Tag: wood sprites

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( Lots of good questions, as all of them have been, in truth. However, I think we are getting a tad bit off topic, seeing as all of this sprite lore is from my original work. I think any future questions on this track should go through my writing blog, and any more questions relating to just my sprite lore without relations to Brothers Apart will be posted there. )

I sure did forget a thing. Unacceptable.

It’s also a hard question. I will stick to wood sprites for now, since my other sprites don’t necessarily fly the same way (some can’t fly at all). Wood sprites don’t have a set “style” of flying. Their wings are very bat like, so they can wheel around like bats if they want to, but they can also glide along pretty skillfully, too. They can dive like hawks or flit like sparrows.

Baby wood sprites do not become lactose intolerant after they’re weaned, but that’s not because they have a supply of the stuff in their diet. This comes back to the wood sprite metabolism question, and the fact that they can process so many things. They could digest cheese, for example, even if they’ve never had it before.

In Wellwood, they don’t eat eggs, but there are plenty of wood sprite communities out there that would happily gather eggs to eat, assuming they can sneak up without the parent birds noticing.

They’d really like cotton candy and they’d be zipping all over the place on so much unfettered sugar.

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Fruit sugars are much better for them.

(Art by the wonderfully talented @mogadeer )

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(Sassy, when this one came in, nightmares saw it first and sent me a message telling me I’d like these questions. And I do. These are the best questions.)

The answer is YES. It’s one of the skills that is so fun to consider with my little babies.

They can feel changes in the air pressure, sometimes even to the point of knowing the weather is shifting. Bowman Leafwing happens to be one of the best wood sprites out there who can utilize that acute sense to the fullest. It happens once in his canon story, Bowman of Wellwood, though I haven’t found many opportunities to slip it into the AU stuff yet that I recall. Bowman, if he’s concentrating, can feel the shifts in the air around a hand grabbing at him, and he can use those shifts to duck around a grab and avoid getting caught; it’s a tough trick considering how fast humans are, but he’s done it before.

And yes, that skill is also used for dodging around things and avoiding crashes, especially for the daring ones that fly in the dark. Bowman’s uncle, Larxe Maelstrom, also taught him how to use that in heavy wind situations, so he can still fly steadily in really strong gusts where unpracticed sprites might not be able to.

Make no mistake, despite his willowy frame, Bowman can be considered a top-tier athlete among wood sprites for his aerial acrobatics.

The wings are mostly bat-like, yes, but there’s also the leafy aspect to them (not that the leafiness changes much as far as flight goes). They extend down to about their mid backs, and most of their clothing has slits up the back to accommodate them. This is the reason for the scarf around the waist that Bowman wears. Without it, that middle flap of his shirt could wave about in the wind and it would be distracting as well as a drag to his flight speed.

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Art commissioned from QuackGhost on Deviantart.

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This is actually a pretty straightforward question. The sprites don’t follow any traditions/beliefs pertaining to a menstrual cycle, because they don’t have one. Despite appearances, they are not closely related to the Great Ape family, and that’s actually one of the only types of mammal that has a cycle.

Sprites, all of my sprites, are Spirit-made, so even though they look a lot like humans there are a handful of biological differences (in the case of the wood sprites, they’re actually part plant so that right there opens up a bunch of differences).

Jacob, explaining this to Dean in Brothers Asunder:

Jacob frowned, feeling a little like a bad guy for what he was suggesting. But, as the only one good to drive the car, he knew that he had some room to insist. Dean needed the rest. Another glance down at Bowman showed that he needed it, too.

It also gave Jacob an idea. He reached out and gently scooped his hand under Bowman. The sprite flopped over on his hand before sitting up sluggishly, blinking slowly. His wings hung slack.

“What?” Bowman groused, his voice heavy with exhaustion.

Jacob looked over Bowman’s slumped form at Dean. “Bowman’s basically a plant, Dean. He’s been up and flying around since well before the sun went down. He needs to recuperate a little, at least. And you probably should, too. You had an arm busted tonight, dude.”

