    trans. Andrew Hurley, 1998.
%%%%
tormentor

“Thou art to me a delicious torment.”
    -Ralph Waldo Emerson, _Essays: First Series_, Essay VI: Friendship. 1841.
%%%%
torpor snail

“Snail, snail, slug-slow,
 To me thy four horns show;
 If thou dost not show me thy four,
 I will throw thee out of the door,
 For the crow in the gutter,
 To eat for bread and butter.”
    -Silesian rhyme. Quoted by S.W. Singer in _Notes and Queries_, no. 69.
     1851.
%%%%
training dummy

“Things are only mannequins and even the great world-historical events are only
 costumes beneath which they exchange glances with nothingness, with the base
 and the banal.”
    -Walter Benjamin, _Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and
     Mescaline 1927-1934_, “Protocol II: Highlights of the Second Hashish
     Impression”. 15 January 1928.
     trans. Scott J. Thompson, 1997.
%%%%
two-headed ogre

<ogre>
%%%%
tyrant leech
 Scully: “Where the hell did it come from?”
 Mulder: “I don’t know, but it looks like I’m going to have to tell Skinner
          that his suspect is a giant bloodsucking worm after all.”
    -_The X-Files_, “The Host”. 1994
%%%%
ufetubus

“We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons”
    -Czesław Miłosz, “A Task”.
%%%%
ugly thing

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which
 contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may
 even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every
 individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to
 regulate those of others.”
    -David Hume
%%%%
unseen horror

“The awful shadow of some unseen Power
 Floats, tho’ unseen, amongst us.”
    -Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”, I, 1-2. 1816.
%%%%
ushabti

“Spell for causing a shabti to do work for a man in the realm of the dead:
 O shabti, allotted to me, if I be summoned or if I be detailed to do any work
 which has to be done in the realm of the dead, if indeed any obstacles are
 implanted for you therewith as a man at his duties, you shall detail yourself
 for me on every occasion of making arable the fields, of flooding the banks or
 of conveying sand from east to west; ‘Here I am’, you shall say.

    -Spell 6, _Book of the Dead_, from _Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead:
     Journey through the afterlife_, edited by John H. Taylor. 2010
%%%%
vampire

 • Scuze me. My friend Burt says you're a vampire hunter. 'zat so?
 — Uh yes. Yes it is.
 • Well you n'ain't gonna find one round here, mate. They ain't no vampires.
 — You don't believe in vampires?
 • 'course not!
 • But I do believe in con artists. And charletans who like to stir up trouble!
 • Dead people who get up at night and suck blood. How stupid do you think we
   are?
 • My place is haunted with 16 ghosts and they all say there n'ain't no
   vampires!
    -Rich Morris, Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic
%%%%
vampire bat

“For something is amiss and out of place
 When mice with wings can wear a human face.”
    -Theodore Roethke, “The Bat”. 1938.
%%%%
very ugly thing

“I'm ugly, I'm ugly as sin,
 But beautiful's out, ugly's in.
 If you're ugly like me, you're in good company.
 There are millions of us who are ugly.”
    -_The Muppet Show_, “Ugly Song”. 1977
%%%%
vine stalker

“The monstrous plant bud . . . had grown again with preternatural rapidity,
 from Falmer's head. A loathsome pale-green stem was mounting thickly, and had
 started to branch like antlers after attaining a height of six or seven
 inches.

 More dreadful than this, if possible, similar growths had issued from the
 eyes; and their stems, climbing vertically across the forehead, had entirely
 displaced the eyeballs.”
    -Clark Ashton Smith, “The Seed from the Sepulcher”. 1933.
%%%%
wandering mushroom

“Telimena, wearied with the prolonged wrangling, wanted to go out into the
 fresh air, but sought a partner. She took a little basket from the peg.
 “Gentlemen, I see that you wish to remain within doors,” she said, wrapping
 around her head a red cashmere shawl, “but I am going for mushrooms: follow me
 who will!” Under one arm she took the little daughter of the Chamberlain, with
 the other she raised her skirt up to her ankles. Thaddeus silently hastened
 after her—to seek mushrooms!”
    -Adam Mickiewicz, _Pan Tadeusz_, II. 1834.
     trans. G.R. Noyes, 1917.
%%%%
war gargoyle

