Geometrical Safari

The Alternate-Reality Field Guide to Monsters I made up when I was eight

[geometricalsafari]

The Crashing Empty fundraising campaign

It’s an age-old story: boy befriends girl, multinational corporation builds opposed megastore in town, boy throws brick through window.

The Crashing Empty is a coming-of-age story about accepting responsibility, set against a battle of community spirit versus corporate greed.

It's finally happened! That "secret project" I was talking about is no longer secret; and it's here: I’m writing a young-adults novel!

It’s inspired by the No McDonalds events in Tecoma. It’s a story about a mega-rich corporation that bends the law, and the small town that says no. It also includes chess, archery, saxophones, bananas, and vandalism.

What I think might interest tumblr, though, is that its protagonists are an asexual and a female POC! There’s never enough diversity in fiction, so if I’ve got the opportunity, you betcha I’m gonna try to fix that. This whole book is, at its core, about fighting social injustices and the cycle of unfairness that extreme wealth perpetuates.

You can order a book - or an adorable plush brick! - by backing my Indiegogo campaign. Please share this as much as possible! Reblogging, tweeting, posting to facebook, and printing off the link and sending it via carrier pigeon are all appreciated and will really help me get this book made.

Geometrical Safari will resume when I've finished writing The Crashing Empty. Until then, you can order a book, and have the regular campaign updates to keep you sated!

[geometricalsafari]

General update

Sorry for the lack of posts recently! Let me tell you a thing:

I originally intended for GS to be a daily update, and it was for about five months. But that's because I got all that buffer done in advance, and slowly kept advancing it. I've still got about forty more creatures drawn, in fact (you might notice my signature still has "13" in it; I'm still on last year's drawings), but writing the entries took longer than I anticipated. I started writing longer ones which required more detailed and esoteric research, and - I think they're better for it. But it's meant I've run out of written buffer.

So, the choice is between pooping something semi-decent out, or taking the time to write them properly. I've opted to go with the latter, so GS will be moving - temporarily - into an update schedule of "whenever I get the time to write one".

I've recently taken on a new project. I can't talk about it just yet (yes, this old chestnut) but it's gonna be hella rad. It's taking up a lot of my time, though! Hopefully I'll be able to tell you about it next week, but the decision is out of my hands for now. I was planning to not say anything until I could talk about it, but I figured that I owe an explanation and had let it slide too long already.

[geometricalsafari]

058 Bigmouth

Pronun: BIG-mowth Element: Fire Height: 7'2" Type: Bite Evolution: None

Bigmouth are entirely two-dimensional, appearing only as an almost-imperceptible line when viewed from directly in front. They appear to have existed since shortly after the first cave paintings appeared, and remain largely mysterious. Determining an accurate appearance throughout history has been difficult for modern scientists, as written descriptions from any language and period seem to describe the artistic depictions of Bigmouth from the same times and places. It is unclear whether this is simply due to the perceptions of the various cultures, or whether it could be due to some as-yet unknown property inherent of Bigmouth itself.

[geometricalsafari]

057 Eugh

Pronun: ER/gh/ Element: Weird/Fire Height: 10’4” Type: Sleeping Evolution: None

Eugh sleeps up to nineteen hours a day, usually nestled underneath trees in the shade. Native to France, Eugh love eating honey, and in return will expend most of their energy looking for more sources of nectar for bees. Bees will therefore often ride in Eugh’s fur, never stinging their slow-moving host but sometimes helping to defend it from danger.

In the 1870s, Eugh were often shaved and put in carnival shows, advertised to be “pig-faced women.” Photographs suggest that their ears were usually tied beneath their chin with ribbon to resemble a bonnet.

Today, due to their slow pace and solitary lifestyle, Eugh are considered endangered. France recently passed laws to prevent beekeepers removing Eugh from their property, or interfering with them in their pursuit for honey.

[geometricalsafari]

056 Talking

Pronun: TOR-king Element: Weird/Flying Height: 7” Type: Bird/Blabbermouth Evolution: None

Talking are found mostly in the forests of Victoria in Australia. They form no social groups themselves, but instead join the social groups of any other nearby animals or Geometrical Creatures – using their ability to perfectly mimic any sound to blend in.

They move by popping around like Mexican jumping beans, their unpredictable and sudden motions frequently startling the animals whose families they join.

