Even More Weird Second Lives of Useful Exotic Creatures

Last Week: The Weird Second Lives of Useful Exotic Creatures

The Lingual Loon

The Immutable Imperium developed the loon as a tool of spycraft. This waterborne bird could instinctively understand and speak the predominant language of the closest large concentration of intelligent creatures. Its purpose was to fly into lakes and pleasure gardens in enemy lands, attune to the local tongue, and eavesdrop on the conversations of the wealthy and powerful.

Long after the internal collapse of the Imperium rendered its external intelligence operations obsolete, the remaining loons were captured by the Imperium’s former enemies. The loons were offered gainful employment to offset their former service to the oppressive Imperium. They accepted the offer gladly (the alternative was… unpleasant).

The nomadic peoples outside the empire had no interest in spycraft. They instead found a future for the loons in the Imperium’s underground tramway, repurposed from military supply to civilian transportation. The drawback that the tiny, numerous polities faced after the death of the empire was the difficulty of determining which mobile micronation the train was passing beneath at any given time. The tramway was deep underground, and it was slow to accelerate and decelerate, so it wasn’t practical to stop and peek at random to see who was living up above the current station.

But because the loons could always speak the language of the nearest large concentration of people, they could serve as indirect indicators of who resided up above at any given time. Periodically prodding a loon would reveal if the train was close to a group of Nethian-speaking Kalians, or already nearer to the Zeelian peoples who (as readers obviously already know) speak the Classical Ramajavian tongue. The loons' linguistic contortions, once the pride of Imperium spymaster arcanologists, was reduced to a mere signpost of localized humanity. Well, it’s a living.

The Psychopomps

At the beginning of time, the Omnimother created the boatmen and charged them with ferrying the souls of the deceased across the chthonic waters. For millennia, they executed their duties faithfully, as unchanging as the sun and the stars. But even stars eventually burn out, and the psychopomps’ duties came to an end when humanity won the War on Death. The psychopomps had a challenging career transition to navigate.

Their human conquerors were nothing if not helpful in their reinvention. The psychopomps were immune to the waters of the Lethe. They had perfect, incorruptible, limitless memories.

Some adjudicated contract disputes. Perfectly able to recall every detail of an agreement without prevaricating or dissembling, they were natural arbiters. They were particularly known for settling wills and estates, given their former occupation. 

Some dove into history. They had no interest in chronicling past events for their own sake, but their retention was limitless and their recall perfect. And had they not been the final witnesses for some of the great figures of history? Did Tamsen the Vitiator die laughing, or with tears streaming from her eyes? The history books disagree. But the psychopomp who guided them to the afterlife could say for sure.

Finally, some were entrusted with the greatest dark secrets of mortality. There is magic and technology so terrible and powerful that no one should have access to it; but erasing it completely from the world risks its accidental rediscovery in the far future. Someone needs to remember it perfectly, to be able to name it and recognize it for what it is, if humankind ever lays hands on it again. And who better than the psychopomps? They had become guardians of death once again, but in a very different way.