“Their innumerable sculptures of demons and dragons assumed a lugubrious
 aspect. The restless light of the flame made them move to the eye. There were
 griffins which had the air of laughing, gargoyles which one fancied one heard
 yelping, salamanders which puffed at the fire, tarasques which sneezed in the
 smoke. And among the monsters thus roused from their sleep of stone by this
 flame, by this noise, there was one who walked about, and who was seen, from
 time to time, to pass across the glowing face of the pile, like a bat in front
 of a candle.”
    -Victor Hugo, _The Hunchback of Notre-Dame_, 10, ch. IV. 1831.
     trans. Isabel F. Hapgood
%%%%
weeping skull

“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most
 excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how
 abhorr'd in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it.”
    -William Shakespeare, _The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, V, 1. 1603
%%%%
wolf

“Teacher: How does a dog smell?
 Student: I don't know.
 Teacher: Correct!”
    -Traditional Spanish joke.
%%%%
water nymph

“Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some
 watery tart threw a sword at you.”
    -Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975.
%%%%
wight

“Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
 That doth his life in so long tendance spend!”
    -Edmund Spenser, “Mother Hubberds Tale”, _Complaints_. 1591.
%%%%
worm

<ribbon worm>
%%%%
wraith

“God, though this life is but a wraith,
 Although we know not what we use,
 Although we grope with little faith,
 Give me the heart to fight—and lose.”
    -Louis Untermeyer, “Prayer”. 1919.
%%%%
wretched star

“Stare into the sun
 Wherever you may roam
 Feel it calling you home
 Despite the mounting danger
 Stare into the sun
 Let its fire fill you
 Whatever doesn’t kill you
 Only makes you stranger”
    -The Sunbeams, “The Tug”. 2020
%%%%
wyrmhole

“My complete answer to the late 19th century question 'what is electrodynamics
 trying to tell us' would simply be this:

 Fields in empty space have physical reality; the medium that supports them does
 not.

 Having thus removed the mystery from electrodynamics, let me immediately do the
 same for quantum mechanics:

 Correlations have physical reality; that which they correlate does not.”
    -N. David Mermin, _What is quantum mechanics trying to tell us?_, 1998.
%%%%
ynoxinul

“He fixed his eyes upon the door, which, slowly opening, disclosed a stranger
 of majestic form, but scowling features, who demanded sternly, why he was
 summoned? ‘I did not summon you,’ said the trembling student. ‘You did!’ said
 the stranger, advancing, angrily; ‘and the demons are not to be invoked in
 vain.’ The student could make no reply; and the demon, enraged that one of the
 uninitiated should have summoned him out of mere presumption, seized him by
 the throat and strangled him.

 When Agrippa returned, a few days afterwards, he found his house beset with
 devils. Some of them were sitting on the chimneypots, kicking up their legs in
 the air; while others were playing at leapfrog, on the very edge of the
 parapet. His study was so filled with them that he found it difficult to make
 his way to his desk.”
    -Charles Mackay, _Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions_, Vol. III,
     Part I. 1841.
%%%%
zombie

“It seemed that while the zombie came from the grave, it was neither a ghost,
 nor yet a person who had been raised like Lazarus from the dead. The zombie,
 they say, is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and
 endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of life—it is a dead body which
 is made to walk and act and move as if it were alive. People who have the
 power to do this go to a fresh grave, dig up the body before it has had time
 to rot, galvanize it into movement, and then make of it a servant or slave,
 occasionally for the commission of some crime, more often simply as a drudge
 around the habitation or the farm, setting it dull heavy tasks, and beating it
 like a dumb beast if it slackens.”
    -William Seabrook, _The Magic Island_. 1929.

“They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will
 never, ever be afraid!”
    -Max Brooks, _World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War_. 2006.
%%%%