Indigenous linguists have recently taken an interest in a very specific group of Talking. While studying the dead language of an aboriginal tribe, they discovered that nearby Talking were saying certain words and phrases from the language’s vocabulary. It is thought that these Talking must have lived with the tribe, and learned to mimic their language as a result: since the actual pronunciation had been assumed lost forever, these Talking may provide the key to resurrecting it as a spoken language.

[geometricalsafari]

055 Hammer Bull

Pronun: HAM-mer-BOOL Element: Ground/Water/Fighting Height: 8’ long including tail Type: Bull/Shark Evolution: None

Hammer Bull run wild across the coastal regions of South Africa, living most of their lives in the grasslands. Once a year, however, they make a migration by sea around Cape Agulhas to their ancestral breeding grounds. Young Hammer Bull are more at home in the water than on land, and develop their strong leg muscles through swimming, which they are capable of doing quite strongly from the moment they are born.

In the water, Hammer Bull use the long metal spines that grow from their shoulder muscles as rudders; these spines are already present at birth and grow continuously throughout their lives. On the land however, where they spend most of their time, Hammer Bull are fast and ferocious runners, using their spines for combat both while hunting impala for food and while jousting with other Hammer Bull over mating rights. There is little dimorphism between male and female Hammer Bull, and herds are generally made from many individual family groups that may be led by either a large male or large female.

Despite their ferocious appearance and international image as man-eaters, Hammer Bull are responsible for relatively few human deaths or injuries, and are an endangered Creature. Their metal spines, hooves, and distinctively shaped heads are all viewed as good luck trophies in many cultures.

Geometrical Safari has been leading initiatives to breed and release Hammer Bull into the wild, as well as lobbying against the increasing number of government-backed Hammer Bull culls.

[geometricalsafari]

054 Rock Creature

Pronun: ROCK-KREE-chuh Element: Ground Height: Between 16’ and 28’ Type: Boulder Evolution: None

Rock Creature are predominantly found in Micronesia and Polynesia, where they hide on hillsides amongst boulders. Recent discoveries suggest they have once been found as far as Easter Island, however – underneath the iconic Easter Island heads, entire bodies have been discovered sitting on the bedrock, with hieroglyphics depicting what appear to be Rock Creature.

Historians are also suggesting that rei, the giant stone coins of Micronesia, may have had their central holes punched in them by Rock Creature – the holes appear to match up perfectly with the spherical fists of the local Rock Creature population.

The precise mechanism by which Rock Creature may have travelled over such vast distances of ocean are still unknown, as their wings are purely vestigial and they appear to hate water. At Geometrical Safari, Rock Creature are provided with large tarpaulins over areas of their mountainous enclosure, and will huddle together under them during rainstorms.

In the wild, Rock Creature have highly unpredictable personalities and can curl themselves into large boulders in a piece of fantastic natural camouflage. They are generally slow moving, although when accidentally disturbed – be it by hikers climbing on them or excavation vehicles knocking them – they are capable of very rapid movement.

[geometricalsafari]

053 Tove

Pronun: TOVE Element: Humanoid/Plant Height: 10”, plus flower up to 1’ tall and 2’ wide Type: Mushroom/Man Evolution: None

Tove, in various forms, are found across multiple continents. Tove takes on different colourschemes and styles of flower depending on its location, both for disguise and ease of pollination – Tove lay eggs, but are fertilized the same way that plants and fungi are via pollen or spores. Due to its helpful attitude to lost humans, coupled with its difficulty to intentionally find, Tove has entered many different cultures’ mythologies in the form of faeries and pixies. Tove in the British Isles generally have mushroom-shaped flower tops, thought to be the origin of folk tales of “fairy rings,” circles of mushrooms where fairies gather.

The most distinctive flower top of any Tove is undoubtedly on those from the island of Madagascar. A large flower resembling a rafflesia grows continuously over the course of its life, so as to aid in pollen distribution by local birds, as it has no native predators. Tove attempting to camouflage themselves can be told apart from real rafflesias by scent: while rafflesias smell famously like sweet rotting meat, Tove have a light scent that is pleasantly similar to gardenias.

