Tag Archives: fey folk

5 Most Popular Pictures in 2015 – Part II

This is the second of two blog posts that look back at the five most popular pictures on Lita’s blog in 2015. Here are the fourth through first place winners.

Previously: 5 Most Popular Pictures in 2015 – Part I

A Resident of the Floating Lands

Fourth Place: Floating Lands Video

It’s time to roll out another of Lita’s fantasy worlds–Floating Lands. This month is a look at lighter-than-air islands, levitating people, and soaring cows. Check out Lita’s just-released Floating Lands video.

We have all visited floating lands–do you dream you can fly? When asleep, we soar like a lark or hover like hummingbirds.

Sometimes when your legs feel so heavy during your morning run, or you’re at a standstill in commuter traffic, do you look to the sky and marvel at a bird’s effortless glide on the wind? If you parachute, then you have felt the breathless sensation of floating. Ditto if you’ve flown in a zero-G airplane or hovered in the blast of a wind tunnel.

Fantasy fiction is airborne. The King of Eagles plucks the imprisoned wizard from atop his enemy’s tower. Sparkly faced vampires leap the distance of soccer fields from balconies to treetops. Any sorceress worth her pointy hat can levitate a feather or a boulder. More…

Unicorn with an Elf Magician

Third Place: Concerning Unicorns in the Clockpunk Wizard World

Time to set the facts straight about this four-legged sentient creature with a long spiral horn on its forehead.

If Gentle Reader were to cast a searching spell about unicorns in our fantasy world called internet, the spell would say that unicorns are made-up bits of fantasy fluff. Lita says horse feathers (with apologies to Pegasus) about that parcel of nonsense.

The upcoming story Glitter Ponies tells about Lady Luck’s daughter helping Wizard Kadmeion discover the cause of a mysterious unicorn illness. It will be a while until Kadmeion’s airship travels to floating Wuddlekins Island to visit the unicorn herd, so here are some facts from the wizard’s Bestiarum Vocabulum.

Unicorns are the size of ponies with red, black, or white coats. They share the physical features of horses and goats: they have manes, long flowing tails, cloven hooves, and many have a goat-like beard. More…

Home of a Woodland Fairy

Second Place: Care of a Fey-Folk Fairy (Part 1)

Meet Tinker Bell’s naughtier cousins—the fairies flitting about in the woodlands near Lita’s castle.

Today, Lita talks about the worldly fairies that go with Kadmeion on his wizard-for-hire adventures. Fairies take their coloring from where they live. There are four types of fey-folk:

Highland fairies have wings the color of sunshine, and sound like the whisper of shushing snow during flight.
When water fey-folk flutter their turquoise wings, they sound like murmuring rills.
Woodland fairies gather in emerald or jade fairy clans, and their nighttime play is often mistaken for fireflies.
Fire fairies love volcanos, have flame-colored wings, and leap about as if they were sizzling lava sparks.

The tiny fairy magicians build their communal homes from materials rich in latent magic. Predators that hunger for an easy magical snack are a constant danger to fairies. To protect themselves, fey-folk often befriend elf mages and live in their sheltered gardens. More…

An “Ornithopter” personal flying machine by Da Vinci

First Place: How the Airship Works

Welcome to the topside Map Room in Wizard Kadmeion’s airship. It adjoins the Pilot House.

The magical world of Clockpunk Wizard in Forever Boy is a spinning plate with a large mountainous land mass at the spindle called the South Pole. The rest of the platter is a vast ocean dotted with small sandy cays.

The strong magical field at the South Pole causes a certain volcanic rock to float. These rocks break away from the primary landmass and drift toward the Rim. These hundreds of floating islands are the habitable archipelago for the magicians and other inhabitants of the Clockpunk Wizard world.

The weather is calm near the South Pole. Storms are common toward the outer edge of the plate. At the Rim boundary, violent winds destroy everything. All the floating islands eventually drift to the Rim and disappear. Smaller islands move more quickly to their death. The largest floating islands can last for a century or longer. Magical creatures flourish on the floating islands. Many island residents have need of a wizard’s skilled services. This is the basis of Kadmeion and Bright’s roving magician-for-hire business. More…

Mermaid in a Bubble Trouble

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Fey-Folk

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The Bestiarum Vocabulum is the wizard’s encyclopedia of faerie beasties and mundane crossovers living in the lake and forest near Lita’s castle.

