Worldbuilding: Alternate Realities

Just a little bit of Sunday evening worldbuilding for my upcoming dark fairy novel.

Yes, fairies are real, they can be vicious, they are not human AND they are biological creatures (albeit with the ability to produce all kinds of dangerous magic).

I'm writing a novel set in a world where fairies are real and terribly dangerous. I've got most of my outline in front of me and I also like to doodle and draw out the various characters and monsters.

The story goes like this:

Sometime in the late 19th Century, Queen Victoria, tired of the fairies plaguing her nation (the UK is a hotbed of supernatural activity), decided, "We must contain the problem. We must find out how to leash these beasties, control them and use them to our advantage, for the glory of our Empire!"

And so, Her Majesty's government called upon a band of experts - spiritualists, mediums, magicians, warlocks and occultists - entrusted with the complicated task of controlling the creatures and harnessing their powers. They succeeded and this development sped up the Industrial Revolution with the aid of fairy magic.

Imagine industrial engines and machinery powered by the heat of dragon flame, boilers controlled by water magic from captured mermaids and undines. Pixies to operate machinery. Brownies and house fairies to power household cleaning equipment. Vampires and trolls trained as military weapons.

Victorian England was propelled into the atomic age thanks to pure, wild magic. Similar endeavours had taken place at the same time in the United States as well as in the Japanese and Russian Empires, prompting a mystical arms race for world dominion.

Here are some of the creature concepts for the novel.

Take the humble leprechaun.

One of the most cunning little creatures to ever fool humankind, the nasty leprechaun is native to the Irish countryside. The females are about 3 feet tall and have four arms and three multi-jointed legs. Their skin is a bright green chitin-based carapace and the females have large red sensory fronds more like fish fins than anything remotely resembling a human beard.

Their flat, disc-shaped bodies are camouflaged to resemble the bark of trees and are covered in irregular whorls and bumps. They like wearing little black felt hats with cute buckles, their only form of clothing. The hat hides a complex organ which they use for spellcasting.

The females often use black magic to make themselves resemble tiny human men, the leprechauns of legend. Their sensory fronds suddenly become red beards, their green skin becomes green human clothing and their shrill voices become raspy and ancient-sounding.

All to lure humans to their pot of gold. Well, what’s pretending to be a pot of gold.

The males of the species resemble large insects with a huge compound eye and several multiple-jointed limbs. Their bodies are hollow at the top, with a deep depression that resembles the rim of a pot. And what do they keep inside that pot-like depression?

Well, their babies of course. These vicious little beasties resemble lumps of gold with retractable scorpion tails. They live inside their father's brood cavity, protected from predators.

Females have a lure organ growing from their heads- a rainbow coloured tentacle that they normally keep coiled up, hidden inside their black buckled hats. That is until they decide to reveal the full extent of their powers.

The little critters hunt in teams consisting of four or five related females.

Some of the females put on their magical humaoid disguise and cause mischief, luring an unsuspecting farmer from the nearby village who has just realised, "I've got leprechauns wrecking my farm - maybe their pot of gold is nearby!"The silly farmer then looks for the nearest rainbow.

Meanwhile, another female removes her hat and unfurls her colourful lure organ. Using powerful lightbending magic, her lure twirls and flings shadowy skeins of rainbow-coloured light far overhead in the sky. This creates the illusion of a massive rainbow in the air above.

The hapless human farmer follows the rainbow and eventually gets lured to the “pot of gold” at a nearby grove. Another leprechaun disguised as a cheery little man cackles in the distance, "Oh, I've got so much treasure at the end of the rainbow! Gold, pure gold, truth be told!”

The farmer indeed chances upon the "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow. He can barely believe his eyes. As he reaches out to touch one of the gold ingots, it is too late.

The babies pounce on him and unfurl their poisonous scorpion tails. And as you can guess, it does not end well for the poor human.

Once stung, the farmer becomes paralysed and the babies begin tearing up his flesh and lapping up his blood, while he is still alive. Their parents and elders stand by and devour whatever remains — bones, hair, nails, even bits of clothing.

Nothing remains, and everyone goes back to their stations — the father tucks his legs and closes his eye to look like a pot, the babies curl up inside him, looking like shiny gold ingots and the mother and her sisters put on their magic glamour to make themselves look like little smiling men. A magic rainbow hangs in the air above the "pot".

And on to the next victim!

Comments are most welcome!