[geometricalsafari]

052 Electrolamb

Pronun: ell-LEK-truh-lam Element: Electric Height: 2’8” high Type: Lamb Evolution: Electrosheep

Electrolamb are one of the oldest domesticated Geometrical Creatures, having been used as a source of light for many thousands of years. It was thanks to Electrolamb and its evolutions Electrosheep (60) and Electroram (61) that inventors around the turn of the century were able to develop electricity for mass purposes – Nikola Tesla was noted to keep a pet Electrolamb in his laboratory.

Electrolamb were part of the Jewish day of Yom Kippur, in which an Electrolamb was sacrificed in the Holy of Holies and a goat made the sin-bearer of the people (Leviticus 23). This liturgical connection is one of the sources for Jesus being known as the “Lamb of God,” and some scholars even suggest that the concept of the “Light of the World” may also originate in part from this connection to Electrolamb.

[geometricalsafari]

051 Maph

Pronun: MAPFF Element: Normal Height: 13 hands, plus 5’3” neck and head Type: Giraffe/map Evolution: None

Maph were also brought due to their close affinity in the wild with both Unithorn and Moo-Oo, and because of their extreme usefulness in determining direction. Maph are born with markings that resemble, with remarkable precision, the geography of the region they are born in.

Mason and Dixon also made use of Maph’s uncanny ability to automatically turn to point true north while resting. During the first surveying expedition, Maph was used only for this and carrying equipment, as they still retained their markings of their native Europe. It was not until Maph were bred specifically in Pennsylvania that they became useful for telling locations.

The British Royal Society’s Henry Cavendish later blamed Maph for causing erroneous measurements. Maph’s hide does not appear to take into account the gravitational forces of the Earth in its mapping, therefore ignoring the effects of the nearby Allegheny Mountains. As Mason and Dixon were setting their instruments based partly on measurements taken from Maph, this resulted in consistent discrepancies.

As a result, Mason later used native Maph back in Scotland to attempt to calculate the density of the Earth, by standing them on different parts of the Schiehallion mountain and measuring the gravitational deflection of a pendulum against the expected measurements as marked on Maph.

[geometricalsafari]

050 Moo-Oo

Pronun: MOO-oo Element: Normal Height: 14 hands Type: Cow Evolution: None

Mason and Dixon also had Moo-Oo shipped over from England, brought alongside their famous milestones. Moo-Oo were selected as a ready source of rich milk, which helped provide fresh nutrition during the surveying trips.

Moo-Oo are notoriously difficult to wrangle, being strong-willed and stubborn despite their low intelligence. However, they respond amicably to Unithorn, and Mason and Dixon’s Iroquois guides used this to their advantage while travelling with them.

When the expedition turned back after reaching the border of Lenape land, a number of Moo-Oo were left behind. They became a part of the small game hunted seasonally by the Lenape, and their numbers were effectively managed to stop them from overrunning the local environment. After the Lenape were driven west, the Moo-Oo went with them.

[geometricalsafari]

049 Unithorn

Pronun: YOO-nith-orn Element: Plant Height: 16 hands Type: Horse Evolution: None

The horn on Unithorn’s forehead is biologically closer to the thorns found on rose bushes than it is to a traditional horn. Its fur has a mossy texture to it, leading many to speculate that Unithorn has more in common taxonomically with the plant kingdom than the animal kingdom, as far as the Geometrical Creatures kingdom can be related.

Along with Moo-Oo (050) and Maph (051), Unithorn were brought to the US from England to help survey the Mason-Dixon line in 1763, to sort out a border dispute between Pennsylvania and Delaware. Their ability to quickly and easily carve a path through thickly wooded areas using their horn was instrumental in traversing the forests in Colonial Pennsylvania.

[geometricalsafari]

048 Yumz

Pronun: YUMS Element: Normal Height: 8’1” Type: Dinosaur/sandwich Evolution: None

Yumz are very rare, but have the evolutionary advantage of being able to provide less sugary and more nutrient rich food to the Dianne they protect. Due to their size, they are able to shelter more even Dianne than Donasaur can, and they have even been observed with the occasional Donasaur hanging from them.

[geometricalsafari]

047 Donasaur

Pronun: DOH-nah-sore Element: Normal Height: 4’3” Type: Dinosaur/doughnut Evolution: Yumz

Donasaur have strong parental natures, defending Dianne from predators and providing them with shade and food, even if they are not genetically related. Donasaur have even been known to feed and protect completely different species of Geometrical Creatures and animals if they are smaller than them.

