Sunday, 15 May 2011

Spectral entities: sun dogs; lens flayers; bokeh-men

This is inspired by the spaceport people table at Lunching at Lamias, a good source of ideas.

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Sun dogs flash from their kennels beyond ken and into existence wherever light shines and is refracted through ice crystals. Their bark is worse than their bite if the attention ought to be elsewhere, but they may well do direct harm to the incautious if incited through staring.

Lens flayers burst into reality on streams of photons running between light source and observer, and hang in the air, perhaps in numbers, latching onto a lens and bleeding contrast. They are believed to be vassals only, used to add a sense of truth to creation, and are captured by arcane means by certain artists for the same, perhaps as devotion.

Bokeh-men wait in the background of the observed world and emerge the moment focus is lost, growing to fill space even as they become more diffuse, surrendering their energies to feed a dominant central figure. Like the lens flayers they are easily made cliche, but it is conceivable they submit to this so as to lull the observer into a sopor.

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I don't have game stats, but if they jump you, a good defence may be closing the eyes.
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