Come with me as we delve into the feral fauna of lustrous Lamplight!
Greetings and salutations, I am Varys Matthau, Orchard’s Parazoologist Premiere! Heh, no, I don’t mean that with certainty, but as you well know, I am a studied and avid researcher in the biota that call the curious corners of this vast Verse home! From the Singing Snailwings of Orchard’s Horsehead Nebula to the emergent fauna of the Resurge-Verdance Sector. Yet, all of that is fairly close to home. That is why my next sojourn takes me further afield than ever before.
Lampeter. The decaying behemoth that touches more worlds than the brain could possibly imagine. Many have delved into the history of the line and the cultures that traveled across it for carousel, conquest, curiosity, and concern, but in those scattered worlds, left to rust and Neon in many cases, I have heard that one can still find life.
I don’t mean those of a mind, like you or I, dear listener, no, no, the primal and pristine. I seek to discover what remains of the East’s Wilds… if any are to remain. A risky endeavor, I am well aware, but we’re running out of time to know, aren’t we?
However, I believe my environ may give away that I have taken a brief detour prior to the adventure’s start.
Lamplight! The city on the edge of Everis! Again, much has been said of the people and arts of this place, and the mysteries abounding beyond.
But many forget that Humans and similar are not the only occupants of this wonderful city.
So come with me as we delve into the feral fauna of lustrous Lamplight!
History & Commanlities
While I do not intend to put much focus on it, as noted above, one can not understand the origin and proliferation of the fauna within this delightful domain without at least having some knowledge of from whence they came.
Lamplight the body, has been here longer than any living or immortal has enough memory to know.
Artist's Approximation of Lamplight
Lamplight the city was founded by the Jean-Antoine Delacroix, a beloved yet bereaved poet of my own Orchard, entirely by accident. He endeavored to make this place a home for those cast aside by the greater Verse, the outcast and the lost. One can say that he… partially succeeded, but long after he claimed his own life, as the life he had been attempting to escape came calling on his doorstep anyway.
Today, Lamplight is an enclave beyond the edge of Everis and the only known domain of the Neverwas, not even the Neon can reach here, to which I imagine the many that have come to call this shaded domain home are thankful. While smaller enclaves fill in the cracks and rest amidst the borders, Lamplight is best known for its five major enclaves.
Kievan and Aetherium of Orchard, Giotto of Sol, Neoclassical of the Neon-Lost London, and Nomad of the Many Steppes.
I will go into the ecology of each origin more later on, but much of Lamplight has been explained by others far more informed than I.
Now, while the city is divided into five major conclaves, with congruent fauna often most tightly grouped within each district despite the feral nature of most of the as-yet-mentioned specimens, three emergent commonalities are found across all nonsophont species that have come to call Lamplight home.
The first is largely behavioral, with all nonsophont species showing great reticence towards stepping beyond the city’s outermost borders, even though that is where the most “wild” territory can be found. Abandoned farm plots, abandoned parks, overgrown personal gardens of the latest artist to slip away into the Evernothing. Places of comparative plenty, but few beasts stay here for long, going through a daily migration of consumption and flight back into the more… hmm, I suppose real is fitting, core of the city.
The sole exception is the beasts that congregate about and call the lone “lake”, in truth, the city’s largest reservoir. One of Delacroix’s earliest and perhaps most expensive pet project tied to making this place livable. This region is known as the Wild District among locals. However, since most within the city, excluding those in the depths of truest melancholy, avoid it altogether, it is not considered part of the city proper.
The second, as you may have noticed from the video feed, Lamplight, after a fashion, has a fairly boreal climate, and the fog and snow are a near-constant presence. As such, all species have undergone rapid adaptation. Thicker coats are the most common adaptation, with colorations marked for long-term polar living; of course, the weather thankfully never gets quite so cold. Snow falls heaviest within the Wild District, yet something about the soil keeps just enough of the plants verdant to keep the cycle turning.
