Magifauna and Flora
I've talked a lot about daemons but what about the type of stuff that is expressly not daemons? Daemons as a remember aren't real. Or more so, what they represent isn't real. A daemon of say, a medusa isn't a snake lady with thoughts and opinions who lives in a cave, it's a reflection of an idea. When she is "killed", free associating magical energy is just pushed back to the astral plane. The actual medusa has no real memories or thoughts. It's like chatting with chat-gpt.
Magifauna are real creatures. Either evolved, or mutated, or a little of both. Animals do not intrinsically have souls, as that was a gift to humanity from Sciferia, but the latent magic soul energy has allowed many animals to power themselves off of magic like people. As such, animals (and likely any artificial being) over the course of their life develop some level of "soul". Virtually all animals are in some, way magically active.
Magifauna on the other hand represent creatures that really leverage magic in their development. Sometimes this is a one off event, but other times this is forms stable species. Like with people, using latent magic energy allows creatures to live longer, grow larger and even gain intelligence.
Gonna do about one or two examples to not go crazy but maybe I'll expand this later.
Table of Contents
Aberrant Fauna
Aberrants are magical creatures that aren't a species. A species might be pre-disposed to aberrant growth being but the general rule is that an aberrant creature does not reproduce (or if it does, it produces non aberrant offspring... or maybe it reproduces once but nothing ever forms a stable line).
Wurms and Wyverns
In RP these are the most common types of aberrants. In general, reptiles lend themselves well to magical growth and many natural lizards can grow quite large. Komodo dragon sized lizards are not uncommon in many parts of the world. But something about reptile biology lends themselves to aberrant growth. Wurms and Wyverns represent your giant, monster hunter-esque giant lizards. Each tends to be somewhat individual (even when coming from the same species). Grounded individuals are called Wurms where flighted reptiles are called wyverns. Some places just flat out call them dragons, but that term is usually saved for daemons.
A Wyvern usually lives it's life like a big bar crawl, having a huge growth spurt that fuels it's hunger which fuels another growth spirit. Most are probably either killed or burn out within a year or two of going aberrant. Wurm and Wyvern hunting is a popular occupation in some places as a way to protect cities, killing them when they're the size of a small car rather than a flying tank.
Wyverns are probably sometimes tameable but it's probably difficult to control one's growth. Taming a wyvern likely involves starving it or even chilling it and slowing down it's metabolism. I imagine there is no reliable process for stabilizing the metabolism of these creatures or else doing it would be more common.
Gargantuan Orb Weavers
In Brave Earth: Prologue, there is the Gargantuan Orb Weaver and this one would be the category in between. Gargantuan Orb Weaver are arguably magifauna in their normal size range (say a 6 foot wingspan), but can feed on magic to grow to truly gigantic sizes. Are these aberrants or just rare growth conditions? As there is never reliable examples of super large specimens in the same area, they're generally considered aberrant, even if, in some areas, it's a matter of 'when' and not 'if'.
Gargantuan Orb Weaver are mostly found in massive caves and canyons but might occasionally have giant webs going between mountain peaks. Seeing these outdoors seems like it would be extremely rare but not unheard of.
Stable Magifauna
Stable Magifauna (or just Magifauna) represents species with very magically active traits.
Rok Falcons
A BEP and RP classic. Roks are as unremarkable as they are giant. These giant raptors do exactly what you'd expect, only bigger and smarter. They are somewhat common in the mountains of Aistoria and can be really destructive when angry, pulling apart buildings with ease. Usually though they just feed off of mountain goats and stay away from people. Most people living near mountains probably have stories of seeing one in the distance, with no way to prove if it's actually a Rok.
Rok's are totally tamable, but the chance to tame them are rare. Ari had to find a baby hatchling, which is probably the most common way. Fixing broken wings might be another. There are likely a few other tamed Roks out there beside Nutmeg and maybe even one in a zoo (Likely too injured to fly?). Still, the count would be on one hand.
Roks are also really smart, especially as they age. Proximity to humans also help. Nutmeg is likely smarter than most due to interacting with Ari. It's still bird intelligence but birds are smart!
Giant Snow and Cave Isopods
Of course I have giant isopods.
Giant Snow isopods exist in mostly in the hyper magic mountains of north Aistoria where they burrow under snow and collect magic under their skirts to keep warm. They're hard to find and see, but during avalanches, some might be seen rolling down hill. They taste like crab if you can kill one and they're not especially dangerous or aggressive. Some can of an SUV and there are probably tales of stranded mountain climbers sleeping under one. Pretty much pale white and partially transparent. Some kind of Armadillidium subspecies.
Giant Cave Isopods probably more get to the size of say a pig and eat up magic metal fragments from the ground. When they die, they leave bigger deposits! While not the only mechanism for the creation of larger clumps of magic metal, it's definitely the one that's the best understood. They might be actively used in some mining operations to 'clean up'. Probably looks more like a Gator isopod.
Magiflora
Yeah, it happens to plants too.
Bombardier Weed
The dumbest videogamey shit like yes launch spores to kill shit so you can feed on the souls of corpses yes that is some fake ass game stuff but it's in BEP so I'm putting it down.
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