Boy-Fey

fey-folk [ˈfā fōk] noun, c.1100; OE fǣge and fāh hostile, outlawed < High OGer feigi doomed < ME feye; also boy-fey (masculine), girl-fey (feminine), fay, fah, fae, faerie, fairy, sprite, pixie, imp, brownie, puck, boggart

Denizen of the Clockpunk Wizard world.
A class of diminutive magicians as tall as the length of a human’s hand from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger. Weighs about as much as a heavy thought. Called “fey” for their impression of vague unworldliness.
See fairy, brownie, and boggart in the Bestiarum Vocabulum.

Care of a Fey-Folk Fairy (Part 2)

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Here is more about Tinker Bell’s naughtier cousins—the fairies flitting about in the woodlands near Lita’s castle.

A Water Fairy Helps a Friend

This post is the second of two (go here to see the previous one) with tips on how to care for fey-folk. Last time, Gentle Reader learned the practical aspects of fairy care. Today’s topics focus on their magical matters.

Pixie Dust

Because they are so small, fey-folk cannot sing word spells like wizards, nor can fairies whistle magic like elf mages. A fairy instead sheds its magic when it flies and leaves a glittering trail. This fairy magic (also called pixie dust) settles, sparkles for a while, then fades. If pixie dust is kept in a corked bottle, the fey magic lingers indefinitely.

In the Clockpunk Wizard world, fairies are wee fluffs of trivial magic and disregarded by all serious magicians. Only elf mages, and a certain unconventional human wizard, find the fey-folk’s enchantments useful. Some humans are allergic to pixie dust–it makes them sneeze rainbows.

A House Cat Who Ate Too Many Enchanted Mice

When they can find it, unicorns, boggarts, and dragons inhale pixie dust for its intoxicating effects. You could say that for a while they become fey.

Mice that chew shed alicorn (unicorn’s horn) also become a bit mad. They go about collecting pixie dust and create jewelry from it, namely sparkly tiaras. The bling, unfortunately, makes it easier for predators to spot them. House cats who eat these enchanted rodents develop a predilection for pearls. They caterwauler spells to transform their bell collars into luscious pearl necklaces.

A Woodland Fairy Hurt Her Foot

Deepest Magical Sorrow

Fey-folk are carefree creatures. Their pixie dust brings happy thoughts and temporary silliness to the partakers.

But the fairies have a deepest sorrow. These tiny magicians are so closely tied to their habitat, they cannot survive without it.

In the plate-shaped ocean world of Clockpunk Wizard, its floating islands drift outward from the hub to the rim. The ferocious Rim Storms tear apart these spent lands, obliterating everything on them that cannot flee. The resident fairies sense their floating island’s pending destruction. They lie down, close their eyes, and will themselves not to awaken.

Sometimes a kindhearted mage will coax dying fairies to accept a binding enchantment to replace their habitat magic instead of taking the longest sleep. Here begins the tale of a young wizard who tried that very thing to save the fey-folk of doomed Hurt Island.

Care of a Fey-Folk Fairy (Part 1)

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See the Strands of Pixie Dust ?

Meet Tinker Bell’s naughtier cousins—the fairies flitting about in the woodlands near Lita’s castle.

Today, Lita talks about the worldly fairies that go with Kadmeion on his wizard-for-hire adventures. These wee magicians fly in, lavish their wizard with effervescent pixie dust, and give him spicy relationship advice. Despite the frivolity, these pretty spell casters harbor a deep magical sorrow.

This post is the first of two with tips for Gentle Reader on how to care for a fey-folk fairy. Today we focus on practical matters. Next time, we will talk about a fairy’s magical concerns.

Let’s Straighten This Out

First of all, why are they called fey-folk, instead of fay, faie, fee, or fae? The wizard’s Bestiarum Vocabulum describes fairy magic as flighty, fanciful, fragile, fantastical, fickle, and foolish. To reduce the tongue twisting, Lita calls them fey.

A Highland Fairy

Beautiful Ones

Fey-folk fairies are classic lovelies. They stand no taller than a hand length when measured from wrist to the longest fingertip. They weigh little more than a happy thought.

Fairies have elongated pointed ears similar to elf-kind, curvy attractive bodies, and beautiful faces. The boy-fey are just as comely as the girl-fey.