Lastly, and most striking are the, well, I suppose the only term I can really use to compare what sits before me are the “ribbons” that emerge from each nonsophont creature within Lamplight. Fur, skin, even flesh and viscera on occasion flutter back in thin flat ribbons from the tips of ears, ends of tails, along the back like a mane, or from amidst their joints.
Yet, none of the animals I have witnessed seem at all distressed by these alterations, and having witnessed a handful of young with similar markers I can only conclude this is some adaption or mark of the non matter, indeed they do appear to be after-a-fashion only half there, as I have seen their supposedly solid forms fade and faze through stone and wood, again without reaction by the connected creature. Why this… unraveling seems to do no apparent harm I cannot say, for its resemblance to the nonmatter’s consumptive touch upon sophonts who have dared it are uncanny.
Indeed, the folk here have many stories of those who have come back, unraveling like a bad wool sweater, yet when I remark upon the creature’s alterations, all that greets me are shrugs and dull mutters of uncertainty. Indeed, I think that the obsessions that this place engenders in the sophont mind keep long timers for engaging with any mysteries beyond the cold promise of the Void beyond and the centering warmth of the fire at their back. I have yet to meet an individual who has not had their eyes burrowing into one or the other, but I digress. Let us begin this animalia accounting in earnest, yes?!
The Keivan District
Also known as the Victorian District or Old Lamplight, it is the oldest and most central part of the city proper. As such, its introduced fauna have had the longest relative time to proliferate and adapt to the abnature of Lamplight.
Now, Orchard’s Earth, from which much of the fauna and native populace claim descent, excluding a smattering of Or-Martian and Titanians, is distinct from the likes of Sol due to the commonality of forest biomes over others. Indeed, while Sol can be said to be marked in the majority by patchwork grassland and desert when it comes to terrestrial biomes, forests of all kinds mark much of Or-Earth’s surface. With the folk of Orchard, pardon my laconic, wrenching their heads from their behinds when it comes to environmentalism, their towering old wood biomes still cover a great breadth of land even in the modern day.
As most of the trees are fruit-bearing, and indeed most Keivan dishes rely heavily on fruit products, one can see why the Verse gained the name, now can’t you?
Of course, for our purposes, this distinction in biome is more critical for the adaptations that emerged amongst the world’s fauna. Indeed, most terrestrial species are at least partially arboreal, including those that I imagine would quite shock a Sol resident. However, the likes of an Arbor Elephant(Elephas scanderes) are far too large for the urban sparsity of Lamplight. Those animals that thrived here amidst that first batch of settlers were on the smaller side of things. Indeed, while in decline due to the greater potential of the livestock introduced into the Nomad district, Keivan Deer(Dama lanas) are still kept by those few families that Delacroix wished to see resettled, before, of course, it became a place of rhapsody and opium.
The Keivan Deer were brought not for meat, but mainly for milk and their thick fur, which has only grown denser in their time amidst Lamplight. This fur is water-resistant, heat-retaining, and surprisingly soft, and while the practice has fallen on the wayside with the advent of trade and creation of more advanced textiles, many Keivan families gift their children scarves, hats, and mittens to stave off the cold, knit from the naturally strikingly colored fur.
Keivan Deer have been domesticated for so long that populations in the wild are considered feral, and they have taken well to the Orchard’s wilderness. Still, unlike many other feral populations, they have integrated without causing significant environmental damage. On Lamplight, most deer that remain are indeed feral but approachable by sophonts.
They are not large animals; most stand less than a meter at the shoulder. As noted, their dappled fur comes in a number of bright colorations, yellow, red, and a silvery blue being the most common.
They are browsers most typically, consuming fruits and leaves over most grasses, though they will graze on occasion, and I did get the chance to observe a moment of opportunistic omnivory, though what the doe was picking over I couldn’t quite see, rotted and pitted by the nothing as it was.
While most cervine males compete against each other in clattering head-butting contests with their antlers, it can be said that the Keivan Deer are somewhat lacking in that department. Indeed, while both genders retain antlers for almost the entire year, they are dull and nubby things, bred down to lessen the danger totheir handlers when one gets miffed or, in some cases, overly playful. As the feral populations have had relatively little time to regain their ancestral weapons, they instead compete with another typical trait amongst certain cervines.
