Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Grand Lunar

Name: Grand Lunar

AKA: Master of the Moon

Location: Moon caverns, Great Hall

Novel: The First Men in the Moon

Author: H.G. Wells





Natural History:
The greatest of the Selenites and ruler of the Moon. The Grand Lunar seemed to be no more than a brain, which looked like a featureless bladder with dim, undulating ghosts of convolutions writhing visibly beneath.

Upon further inspection, two elfin eyes peered out from below the bladder. The Grand Lunar did not appear to have a face. A small body, dwarfed by the immense brain, had insect-jointed limbs that were shriveled and white. His voice was like the rubbing of a finger upon a pane of glass. A faint wheezy noise.

The Grand Lunar had many attendants, Selenites of all all shapes and sizes. Many  sprayed the great brain with a cooling spray, while others patted and sustained it. He has also had a group of Selenites that were encyclopaedic in their knowledge of the galaxy. These attendants gathered around his throne, which was bathed in a blue radiating blaze from behind, which the Grand Lunar could control.

The Grand Lunar was immensely interested in the affairs of planet Earth. Though upon hearing about war, the Grand Lunar cut off all of Cavor's communication. Most likely in fear of more humans coming to the Moon.

"You mean to say," he asked, seeking confirmation, "that you run about over the surface of your world - this world, whose riches you have scarcely begun to scrape - killing one another for beasts to eat?"  - Grand Lunar

Triffid

Name: Triffid

AKA: Mankind's savior

Location: Taking over the world

Novel: The Day of the Triffids

Author: John Wyndham




Natural History:
Rather than explain a Triffid to you in her own words, The Author was able to obtain an eyewitness account from William Masen, the scientific leader in Triffid knowledge:

"I have a picture in my memory now of him (Masen's father) examining ours and puzzling over it at a time when it must have been a year old. In almost every detail it was a half-size replica of a fully grown triffid-only it didn't have a name yet, and no one had seen one fully grown. My father leaned over, peering at it through his horn-rimmed glasses, fingering its stalk, and blowing gently through his gingery mustache, as was his habit when thoughtful. He inspected the straight stem, and the woody bole from which it sprang. He gave curious, if not penetrative, attention to the three small, bare sticks which grew straight up beside the stem. He smoothed the short sprays of leathery green leaves between his finger and thumb as if their texture might tell him something. Then he peered into the curious, funnel-like formation at the top of the stem, still puffing reflectively, but inconclusively, through his mustache. I remember the first time he lifted me up to look inside that conical cup and see the tightly wrapped whorl within. It looked not unlike the new, close-rolled frond of a fern, emerging a couple of inches from a sticky mess in the base of the cup. I did not touch it, but I knew the stuff must be sticky because there were flies and other small insects struggling in it."

The Triffid's origin's are unknown, but Masen believes they are the result of ingenious biological meddling. Appearing out of nowhere and solving the worlds oil crisis. Yes, Triffids were kept on farms and bred for their oil, which eliminated the use of fossil fuels. On a fateful night, however, the human race became part of the food chain and the Triffids top meal. On the night of a spectacular meteor shower that lit up the sky in an eerie green hue, the human race went blind. The Triffids escaped the farms, wild ones joining packs, and began to hunt for food. Overwhelming the Earth, Triffids became the dominate species and are still hunting humans today.

Masen and a group of survivors escaped to an island, a colony known as Elspeth Cray. I have looked through their history and while the Triffids dominate the landscape, humanity carries on and endures.

"...-in other words, they know what they're doing. Look at it this way. Granted that they do have intelligence; then that would leave us with one important superiority--sight. We can see, and they can't. Take away our vision, and the superiority is gone. Worse than that--our position becomes inferior to theirs, because they are adapted to a sightless existence and we are not."

Triffoil Factory

Mirkwood Spiders

Name: Mirkwood Spiders

AKA: Unknown

Location: Mirkwood

Novel: The Hobbit

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien



Natural History:
Discovered by Bilbo Baggins and company on their journey to the Lonely Mountain. Upon entering Mirkwood, which had become a dark and sinister place with the coming of the Necromancer in Dol Guldur, these giant spiders ensnared the thirteen dwarves.

The spiders were huge and hideous, weaving their webs in the trees and hanging their captured prey in bundles,which they preferred to let hang a bit. They spoke to one another in a sort of thin creaking and hissing. To slow down their prey, they used their stingers. Their legs were hairy and they had many eyes.

Bilbo Baggins enraged them by calling them Attercop, Old Tomnoddy, lazy Lob and crazy Cob. The spiders were easily defeated by the throwing of stones and by Sting, Bilbo's sword.

The spiders may have been from the brood of Shelob.

"What nasty thick skins they have to be sure, but I'll wager there is good juice inside." -Spider

Phi-oo

Name: Phi-oo

AKA: Selenite, Man-Insect, Mooney

Location: Moon caverns

Novel: The First Men in the Moon

Author: H.G. Wells





Natural History:
Phi-oo was a Selenite sent by the Grand Lunar to establish whatever mental communications that were possible with the man from Earth, Cavor.

The Selenites were a race of insectoid beings that lived below the moon's surface in large and extravagant caverns. Each Selenite, it seemed, presented an incredible exaggeration of some particular feature - one had a vast right forelimb, an enormous antennal arm, as it were; one seemed all leg, poised, as it were, on stilts; another protruded an enormous nose-like organ beside a sharply speculative eye that made him startlingly human until one saw his expressionless mouth. Some had horns or strange features like whiskers, microscopic heads, distended brain-cases, blobby bodies; some seemed like flimsy things that existed just to hold large white-rimmed eyes. Their eyes were calculating or looked like black bottomless pits, both large and small. Some even carried umbrellas in their tentacular hands! A Selenite was born into their place and all of their training, education, and surgery he undergoes is to fit that place so he has so purpose beyond it.

Phi-oo was a Selenite with a large brain case. He was about five feet high with small, slender legs. One could see his pulsating heart through his small body. Pulsating brain movements could be seen behind the thin membrane that stretched from his small head over the large, globe-like bladder. From behind he looked like Atlas holding the world. Phi-oo was a Selenite of the top class, an adminstrator, Selenites of considerable initiative and versatility.

Phi-oo was sent to communicate with Cavor. He did so by imitating every sound Cavor made, beginning with a cough. Phi-oo would point and imitate Cavor until he felt he had mastered the word. The first word he learned was "man" and "mooney," which is what Cavor called them instead of Selenite.

Phi-oo caught on to one or two phrases, especially "If I may say," "Do you understand," and "M'm-M'm," and adorns all his speech with them.

"M'm - the Grand Lunar - wished to say - wishes to say - he gathers you are - m'm - men - that you are a man from the planet earth. He wishes to say that he welcomes you - welcomes you - and wishes to learn - learn, if I may use the word - the state of you world, and the reason why you came to this." -Phi-oo