“Plant?” Dean asked, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Like energy-from-the-sun kinda plant?” He gave Bowman a slightly accusing look. “And you didn’t want to tell me that? ” he shot at the sprite, sounding put out after being lectured about how Bowman was ‘fine’ not long ago. How in the world was he going to be able to watch out for the little sprite if he didn’t even know something as important as that? At least if he or Jacob needed energy they could grab some coffee or a soda, but a plant…

“We don’t have an extra sun on hand, so you’ll need to take it easy until the morning,” Dean said tartly. “Sam won’t be happy if we run his little brother into the ground when he’s not around.” He held out his hand, beckoning Jacob to hand the sprite over. “I’ll keep an eye on small fry over here and make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble.”

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(Well, Sassy, at least it gives me excuses to infodump about my lore)

This is many questions, I’ll just answer ‘em right in order.

1. For really bad inclement weather, wood sprites wouldn’t go outside, no. They’d bunker down inside their homes and make the best of things … they could find a container around if that was needed.

To keep themselves warm, most of the time they will snuggle together in a group (in Brothers Asunder, young Sam most definitely did grow up knowing of these snuggle piles). Wood sprites also know a few Prayers to help them out in such weather. They can Pray for magic that brings heat through the living tree all around them, and prevent them from freezing in their li’l cuddle piles.

2. Newborns and young babies do use cloth diapers, yes.

Fun fact about baby wood spites (hey, I warned about the infodump): When they are born, their wings are not fully developed. Instead, they have little leaf buds on their backs (which I’m sure their mothers are thankful for, no one wants to birth a set of fully developed wings). These leaf buds stay curled for the first few years of the young sprite’s life, developing into full wings with the help of sunlight. When they are four or five, the buds have reached a thickness of around twice what they were born with, and they start to uncurl. At that point, all flutters break loose as the nestlings learn to deal with the very sensitive nerves that are now exposed to the air.

3.  They wash their clothes with water. No, really. Just water. Stones in the stream can be used for scrubbing if needed, but honestly they don’t often need it. Groundwater in Wellwood happens to be extra pure (for reasons), so the stream is extra A-OK to use for cleaning.

4.  Correct. Wood sprites are very lax and don’t tend to be super inventive on their own, and usually they don’t need to be. “Necessity is the mother of invention” and all that.

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Oh my God. This is excellent, throwing salt right back at me. I’m so pleased (not sarcasm)! Instead of Bathroom Anon I’m gonna dub you Sassy Anon and now you’re one of my fave Anons. Bless you.

As for the clarification/question, yeah. Accidents can happen. If they do, it’s just a cleanup deal. The young sprite in question hides in embarrassment for a day or two, before it’s right back to playing outside and hopefully paying more attention to when they need to make a trip.

Funerary rites aren’t generally a huge affair, though there is often a period of mourning for those close to the one who died. Wood sprites especially value life and all aspects of it, and that includes dying as a part of it. The family will lean on each other as they miss their loved one, but they will also find solace in knowing that their soul has returned to be with the Spirit.

The bodies are usually wrapped in leaves and buried someplace outside the village, usually opting for the ground outside the circle of oak trees at one end of their neck of the woods. Burial keeps scavengers away.

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Wowie. I’m just. Good grief.

I had to take a second to be intrigued/entertained by the “bathroom problem” terminology. A bathroom is not an inherent thing that all sentient people can be assumed to have. And, though we try to ignore the subject in polite conversation, organisms produce waste in natural processes. They need not be a problem for anyone.

I understand what you meant, though, so hopefully I can explain adequately without offending any sensibilities.

The wood sprites have stairs on their trees. They generally use those or simply glide down from their home branches to an area outside the main thoroughfare of the village. There, they can dig a small trench, do their business, cover it, and be on their way (a stop by the stream to wash off certainly wouldn’t be amiss, but they have water basins in their homes, too). This is not so different from what humans generally do if there’s not a bathroom available. Sadly, we haven’t always had indoor plumbing.

That’s how it’s done in Wellwood. There are some wood sprite communities out there that might keep a sort of “outhouse” structure on their home trees for households to share. It’s a bucket of dirt in a closed room that gets refreshed every so often. Five stars.