Their voice.
Herds in Orchard can number in the hundreds, their harrowing calls muffled by the dense undergrowth and hearty canopy, so while those on Lamplight number only about fifty individuals in the largest I was able to observe, their calls are far louder. Indeed, I had quite a fright the first time it happened, as all the sound that accompanied it seemed to fall quiet, their arching cry bouncing against every window and wall, then echoing out into the never. I had heard of the Pattern Screamer, the dread folk of the Never, seeking to be remembered by those who never knew them. But imagine my embarrassment when my drinking companion laughed and informed me one of the bucks was simply exceptionally randy…
But yes, they actively challenge each other into screaming matches, with the loudest attracting the most mates. Fawns are born in what approximates spring here in Lamplight, and the little bundles are said to be some of the cutest and most awkward things you can imagine, all legs with their fur buffed out in a near-perfect circle.
A Keivan Buck & Doe
Of course, I should say their shrieking calls are not the only sounds to break the relatively tranquil Keivan nights.
As I stated previously, Delacroix worked hard in those initial days to make Lamplight livable. However, those actions are curiously absent in conversation. Most visitors and natives are eager to speak of his art or his demise. Rather disarming, if I may say so.
Regardless, while snow is plentiful on Lamplight, it seems to have emerged only after human habitation. Yet another curiosity of this impossible place. Of course, snowfall alone, even if it is arguably constant, is not enough water to found a city upon. I can’t exactly say how Delacroix did it, but he carved a reservoir out of the “earth” and managed to fill it to the brim with fresh water. Only a minuscule portion was snowmelt, if the story holds. What little information I could find regarding its creation variably mentions an Orkney Priest, an Antarctican Ice Merchant, or something beneath the city proper.
Regardless, after digging canals and wells, his fledgling settlement had all the water it could need. He took to populating it with a smattering of foliage and fauna. The first bit of greenery Lamplight would see. Now, all the fish are relatively common, and there is a curious similarity in form and habit across the Verse, at least in the West, from my experience. It’s when things take root that commonalities start to diverge.
But one occupant stands out above all others.
The Vast Lakes Whale(Brachiocetus interiomeridias), also known as the Champosaurus, or Meridian Nessie. The smallest of the Brachiocetids shifted into a freshwater habitat, scattered across numerous sizable lakes in the Northeastern portion of the Meridian continent, with a high level of speciation, likely caused by population isolation when water levels fell during Orchard’s first ice age.
Of course, most on Sol would fail to recognize them as a whale, and may indeed make closer to the likes of plesiosaurs, though their long necks are far wider, and in the case of the Vast Lakes Whale itself, still retain a set of functional forelegs. In truth, I have always found the animals to more closely resemble a vast but misshapen goose! The largest bulls grow up to nine meters from the tip of their conical heads down to their pronged tails, though again a surprising amount of that length is their necks.
They are starkly intelligent yet painfully shy. Despite their closer proximity to human populations, they are among the least understood cetaceans on Orchard’s earth! They were the national animal of the Vast Lakes Confederacy. The star of numerous nature documentaries, art pieces, and children’s stories, due to a mixture of their mysterious nature and delightful singing. Notably, they are capable of vocalizing above the waves, one of the key distinctions of the Brachiocetids, excluding their divergent body plans.
What mattered to Delacroix in his desire to transplant them to Lamplight was that they were the favorite animals of one Emily Woolf.
I am uncertain if he wished for a link to her in this dour place or if he sought to win her attention to his endeavoring, after all, as I have mentioned, many of their mutual acquaintances came to call Lamplight their home in those early years, and perhaps believed she, too, would join in. A salve for his disappointment?
But she never did.
And so the whales were left to go as wild as they could manage in the comparatively minuscule reservoir to their natural habitat. Now, one would think they would have suffered greatly and eventually expired, for the original pod was composed of but thirty individuals, a fairly limited gene pool.
