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Jun. 24th, 2015 01:49 pmFairies appear to be chimeric creatures with both humanoid and insectile traits. They range between two and four feet tall and can very rarely be as tall as five. They have at least two eyes but usually have 4-6, a mixture of human and insect-like eyes. Fairies with only human eyes behave as if they were blind.
Fairy behavior is erratic and unpredictable compared to normal animals. Most hunt in small packs (4-7 individuals usually) and will attack humans and other large animals with little heed for the danger. Their social behavior is very rudimentary. Their reproduction is something of a mystery, as is the fact that they refuse to die out despite active attempts by various governments to exterminate them and their relative lack of survival instinct. They have been believed extinct at various times but the population always rebounds to its usual low but stable numbers after a year or so.
Fairy physiology is a well-known mystery: routine disections confirm that the creatures are in fact chimeric. They have an internal skeleton as well as an incomplete insect-like carapace. The non-insectile portions of their bodies appear to be human or at least closely related to human tissue -- these portions are also often non- or minimally-functional and are prone to dying and becoming necrotic, which seems to be the cause of the fairy’s short natural lifespan. Most of a fairy’s body is made up of insect tissue bound to a basically humanoid internal skeleton. Upon genetic analysis this tissue is most closely related to the Legion Ants from the ant woods to the northwest of here, although that relationship is many degrees more distant than the correlation between the ‘human’ tissue of these bugs and actual human tissue.
Now, moving from the realm of direct observation to mere speculation -- there are among the human population of this region a significant number of individuals with very small amount of chimeric insectile tissue. The scientific and medical experts here seem loath to acknowledge it but I am confident that there must be some connection here. There is also the local myth of fully sentient chimeric creatures called Greater Faeries, which are supposedly capable of interbreeding with humans and thereby creating these ‘fairy’ bloodlines among our human populations. I have been unable to obtain samples of chimeric tissue from affected humans for analysis and local experts are growing increasingly hostile toward me -- apparently these lines of study are frowned upon for reasons I do not really understand.
Also of interest: my partner reports that in her investigation of local history she has come across many oral stories about the lesser fairies that seem to describe creatures with a complex social structure and the intelligence to create communal shelters and simple tools, although not to develop or understand language. Modern scholars typically dismiss these accounts as anthropomorphizing fables, but she says that the oral traditions for mythic stories and recent historical accounts are very distinct and these descriptions of the fairies much more closely resemble the latter. The colonials written records only describe fairies as we know them now -- perhaps the species degenerated somehow before they arrived, or perhaps the degeneration occurred later and the records were somehow modified? There is a tradition of secrecy and deception in this place that makes our work difficult and sometimes I fear for our safety, yet how can I abandon the work when there is so much yet to learn?
- Dakarai, Notes on the Unnatural
Fairy behavior is erratic and unpredictable compared to normal animals. Most hunt in small packs (4-7 individuals usually) and will attack humans and other large animals with little heed for the danger. Their social behavior is very rudimentary. Their reproduction is something of a mystery, as is the fact that they refuse to die out despite active attempts by various governments to exterminate them and their relative lack of survival instinct. They have been believed extinct at various times but the population always rebounds to its usual low but stable numbers after a year or so.
Fairy physiology is a well-known mystery: routine disections confirm that the creatures are in fact chimeric. They have an internal skeleton as well as an incomplete insect-like carapace. The non-insectile portions of their bodies appear to be human or at least closely related to human tissue -- these portions are also often non- or minimally-functional and are prone to dying and becoming necrotic, which seems to be the cause of the fairy’s short natural lifespan. Most of a fairy’s body is made up of insect tissue bound to a basically humanoid internal skeleton. Upon genetic analysis this tissue is most closely related to the Legion Ants from the ant woods to the northwest of here, although that relationship is many degrees more distant than the correlation between the ‘human’ tissue of these bugs and actual human tissue.
Now, moving from the realm of direct observation to mere speculation -- there are among the human population of this region a significant number of individuals with very small amount of chimeric insectile tissue. The scientific and medical experts here seem loath to acknowledge it but I am confident that there must be some connection here. There is also the local myth of fully sentient chimeric creatures called Greater Faeries, which are supposedly capable of interbreeding with humans and thereby creating these ‘fairy’ bloodlines among our human populations. I have been unable to obtain samples of chimeric tissue from affected humans for analysis and local experts are growing increasingly hostile toward me -- apparently these lines of study are frowned upon for reasons I do not really understand.
Also of interest: my partner reports that in her investigation of local history she has come across many oral stories about the lesser fairies that seem to describe creatures with a complex social structure and the intelligence to create communal shelters and simple tools, although not to develop or understand language. Modern scholars typically dismiss these accounts as anthropomorphizing fables, but she says that the oral traditions for mythic stories and recent historical accounts are very distinct and these descriptions of the fairies much more closely resemble the latter. The colonials written records only describe fairies as we know them now -- perhaps the species degenerated somehow before they arrived, or perhaps the degeneration occurred later and the records were somehow modified? There is a tradition of secrecy and deception in this place that makes our work difficult and sometimes I fear for our safety, yet how can I abandon the work when there is so much yet to learn?
- Dakarai, Notes on the Unnatural
