Originality in Fantasy? Is it even possible...

Victarion

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Before going any further, I'd like to ask the Hype how original you lot feel my fantasy creatures are. They're inspired by a lot of Celtic/English superstition, which I haven't seen a lot of in modern fantasy:

*Mallt-y-Nos: A subordinate to Pengryf Nudd that tends to his Hounds. When there is a soul to be taken, Mallt-y-Nos rides out with the Hounds and will pursue the quarry to the ends of the Earth. Though she is a hag, her wails can rival an entire choir of banshees. It has earned her the nickname “Mother of Banshees” in the Other World.

Midnight Pack: The hounds of Pengryf Nudd. They go out with him on his usual Hunt, when the barriers between worlds are low and will follow his commands to a fault. Anytime a human faithful to Nudd renounces him, the Pack is sent out with the Mother of Banshees to capture the soul and return it to Nudd. The Midnight Pack is based off of the Welsh
counterpart of the “black dog”, known as the Gwyllgi.

Fairy: The militant force of the Other World, these faeries dwell in the ruined castles and despise humanity almost as much as Nudd. The faeries of this Other World are five feet to six feet high, with a silver-gray mane of hair and a crest of horns. Their complexion is blend of grayish-purple with hinged jaws and omnivorous teeth. Aside from considerable physical might, a few faeries possess the ability to pry into the minds of lesser creatures, such as mortal men.

Elves: They are born androgynous and can choose whichever gender they please. The elves hold that they were shaped in the image of the trolls and so worship them as gods. These elves are not restricted to a forest. They can dwell in any environment and will take on the harshest characteristics of that environment. For example, an elf who does choose to live in the woods might take on a slightly wolf-like appearance while a bog-dwelling elf might have some alligator or crocodile-like characteristics. Like their troll forefathers, the elves despise the human-like people without really knowing or understanding why. They just do. Their maliciousness could be anywhere from picking into the curing vats and fermenting vats to stealing children and sacrifcing lost travellers on a piece of geography that defines their environment, such as a bog-dwelling elf sacrificing a man on an old cypress or beneath the shade of a willow tree. Again, they know not the purpose behind their sacrifices and really never considered the morality of their actions from a human point of view.



*This name is ripped straight from the folklore of the Celts since at one time this story took place in the real world, but that has changed as of last week, so I need to come up with something more original.

---Please be brutally honest with me ladies and gentleman. Mr. Wooden Alligator thanks you. :)
 
These creatures sound terrific, Mr. WA. Sounds like something out of Guillermo del Toro's 'Pan's Labyrinth'.
 
These creatures sound terrific, Mr. WA. Sounds like something out of Guillermo del Toro's 'Pan's Labyrinth'.

Thanks. The design for the faeries' facial features came from an old mask worn by some pagan denomination. I'll try to find a pic. Does it sound too much like Pan's Labyrinth?

I'm hopefully doing my damn best not to plagiarize. If you've read Eragon or Eldest, I want to do just the opposite of what was done with those books. The gist of it is this: Star Wars alternate reality type thing (What if the Wise Old Man was Eragon Skywalker's father instead of the treacherous Jedi..erm...Dragon Rider...) set in medieval times with some rescrambled names from Lord of the Rings used as city and town names.

*Added elves to the first post*
 

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