But they remain, though their numbers have never gotten above more than a hundred individuals at any one time. Their success is believed to be due to two distinct advantages: one shaped by evolution and the other, quite honestly, an utter accident.
The latter being that Delacroix was not very particular about where he drew the whales from. As I mentioned, there is a great deal of genetic variance, nearly a dozen distinct subspecies, if not more! Yet, they can all interbreed and produce fertile offspring! This variance in individuals seems to have worked in the animal’s favor when it came to avoiding complications. Indeed, I noticed at least three calves amongst the pod, their coloration a delightful mixture of the white and black dappling of the Lake Suprema subspecies and the distinct pink flair of the more coastal Aerie variety.
Then came their preferred feeding method: suction. On Orchard, they root about the lake bottoms, drawing in rotting vegetation and all manner of invertebrates and fish hiding in the mud. Lamplight has always baffled botanists and environmentalists, but honestly, no plants should be able to grow in these environs. Yet, something in the "soil" of this place makes them grow far beyond what should be realistically probable.
It appears that the whales can also make use of these additional nutrients, and from my observations, they dine more on the mud itself than on the critters lurking within it! Indeed, that would make them some of the largest detritivores I have ever encountered!
And while I mentioned the apex growth of the whales on Orchard, I was amazed to discover this as less than the median amongst the Lamplight pod! Indeed, the largest specimen I observed nearly doubled that length! A matronly female who seemed to spend much of her time singing, fraying head raised towards the sky, eyes as milky as the light above our head. Truly a magnificent creature.
And the singing like a pipe organ down-pitched so low you hear it in your stomach before it ever reaches your ears. Haunting, enchanting, and similarly echoing as the calls of the deer. There is a clear melody to their calls, a lulling, pleasant cadence that the other adult pod members will take up and rejoinder from at random moments, a chaotic and captivating chorus that I listened to for what must have been half a day.
Curiously, the natives swear the beasts aren’t simply singing instinctive tunes, but are reciting the words of Delacroix. One rather avid individual showed me how she had perfectly matched the matron’s tones to the meter of his last work. Indeed, I found myself joined in my revery by a surprising number of individuals, all with the void-haunted gaze of the disposessed. But there was something in their eyes that lingered, as if the tune was keeping them anchored. It was… disconcerting, if I might be frank, and while they are wise and striking animals, I failed to recognize the “brilliance of Delacroix “in their calls.
A Singing Beauty
I could go on about other aspects of both beasts I found alluring or several other creatures I observed in my time in the district, yet this is not the only region of the city that has been made a home for Orchard fauna!
The Aetherium District:
The Aetherium District is a motley of clashing designs done large. Its buildings tower taller than a good portion of the rest of the city. This verticality is often noted as the second wave of settlers’ attempts to “rise above the plights and worries of home”. A completely understandable movement considering the horrors they walked away from. The majority of the buildings in the district look partially decayed, with rust and graffiti a purposeful commonality.
Additionally, all manner of invasive greenery is allowed to flourish, with certain elements integrated into the power grid, crafting a curiously nihilistic solar punk existence for much of the district. This does make it occasionally difficult to realize when one wanders from the district into the adjoining “wilds”, at least for visitors. The natives seem intimately aware of every intricate distinction, which are numerous and near nonsensical, fitting the original anarchistic mindset of the founding inhabitants.
While most of the settlers in the Keivan District came from the Republic, Strathclyde, and other neighboring nations, those who founded Aetherium were more varied, with significant population groups drawn from all eight of Orchard-Earth’s continents. This also meant that a number of more niche fauna were brought along, primarily as pets, but in this case, in the name of conservation, as the “Burnt Apple War” had devastated numerous biomes to the point of ruin.
Sahuli, Zealandian, and Northern Kalmaktaman fauna are the most common, from my initial investigations. Yet the animal that today exemplifies the district can be found anywhere on Orchard, but has particularly thrived in this section of Lamplight.