Donasaur grow doughnuts from their torso and tail, which they allow Dianne to eat in order to gain strength. These doughnuts grow back extremely quickly and cause no pain to the Donasaur, making it comparable to picking fruit from a tree. Donasaur also lets Dianne hang from its tail and arms, to provide more shade and mobility under the baking sun.

[geometricalsafari]

046 Dianne

Pronun: die-AN-ee Element: Normal Height: 5” long, not including coiled tail Type: Lizard Evolution: Donasaur

Dianne hide under rocks in the dry Australian outback, emerging at night to eat crickets and other small insects. Their long, coiled tails allow them to radiate heat more effectively to cool themselves. Dianne also have a sweet tooth: during the day, they will poke their heads out from cover and hold still, hoping for bees to mistake their frilled necks for flowers. While leaving the bees unharmed, Dianne then lick the pollen and nectar from their legs.

As they also eat the hardy flowers that grow in dry climates, Dianne play as important a part as bees in sustaining the biodiversity of flowers. However, with the recent reduction in bee populations, the Dianne population has also been upset. This type of symbiosis between Geometrical Creatures and regular animals is rare, and scientists from Geometrical Safari are working hard to find ways of restoring the bee population before it is too late.

Many Dianne are also lucky enough to have either of their evolved forms to provide food for them, although this does not stop their desire for sweets. Due to the unusual nature of its evolutions, scientists believe they may hold the key to saving the bees.

[geometricalsafari]

045 Mega Mouse

Pronun: MEH-gah-MOWS Element: Water/Electric Height: 6” tall, up to 14” long when crest is uncurled Type: Mouse Evolution: None

Mega Mouse spring through the air up to twenty times their height on their powerful legs as they traverse the rainforest understory where they live. Large colonies of up to a hundred Mega Mouse can form nests in the upper branches of the understory, each flattening out small pads of grass and leaves for their individual families of five or six to sleep upon.

Mega Mouse are happy to live in the darker, shadier parts of the rainforest as they are capable of generating light and electricity from their bodies. The large crest on their heads not only acts as a stabilizer while running, but as a solenoid – by curling and uncurling their crest, a single Mega Mouse can generate enough charge to power a smartphone. They use this to cook berries before eating them, as well as defend their ever-moving colonies – a single colony is capable of causing large amounts of destruction if their electricity is discharged at the same time.

Mega Mouse are also agile swimmers, and often forage for food in rivers and other bodies of water in rainforests. At Geometrical Safari, the Mega Mouse enclosure is almost entirely water at ground level with a vaulted cage roof full of tree branches, as Mega Mouse rarely prefers to move about on solid ground.

[geometricalsafari]

044a Baby Scratcher

Pronun: SCRA-cher Element: N/A Height: 2’4” Type: Baby Evolution: None (Baby form of Scratcher)

The first Baby Geometrical Creature! This was also sort of a weird pre-artifact of the then-upcoming Pokémon Gold and Silver, which introduced “baby Pokémon” in promo art. We didn’t quite have the internet back then (it existed in a form very unlike it does today and we were fascinated by it, but didn’t know how to really use it) and magazines were expensive, so we only had the word of other kids at school to go on when it came to deciphering new pieces of information. That sort of trickled down into Geometrical Safari, and we came up with Baby Creatures. They’d have no Element and be unable to attack, and would have to be defended by their parents or someone raising them. They also didn’t get full numbers, either – they were a “subset” of an individual Creature, similar to Helpers, which haven’t shown up just yet…

Baby Scratcher are quite unstable while moving as they lack a third wheel to balance, instead dragging their blades along the ground for support. This hones the blades’ edges in preparation for Baby Scratcher’s change into adulthood.

Baby Scratcher, like all other so-classified Baby Geometrical Creatures, do not simply grow into their adult form, like regular young. Instead, while remaining taxonomically the same Creature, all of them will automatically undergo a process similar to a truncated form of evolution, and become an adult Scratcher.

As they have no wings yet, Baby Scratcher gently place their blades over their mother’s shoulders to hold on, and ride on their backs while moving fast or over obstacles.