The Bestiary Project

You might be wondering, dear reader, why this page exists. Well, that is a fantastic question. I've decided to write this page for the express purpose of having something here to chronicle the journey that my penning of these pages has taken. Frankly, it'll likely become a mess of random notes, annotations, and ramblings, but that's what happens when you write sometimes.

In any case, I hope you enjoy your time within the pages of this bestiary and the world of Pronathea. Knowing that you all have enjoyed my work so far means a lot to me and I will do my best to continue to deserve it.

— Your faithful narrator

Where to Begin

I suppose, reasonably speaking, that one may begin at the beginning. That sounds like a good tradition to uphold, doesn't it?

Anyway, so last week I was thinking about what this bestiary project might become, whether I'd actually complete it, whether it was worth continuing, things of that nature. The support I've had from people for this project has been immense, especially from a few people in particular (they know who they are), and the idea of shelving it has come into my mind more than once.

I won't be doing that, though. I enjoy this project, as much as it may also feel like I'm scraping my forehead against a cheese grater at times, and seeing it to completion would be a notable achievement in my life.

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There's also the thing where I could call myself a published author if I get it printed, so that's just fun.

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The main drive behind this project, however, is the fact that I want to prove to myself that I can do it. As fun as it is to look at whether or not I can make plushies of my critters, how I might actually get the thing published into a physical book, custom coins for my world, those all mean very very little to me compared to being able to point to the words on a page and say "I wrote that. Me. I did that. These are my words. No one elses."

I can't imagine a better feeling than that, and I wholeheartedly believe that, when I finally sit down and see my words on my pages in my book, the first words out of my mouth will be "Fucking hell, that sucked. Let's do it again."

The Actual Beginning

For those who aren't aware, or simply wish to hear about it again, this project began with a challenge that I should not have made. I challenged the lovely ShadowPhoenix to find people who would be interested in me writing a bestiary. I regretted my decision moments later, and even more a couple days later. That was back in 2021 and the subsequent WorldEmber had me writing thirty nine species and somehow winding up at the top of the leaderboard as the author with most likes during the challenge.

It's still something I'm shocked at two years later. This years WorldEmber was dedicated to me writing about all the dragons in Pronathea, something that, at the moment of writing this, I'm fairly sure I won't be able to accomplish, but there's still time so who knows what I might be able to pull out of my ass between now and then.

There's... More Than I Thought

The current number of creatures fully written for the bestiary is:

97

That many in the last two years. Whew. Okay, gonna need to sit for a moment with that one.

So that's a lot. It's less than the insanity that is Mochi, but still a bloody lot.

Speaking of Mochi, there's a lot of fantastic work on World Anvil from some awesome people. There's way too many awesome people to list, but you all know who you are!

For the people who read "let's do it again" as me wanting to write another bestiary...

No, you're wrong. I have other ideas than species.

It's fine.

Don't worry about it.

No, no, I said don't worry about it.

by K. Stormcrow

The Concepts & Designs

I had the original goal of being able to have every creature in the bestiary have its own little image accompanying it, not just a description. The picture to the left was made by my original artist for the project, though unfortunately I haven't been in contact with them for a long while.

The idea of using a journal ink sketch style made a lot of sense to me, it's a bestiary, likely assembled from field notes and sketches from sightings and memory, so that kind of style really fit.

I'd still like to pursue that avenue of art style and still have the majority of the creatures within the bestiary have their own artwork, though some of the creatures haven't been seen by mortals either ever or just not for an extremely long time, leading to the issue with word of mouth descriptions; them changing. Maybe it's an idea to throw in a few that are just... completely wrong? Or a couple of a creature where there's similar features between the pictures but then also wildly different features? That might be interesting. We'll have to find out, I suppose.

At the moment I've been using a combination of Midjourney and Photoshop to be able to create some of the images I have for my species. I understand that generative imagery is a bit of a hot topic, but rest assured that I have every intention of having an artist create actual images of my critters when I can, and these images will serve as an important reference for them.

Some people might find this interesting, but there's a signup sheet that Shadow created for the bestiary that gets shared every now and then. I'm not mentioning it so that people sign up for it.

I'm mentioning it because I actually have no idea how many people have signed up for it. Seriously. Shadow told me how many people have signed up once but I have no idea what that number was anymore and I'm sure that it may not be accurate anymore even if I did know it.

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What Does All This Mean?

All of this means that there's a non-zero chance that there will eventually be a book with a cover, not so dissimilar to the one on this page, with the words "Pronathea" and "bestiary" on it. It may even be leather bound. It also might include pictures. Maybe some statblocks. Perhaps a cute page keeping ribbon. Definitely not doing a coloured edge for the pages though, I don't think that would work very well for this.

No, what all this means is that I'm going to commit to this. I want to do this sooner rather than later and if I don't do something to keep me accountable then I'm rather afraid that I just won't end up doing it, or doing it so periodically that it's functionally pointless. That means writing stuff down, starting with this.

The name I've always given myself, in my part to play with Pronathea, is the narrator; I don't live within the pages I create, and I never will, but I will gladly tell their story.

With All That Said

Perhaps you'd like to take a look at the creatures in the bestiary?

Turn to the table of contents here...

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I believe that just about brings this page to a close. I will, hopefully, keep this updated from time to time with the progress that I make, and should people wish to ask questions here then I will make sure to respond to each and every one of them that I can.

Thank you, dear reader, for accompanying me on this journey.

— Your faithful narrator