The Gyrfox(Avivulpes falcons) can similarly be found anywhere in Lamplight, but it is to Aetherium that most return each night. One of the most common winged carnivores in Orchard, this canine is a member of the fox family. Indeed, their overall body shape closely resembles that of their terrestrial cousins, though they tend to assume a stooped posture when at rest, like a squirrel.
Of course, their wings are the most significant distinction: powerfully muscled yet relatively compact, they allow the Gyrfox to make sudden stops and aid in tight turns, which they used in Orchard to expertly weave through the boughs and trunks of the ever-expanding forests. Other adaptations include a more compact muzzle, lengthened hind limb claws, and a flattened tail to further aid in their acrobatic flight. Their eyes are quite large, and they rely on a combination of sight and scent to pinpoint prey. The majority have white fur, though occasional black, grey, and merlot spotting/patching has been observed.
The Lamplight subspecies has an additional adaptation. The nonmatter seems to be integrated into their systems in a manner akin to an internal “airbag”, allowing them to dive from incredible heights onto prey and resist any lasting damage from the increased strain on their otherwise unadapted bodies. I believe this trait evolved due to Lamplight’s comparative sparsity, allowing prey to have more time to see a Gyrfox approaching in their standard hunting patterns, necessitating they hit harder and faster.
Of course, the beasts are omnivorous and eager scavengers. I have witnessed them launch after a floundering quail and a tossed muffin with equal gusto.
As mentioned, the majority come home to roost in Aetherium each “night”, nesting in the nooks and crannies at the highest points they can reach. While they spend much of their day solo or in pairs, mated or siblings, most commonly, according to my observations, at night they huddle together in “cuddle-puddles” as the natives dub them. Up to fifty individuals, their nests crafted largely of scavenged metal, wood, and stolen laundry/cloth goods. Kits are similarly raised communally, with parents showing very little favoritism toward their own young.
Notably, despite their classification as thieves by most Lamplighters I have spoken to, their antics are treated with a communal brevity. Some claimed they had been blessed by a Gyrfox, which I came to learn meant having their food stolen right from their hands, or having their scarf or hat pulled free of their person. Indeed, I did see a number of “domesticated” Gyrfoxes in my time on Lamplight, though the animals seemed to only stick with their chosen person during the day, flitting off the moment they sensed “night” had come.
They are affectionate animals, that I can assure you. Their antics largely remind me of Sol’s Corvids, though lacking in their mimicry capabilities. If one finds the allure of these creatures pressing, I must remind you: for all their differences, these are still foxes.
Which means, in polite terms, they are quite keen on marking their territory, including their owners. It is a rather pungent perfume, ha.
Mischief on the Wing
But as I said, you can’t throw a biscuit in Lamplight without a Gyrfox snatching it up, and I promised that each district had its own distinctive fauna. Well, worry not.
But what to focus on: the jungles and savannahs of Sahul, the fjords and temperate rainforests of Zealandia, or the scrublands of Kalmaktama?
Ah, how about I discuss the little-understood “assistant architects,” known as the Wardu-Utan (Driptodon pseudocalicothere).
As I stated, these animals are a fair bit mysterious, which is even more stark considering their great size. They live in a particularly isolated portion of Sahul, high in the northern cloud forests, where their domain is walled off. I do not mean to say that the native sophont populations keep outside scientists from observing them. That is a whole other issue entirely, largely due to the ongoing separatist movement in the region, but we aren’t here to discuss modern politics.
No, the barrier, an immense wall crafted from the thick trunks of the local mountain ash, is entirely the making of the Wardu-Utan themselves.
While close in size to polar bears, the beings have slotted into a niche in many ways comparable to that of beavers, serving as environmental engineers with a keen instinct for majestic architectural feats. Though while the latter focus more on damming river ways and constructing lodges for rest, the Warda-Utan build walls around their favored feeding grounds. Thus keeping out other large herbivores and defending their relatively defenseless young from native predators, including the Sahulian Tiger(Panthera tigris sahuli) and Greater Drake(Varanus priscus).