They use their multi-lobed gorgeous wings to soar like hawks on updrafts or hover like hummingbirds kissing flowers for nectar. Wizards, elf mages, and certain sorceresses hear the tinkling of tiny bells in a fairy’s thrumming flight. The jingling is a sure sign that all is well with the fairy’s magic.

Home of a Woodland Fairy

Habitat

Fairies take their coloring from where they live. There are four types of fey-folk:

Highland fairies have wings the color of sunshine, and sound like the whisper of shushing snow during flight.
When water fey-folk flutter their turquoise wings, they sound like murmuring rills.
Woodland fairies gather in emerald or jade fairy clans, and their nighttime play is often mistaken for fireflies.
Fire fairies love volcanos, have flame-colored wings, and leap about as if they were sizzling lava sparks.

Next time, Lita covers the peculiarities of fairy enchantments.

Ephraim’s Curious Device in Book Trailer Contest

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Is it a fantasy beast reclining on a cloud?

See for yourself the fantastic images on Wizard Kadmeion’s journey to free his kidnapped familiar.

Lita’s Clockpunk Wizard video for Ephraim’s Curious Device is in the March 2013 You Gotta Read book trailer contest. The top three videos win valuable marketing and promo prizes–so important for an indie author. Please take a minute to vote for your favorite book trailer.

Watch the Ephraim’s video to discover the surprise in dragon’s fire. Check out the video on YouTube, then drop by the You Gotta Read contest page and pick your favorite!

Voting closes on Wednesday, March 27th, so please don’t wait. Fantasy beasts and coy fey-folk wait for courageous visitors in the Clockpunk Wizard fantasy world.

Treasure Under Furgo-Boy’s Bed

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For Furgo, time does fly

What a sweaty ride we had through Veldt Island’s hot savanna. Go ahead to your staterooms and freshen up–I’ll be along after a while. It looks like Furgo has a new treasure he wants to show me. Curious? Come along, then. We’ll follow the cyanthrope to his room.

Lita: You keep your room so tidy, Furgo. I thought lads and dogs were messy.

Furgo: Madam Lita, this is the first time I had a place of my very own. I love everything about my room. I can arrange it however I please, put my treasures in here, and no one will touch them.

Lita: You deserve the very best after your terrible adventures in Ephraim’s Curious Device. Your new treasure is a clock that flies. Did your friend Bright make the clockworks?

Furgo: He did, and Kadmeion gave it wings like a butterfly. It purrs when it flies, just like our fey-folk. Fairy Izlyesende wants to tell you something when we’re settled for treats in the dining room.

Lita: I’d better hurry and wash off Veldt’s dust, then get along to the galley. Izlyesende usually tells us silly or naughty things.

Sneak Peek: Ephraim’s Curious Device Cover

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Sure, call me impatient. Raring to go. Even label me hasty, when I am properly motivated like now. But you benefit, Gentle Reader. Look here. I must show you my pretty.

I couldn’t wait to share the eBook cover for my next Clockpunk Wizard story. Here is the just-completed face for Ephraim’s Curious Device.

Why a Forest?

Please don’t worry, the story has plenty of scenes aboard Kadmeion’s wonderful airship. This forest is on one of the floating islands, called Hurt Isle. Kadmeion and Bright visit because a minor demon oracle lives there, and she has information about Ephraim’s trinket. Hurt Isle is a very old island that has drifted far Rim-ward and will soon be torn apart in the Rim storms. Its ambient magic senses this oblivion and has soured, turning most of its native magical creatures, well, unpleasant. Kadmeion and Bright stumble upon a few who are deadly, and they must use their cleverness to come out alive.

Meet Izlyesende

Izlyesende is a male fey who lives at the edge of the oracle’s valley. As one of the few remaining fairies on Hurt Isle, he and his dwindling clan are under attack by the oracle and other malevolent creatures. In exchange for information on how to solve the oracle’s riddle, Kadmeion allows Izlyesende and his female fey-folk to hitch a ride on the airship.

Before you say Lita has gotten sentimental with her storytelling, I must admit something. Kadmeion’s kindness aside, we’re talking about mixing fey magic and wizardry. Once onboard, the female fairies discover Bright’s half-elf magic. That’s when the trouble really begins.

The back cover blurb for Ephraim’s Curious Device tells more.