Blarnsneep

Cryptologic Name: Daimicro polychroma
Planar Origin: Faerie
Habitat: Forested areas
Diet: Omnivorous, mostly eating berries, insects, and flowers

Appearance & Morphology
Blarnsneeps, are small, fuzzy, colorful fae beings with large eyes and pointed ears. They have two short, birdlike legs and a long flexible tail with a large tuft on the end. Most of their species have white ears and tail tufts, but body fur in a wide range of colors bright including pink, blue, green, orange, and yellow.

Behavior & Magical Abilities
The blarnsneep is often called a “paint gremlin” (or “paint pixie” for those who appreciate alliteration) due to a set of glands at the end of their tail which secrete a colorful paste. The individual can control the hue of their tail paint, though it appears that their diet influences the range of colors available to them at any given time. These creatures will then use their tail tufts as a brush to paint elaborate murals on a variety of surfaces in their home territories. They also have very fine control over the hairs at the ends of their tails, allowing them to achieve a surprising degree of fine detail in their artwork. If you are ever in a forested area and find rocks or trees with colorful designs on them, there is a good chance that a blarnsneep lives nearby.
While some of these creatures’ paintings are abstract, many of them are more concrete representations of objects and experiences they witness in their lives. Wild blarnsneep paintings often include motifs of the night sky, bodies of water, and other creatures that live in their habitat. Blarnsneep that live with humans have been known to paint intensely lifelike portraits of the people they are close to.
The blarnsneep loves when its artwork is appreciated, often preening and chirruping excitedly when people and other creatures show an interest in their paintings. While these creatures cannot speak in human languages, those that live amongst us have shown an aptitude for understanding human feeling and speech and a respectable knack for finding ways to communicate their own feelings and ideas.

Field Notes

• Aside from the artistic and alchemical value of the blarnsneep’s paintings, it also serves to mark territory and is involved in the creature’s mating rituals. When a female is ready to mate, she will paint a part of a stone or tree within her territory; the paint used for this has pheromones to attract males and indicate that she is looking for a partner. Eligible bachelors will then add to her painting with their own marks and the female will choose based on the resulting mural.

• While these creatures enjoy it when their artwork is appreciated, they can also be rather vain and scornful when their artwork goes unappreciated. This is much more common in individuals who live with humans than in wild populations; they have been known to throw tantrums if they create a new work of art its people fail to notice and praise it.

Caravan Snail

Cryptologic Name: Gymnosalidae akolomagia
Planar Origin: Fae
Habitat: Temperate forests & fields
Diet: Herbivorous

Appearance & Morphology
Caravan snails are fae creatures that resemble land slugs with light undersides and brightly-colored patterns on their backs. These creatures usually grow to between 10-15cm in length and have a pair of retractable tentacles on their heads which are sensitive to ambient mana.

Behavior & Magical Abilities
These unusual fae creatures are able to sense mana in their immediate surroundings, and will follow the flow of energy along natural leylines. This natural tendency to migrate along these natural routes of mana flow has led them to be used as beasts of burden for tiny, nomadic race of faerie know as vagare. Mana from leylines is used in a variety of ways in their magical rituals, and as such they have come to rely on these snails to locate and follow their flow. The vagare will attach riding platforms to these creatures, on top of which they will build their homes. This practice is where caravan snails got their common name, as the vagare will form large communities together atop a herd of them, who will migtare over time along a leyline’s current. While the vagare will attach bridles to their snail’s head such that they can actively direct the creature’s movement, they don’t often use them, allowing the snail to move about of its own volition.

Field Notes

• Because of their ability to sense ambient mana and innate tendencies to follow mana currents, caravan snails can be used as indicator species for mages to locate mana currents, though this can be a time-consuming process as they are slugs and therefore move at a more leisurely pace than most mages are willing to deal with for such a task when there are more expedient methods.

• While they are known as “caravan snails,” this is somewhat of a misnomer, though that is not unusual in the common names of animals, magical or otherwise. I say this because caravan snails do not naturally have shells and therefore their anatomy much more resembles slugs. It’s likely that they were named this way because of the vagare homes that are so commonly seen on them, which do seem to mirror a snail’s shell in that we consider it to be the snail’s “home,” and a literal house is build upon them. This distinction is probably unnecessary but seemed worth mentioning.

Manaweaver

Cryptologic Name: Mageistos s.
Planar Origin: Fae
Habitat: Temperate forests
Diet: Manavore

Appearance & Morphology
Manaweavers are a genus of fae creatures that resemble brilliantly-colored spiders with glowing abdomens. This genus varies greatly in both size and appearance between its many species, with individuals small enough to barely be visible to the naked eye, to giant creatures with legs over a meter long. While these creatures do look very similar to nonmagical spiders, they have a distinct morphological difference from them. Manaweavers have distinct head and thorax sections, rather than a single cephalothorax as nonmagical spiders do, meaning an individual can mover its head around while keeping the rest of its bodies still.

Magical Abilities
These unique arachniforms weave webs much like their nonmagical kin, but these webs have very special properties. Manaweaver webs consist of a special silk that exists as a part of the veil, meaning that it exists both on the material and ethereal plane simultaneously [for more info on planar theory, you can look at my primer here…. which I haven’t finished writing yet but I’ll link it once it’s posted]. As such, these webs cause ambient mana to condense and “stick” to them, so to speak, which the manaweaver will then consume. Each species feeds on a particular type of mana, and as such each web is woven into particular shapes and patterns which attract the desired type. This mana can be used in a variety of ways after it is consumed, but is primarily used to sustain the creature’s life force.

Behavior
Because these creatures subsist on condensed mana and not physical sustenance, they are not predators like their nonmagical kin. However, because they absorb pure mana, they are prey for other fae creatures on their home planes, and can defend themselves using the mana they’ve absorbed in a variety of ways, depending on what type of mana they specialize in. For example M. mandigni, which consumes fire mana, will generally create small explosions in an attempt to scare away predators, or breathe fire on would-be attackers who get too close. Each variety of manaweaver has common tactics across a species, but we also see innovation among individuals, meaning they are highly intelligent creatures who can craft magic much like mages can.

Field Notes

• The individual pictured above is from my own collection, and is an M. lumanducar, which traps and consumes mana associated with light and illusion magic. As such, components of this species are sometimes used in potions that produce mirages. Naturally their defense mechanisms revolve around distracting predators with illusions, though my particular manaweaver has a penchant for creating bright flashes of light that are temporarily blinding. While I’ve never startled him intentionally, it does happen every once in a while, and I’m hoping it doesn’t cause any long-term damage to my retinas.