#fantasy cryptids

Happy WBW!

There's a whole pantheon in Eltya, so you bet there's myths! Here's what I have so far for myths:

Mother Hallya created the world, starting with the sky, then her children, then Eltya and the things in it

Dragia (the god/goddess *referred to as both* of magic and magical creatures) saved the world from monsters of dark magic, and as a reward, Hallya created astronomical events in the sky (meteor showers, eclipses, blood moons and blue moons, etc) that make magic stronger

One time, Dixy (goddess of entertainment and comedy) played a prank on her younger brother Undral, king of the underworld and god of the dead. He got so angry we went on a rampage through Eltya, causing natural disasters like earthquakes and volcano eruptions trying to find her and make her pay- until Mother Hallya stepped in and made them both apologize, then forbade Undral from leaving the underworld and Dixy from leaving the living world; which explains why there is no happiness or fun in the underworld and there's so much fear around death

That's it for myths right now, but more are sure to come

Cryptids (except some of them actually exist in Eltya)

There's a giant squid like sea creature called the Rumble, with almost indestructible skin and it's the size of a large battleship

There's a lot of sea serpents, but the biggest and baddest one is dark red and sailors call it "Bloody Marianne"

There's a giant orange fish the size of a ship that sailors call "Big Freddy Fish"

On the island with an active volcano, there's a huge immortal gorilla pirates and sailors call "King Gord"

In the woods of Goke (Snow's kingdom) there's rumors of a deer the size of a house with glowing eyes. No one's actually seen this one or found proof that it exists. They call it Dolly Mama.

There's a werewolf in the woods that used to be Farkle called Marmon. He's taller than two men standing on their shoulders, and leads most of the werewolves in the dark woods

People in Dinvirty are always talking about mountain trolls or blob monsters made out of snow

In Goke there's also these creatures that are a cross between snow leopards and saber tooth tigers up in the mountains wherever there's snow. Those are real and my mcs get to fight them. The biggest one is called The Blizzard cat.

Scary Stories Parents Tell Their Kids

You can't be out at night because that's when Undral rules and dark magic seeps out of it's hiding places, and they hunt children who are out at night, but adults are safe

Dark magic users can summon demons from the underworld and live in the woods, so stay out of the woods kids (this one is specific to the area where Farkle, the fallen kingdom, used to be and where everyone is still suspicious of magic and the dark woods). They also tell kids there's werewolves in there, but that part actually turns out to be true

There's a witch named Goo-Goo-Mi who captures children, turns them into crows, frogs, or snakes, and keeps them as pets.

Lots of stuff about getting eaten or taken away by the cryptids i listed above

Part of the introduction is defining cryptids (referred exclusively as “cryptonatural creatures” because rule of funny) when you have literal fire breathing monsters as documented naturally occurring fauna. This includes specifying that any mage-summon creature is documentable, and thus not cryptonatural.

(It does leave room for unique specimens that are permanently changed due to magic - Swift Wind would be cryptonatural except he’s too well known to be folklore. Many other First Ones tech results would also be cryptonatural, as they are not explainable by current Etherian understanding.)

Anyway, I have a question for fans that have actually watched the series. What do you think the average Etherian’s perspective of cryptids be?

Like, obviously, isolated areas would have folk lore to explain anything they haven’t been able to confirm (I have a section of chupacabra in the introduction). But what would the more urban, travelled people think?

“Haha, these bumpkins don’t know what a sea monster is!” or “Wow, did you hear about the mysterious hairy creatures that live in Plumeria? No, not those, these ones are mysterious!”