As far as potential “emergencies” go (Spirit save me), I’ll add that gastrointestinal issues among wood sprites are astronomically rare. Their metabolisms are incredibly efficient and robust, and honestly they can be like tiny living compost bins. They are able to digest many things that other mammals can’t (sugars like cellulose, which humans can’t digest), making their lives much easier in times of scarcity (they are literally surrounded by cellulose). Conveniently, it means they can control things like their regularity with greater ease. They also don’t vomit involuntarily, the lucky little guys.

Faster metabolism does mean that chemicals like alcohol and caffeine get distributed very quickly. Bowman got hyper very fast in Lich because of this. In his canon, you can see in Bowman of Wellwood that a few drinks of beer made him wobbly, much to his chagrin. Drunken sprite. They’re all lightweights.

I digress, anon.

In short, the “bathroom problem” isn’t truly a problem (and nor does it have much to do with an actual bathroom). But, I mean, kudos for thinking to ask the awkward questions. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have to go through answering that, but one big block of uncertainty has been removed from my life. Thanks, you’re a peach.

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The Earth Spirit

The Earth Spirit, called the Lady of Life by her children the wood sprites, holds domain over life energy. A very powerful yet benign entity, She lends Her magic to the sprites when invoked with a Prayer. The wood sprites, Her cherished children, harbor a reverence for all manner of living things.

The Earth Spirit and Her five siblings do not manifest in the physical world. Their influence is limited to their spiritual connections with the sprites.  While the sprites do not have magic of their own, they act as effective conduits for the Spirits’ magic. The Spirits communicate with their children through dreams. A dream from the Earth Spirit leaves one invigorated and filled with life.

Read more about Her here.

Artwork done by @nightmares06!

Earth Spirit and wood sprites © @neonthewrite

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Ah. Lore time.

My sprites (the earthbound sprites, not to be confused with nightmares’ Aeternum babies) all have a direct spiritual connection to the Spirit that made them. It is through these connections that a sprite can Pray, which is basically another word for incantation here. They borrow magic from their Spirit, and in the case of the wood sprites, they borrow magic from the Earth Spirit, the Lady of Life.

Sprites’ souls are essentially little pieces of the Spirit’s soul. Sam, as a human, has an entirely different kind of soul and thus no connection to the Spirit. He could try to Pray, but he doesn’t have any way to channel magic from the Lady of Life.

Cerul, one of the first wood sprites Sam meets in Brothers Asunder, has a gift called the Voice of the Spirit, which means that his connection to Her is the strongest it can be. The gift enables him to Pray much more without tiring, it gives him an empathy to the feelings, physical and emotional, of the living things around him, and it enables him to see where the Spirit’s influence flows. He would have been able to see right away that Sam does not have a connection to a Spirit.

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Hah, it’s true! The wood sprites of Wellwood are all vegetarians. Interestingly enough, when Sam arrived, one of the first things the sprites did was see what their Archives had on humans. They discovered there that humans do eat meat, and then came an unbearably awkward conversation with Sam. It was hard to figure out how to bring it up with him, but it was kind of important that they know … would a human eat a sprite? And did they need to figure out a way to get meat for him, or could he survive without it?

Thankfully they could smooth that over after many perplexed looks and probably lots of cringing.

Sam grew up with a sprite diet, since it would be hard for them to get meat for him. It worked out well, because the food was all extremely healthy and helped him grow into a strong young knight!

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April 4th excerpt:

Jacob offered a warm smile to the closest of the nestlings, still a few feet away from him. They perked up in surprise, as if they didn’t expect him to be able to see them wandering closer to him. Tiny wings, some of them still slightly curled at the edges, fluttered at their backs.

“Hi,” he greeted them, and the nestlings stumbled forward even more. Some that were on the opposite side of the stream set to work carefully hopping from stone to stone, avoiding the water. “Be careful over there,” Jacob warned them. He got a few sheepish grins in return and some approving nods from the parents who hung back to continue the washing.

“We’re always careful,” someone answered, and Jacob looked down to find that a nestling had reached him. He tensed up slightly, staring at the absolutely tiny child standing in the grass, well within reach of the arms he rested on his knees. “If someone fell in the stream, their wings would get so heavy!”