The limited observation on Orchard that has been recorded, outside of the information mentioned above, notes they live communally, and show signs of tool use on par with, if not greater than, great apes. Of course, this has not been fully corroborated, and much of what is said about the animals is left to speculation and cryptozoological debates.
This makes their presence on Lamplight even more confusing. As I mentioned, many Sahulian expatriates and their descendants live in Aetherium, yet not a one of them could say when or how the animals first arrived in the district.
I will admit that a great deal of my time on Lamplight was spent observing them. Yet, I do not believe my observations of these beings should be taken into account at all regarding the behavior of the main species back on Orchard.
As mentioned, the debate about their intelligence has been ongoing for quite some time. Conversations with natives and my own observations seem to suggest that the beings are on the edge of sophontism. If they have not already crossed the proverbial, relatively archaic “line”. They are capable of understanding the spoken word at least to some extent, which aids in their “job” within the district, and they seem to know not to stray beyond the district unless told or asked to do so. Furthermore, I have seen them actively decorate themselves with scavenged baubles or gifts, and they are ready guardians of children left in their care, though this has occasionally, at least according to native tales, gone awry in the past when one got “too serious” about adopting their “ward”.
They are burly animals, with their brown fur growing far thicker than in their natural habitat, giving them the appearance, at least at a passing glance, of a Highland Cow with a gorilla-like stance, except for their large, rodent-like teeth, which are distinctively silvery-black.
As for their “accidental architect” appellation, as noted, Aetherium tends towards dilapidation, meaning that some buildings are often just left to fallow. This is where the Wardu-Utan come in.
In their natural habitat, they are believed to eat wood, bamboo, and other plant material. Such materials are relatively rare, as I have noted, so the animals had to adapt.
And so they did, with their current diet consisting of a minority of plant matter and a majority of metal and stone of all varieties. Indeed, the animals’ bites increase the level of rust and decay in the objects they consume, allowing them to break them down more easily and adding to the district’s anarchistic flair.
They are slow eaters, and most fully grown Lamplight Wardu-Utan only need one meal a month. The material they don’t eat, they gather and assemble into their dens, with many visitors approaching what they at first believe to be modern art displays, only to be startled by the looming form of a rudely awoken rust-covered beast.
What is more, their dung, which retains the cubular shape curiously common amongst wombats across the Verse, while not being of much use for fertilizer, consists mainly of unalloyed metals. The natives occasionally use these as building materials or to create a number of other metallic objects. I admit I was a tad suspicious of the metal tankard that was pressed upon me by the same bartender who revealed that fact to me.
I am a bit baffled by their ready consumption and processing of such materials, for while this is far from irregular in the grand scope of the Verse, this kind of adaptation would take thousands upon thousands of generations, not this markedly short period of time.
Yet we all know Lamplight is anything but the norm. Indeed, I was able to convince an individual to allow me a look at their teeth, offering my canteen, a pitted and aged bit of Palisade Titanium as payment.
It appears that the animals have adapted a “enameling” of nonmatter across their teeth, resulting in both the coloration and its disruptive capabilities. How this occurred, I can’t begin to say, and how, as with the other alterations to their form, there is not a greater amount of distress or deterioration within the species continues to hold my deep interest. If Lampeter was not awaiting, I can see myself staying here attempting to wile out all the alterations and secrets of the locale’s adoptive fauna.
But… that’s the lure of this place. The trap? I have to wonder whether all these oddities are not simply bait meant to hook individuals like me. A discomforting thought, but not so much perhaps as the rumor I heard of an individual who managed to rile the Wardu-Utan to violence.
Their “rusting venom” affects all metals, including the iron in human blood.
Fascinatingly grotesque.
A Wardu & his Bite
With that, we leave the domains and fauna of Orchard behind and come to the end of our time together. Next entry, we will delve into regions of the city tied to locales, intimate and more distant than most can reckon. As ever, I am Varys Matthau, bidding you all a temporary adieu!