the very worst thing

don’t have the energy for a full lore post but it’s been so long since the last one that i wanted to do something. so even though i’m still hazy on names, designs, and even genders for most of them, have some villains!

the trio up top are, from left to right: a con artist/makeup guru/very likely serial killer ‘beast tamer’, one of the children of the most reviled leader of the most reviled bandit hare caravan called The Snares who has big dreams of becoming a necromancy wielding cult leader (they are well on their way), and a mainlander lady who serves as a liaison between the gang and potential buyers of their black market wares who has very morbid interests.

The Snares get by on wrecking other hare caravans, extortion, person trafficking, ect. but most of their real money comes from moving large predator carcasses.  furs, bones, feathers, you name it. if it comes from something big and dangerous you go to them to get it. They have some pretty sweet black market shipments coming from the island and actually have quite a few amazing taxidermy artists that can turn a rotting wolf into something trophy-worthy if given enough time. they even make their own creatures, grafting bits together from different animals to make one of a kind finds for their clients.

nothing is better than their foxes though.

Keep reading

some normal foxes going about their day from over on patreon.

anon asked what Downtrodden foxes were like.

@ayumi-nemera actually got it pretty close with their art (link removed because tumblr is hell and it leads to a porn site now).

foxes will eat a rabbit if they can catch one or break into a burrow/warren but they mostly subsist on birds, reptiles, and the giant bugs that roam the island ( a fact that bug-raising rabbits hate them double for). the bugs they prefer use poisonous bastard and stay down as their main food sources and so foxes by association gain the black digestive tract and a special skill from the trace amounts of fungi in the bug’s systems. specialized hair follicles throughout the fox’s coat naturally secrete a bioluminescent fluid that can be seen as brilliant points of light at night, but on a diet of these particular bugs this fluid takes on amazing properties.

 as stated here, foxes use these lights and additional pheromones to lure rabbits to their doom, but if they have the fungi in their system it works a little differently. it’s not just a case of a lost rabbit following lights in the night, its more like the combination of light and smell makes them actively hallucinate. with younger foxes this just makes their cry sound like a friendly, if nonsensical, gibbering voice  or tricks the eye into seeing the outlines of people in the distant patterns of light. scary, but easy to break away from if you’re prepared.

the older foxes are tougher to break away from.

if it is an old and powerful enough the fox , even if the victim is completely aware of what it is and what is happening, it becomes a sort of projector that lets the enthralled person mentally fill in the blanks about the situation and convince themselves that nothing is wrong. no one really wants to be lost and cornered by a predatory creature after all. from what survivors say the thrall mostly makes you want to stay still and converse with the illusion. the imagined settings are pulled from your surroundings or your memories and you can still perceive the fox but you get so into your surreal dream world that you can’t really do anything about it being there. your consciousness just slides over the threat and you start to question why you’re anxious about the situation at all.  rabbits have spent what they thought were days in fox thrall before they could break it. a few have fallen in love with their projected suitors. too bright rabbits bearing too sharp teeth and beautiful voices that speak in a comforting dream-poetry that almost makes complete sense.

its enough to make some wander back into the woods.

additional physical notes:

* the fluid stains their fur and naturally locks it into small thick twists. this is more apparent with the tail. a fox’s tail, underneath all that fur, looks a lot like a root. fur starts off as one fluffy mass surrounding it but over the years locks form around each individual branch, giving the illusion of multiple tails. the fox pictured is pretty old.

* a soft translucent object, cloudlike but lightly covered in the same bioluminescent fox hair and lit from within, is always seen floating above the heads of foxes. foxes don’t seem to take any notice of these things until they are touched or disturbed in some way.  these objects are solid enough to grab and if pulled far enough away the fox experiences great pain. if taken even farther the fox will die and the entire area will be temporarily engulfed in light and the sound of water lapping against a riverbank. the sound is always the same. there is no tangible tether between the fox and the object as far as anyone knows.