#basilisks

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

Text: The priests have been crushing fertilized basilisk eggs into my food for years, hoping I’ll develop Death’s Sight. The fifth egg I steal from the kitchen manages to hatch. My first and only friend.

Goes with this prompt, if you like

[deinocheirus]

How do dragons feel about basilisks in general? Is their brood parasitism even common enough to warrant a collective opinion? Is there anything stopping basilisks from raising the hatchlings themselves, or is it just a choice they make for ‘I’m not spending the time or energy to raise that little sucker’ reasons? Can Chuck have eggs with a dragon? I have so many questions about how fully sentient brood parasites work as individuals with thoughts and feelings and as a species that uses dragons as unwilling nannies. It occurs to me that they wouldn’t be very good brood parasites if they were widely known about among dragons….

Basilisks these days are dwindlingly rare, of the characters I’ve introduced only Thuban has some degree of direct knowledge on them, tho his knowledge of them is thousands of years out of date, Chuck doesn’t resemble the basilisks Thuban knew about long ago (much like how modern dragons look alien to him)

The other older dragons fear the concept of basilisks, but cannot identify them and tend to envision them as greater, more obviously powerful serpents who are untouchable. On the flip side the younger generation of dragons tend to vastly underestimate them, and tend to understand them as “mutant chickens with eye beams” and could totally beat them in a fight.

Having a basilisk in your clutch is hard to deal with, since simply becoming aware that they are present makes them innately deadlier than before as you are now a danger to them instead of a caretaker. Becoming aware of this, a dragon may choose between raising it anyways, or abandoning them (which also means abandoning your lair and hoard with it..)

On top of largely lacking parental instincts wormlings tend to repulse basilisks, it drives them to kill clutch mates when they are larva themselves and to scram after they lay their eggs. Perhaps it can be overcome, but it would be hard for a basilisks to raise their young. Chuck would cry if he ever saw a baby.

Basilisks and dragons cannot reproduce either eachother, I’m not sure if basilisks are even “related” to dragons or not.

[antiqueanimals]

Plumed basilisk (Basiliscus plumifrons)

Reptiles and Amphibians of the World. Written by Hans Hvass. Illustrated by Wilhelm Eigener. Originally published in 1958.

Internet Archive

[zyrafowe-sny]

Veek Day 2 Headcanon: Basilisks & Languages

I like to think that Vee and other basilisks are naturally good at languages and can pick them up easily. This is partly because it would be useful for shapeshifters — they could blend in even better! — but also because that's how basilisks work in Tamora Pierce's Tortall universe. While her basilisks don't shapeshift and eat rocks, learning languages quickly is one of their special abilities.

Vee's Spanish is noticeably better than the other Boiling Isles kids' in Thanks to Them. While some of it is Vee putting in the work and generally having more time in the Human Realm, maybe it's also partly innate talent.

[thenixart]

Wyverns

From the clade of dragons where the first set of limbs became wings. Have bird-like traits. Beaks and a coat of feathers. Warmblooded and very widespread mostly across Utenimin, the northern continent. On the southern continent, Gizhom, are found mostly in the coastal areas. Wyverns are venomous. They can have venom in their fangs/saliva, in quills, and in stingers. Small wyverns tend to be somewhat poisonous due to their diets. Typically hens are larger than cocks, sometimes greatly so.

Riding Wyverns A domesticated species of wyvern. Many different breeds. Fairly large. Omnivores Very social, fairly intelligent, and bond readily to people Males are 1/3rd the size of females and bipedal while females are quadrupedal. Have venomous saliva that they can heat and spit as a boiling liquid. With a different venom in their quills and stingers. Females are used for riding, draft, guarding, herding Males are used for hunting and guarding

Basilisks A domesticated species of wyvern. Many different breeds. Quite small. Omnivores Social and tolerant of people. Males and females of similar size. Can very accurately spit venom, usually aiming for the eyes. Used for eggs, meat, and feathers. Meat is mildly poisonous and should be soaked for an hour to leach out the poison. Eggs do not contain poison. Also make good guardians for smaller livestock like chickens.

[a-book-of-creatures]

I had heard before about a Basilisk's poison traveling up the spear, but had never seen the addition of a blind person with anosmia doing the killing.

I think it's trying to make a point that even if you're blind (can't see the lethal eyes) and can't smell (stench doesn't affect you) and kill it from a distance with a polearm, it will still kill you through touch.

It just makes the point very, very weirdly though.

[cynicalclassicist]

A strangely moving story!

II

[fox-teeth]

Preview of Basilisk, my personal favorite of my risograph comics, and the project all my other recent medieval-inspired art descends from.

Styled after medieval illuminated manuscripts and printed using a custom color palette requiring 5 risograph inks (including metallic gold), Basilisk asks the question: what would drive a teenage girl to create a monster?

Physical copies available here (also digital here). To brag for a moment--this is my masterwork of riso printing and is even more impressive in person.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dog Meshi.

[a-book-of-creatures]

Why isn’t anyone talking about this

[lowpolyanimals]

Dog from Basilisk 2000

[savaralyn2]

[fleshwizard]

Dragons & Folklore de France

Translation below

The Tarasque dwells in the waters of the Rhone river near the town of Tarascon, where it devours travelers and destroys dikes and dams to flood the Camargue. Saint Martha chained it, and the people of Tarascon killed it.

The ruins of the amphitheaters of Metz were infested by hundreds of snakes. The largest of them, the Graoully, had a venomous breath, a mouth bigger than its body and devoured men. Saint Clement chased it away into the Seille River.

King of serpents, the Basilisk takes many forms throughout history and appears in many tales. One of them takes place at the Gate of Saint-Eloi in Bordeaux, known today for its Big Bell, where a well was occupied by a Basilisk. It petrified with its gaze anyone who went there to fetch water. It was defeated by a man returning from the Egyptian crusade, who petrified the beast with its own gaze using a mirail (mirror).

The Cocatrix is born from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad. The egg has magical properties but must not be broken. People who cross its gaze die immediatly.

Made of wicker and covered in flowers, the Grand Bailla wanders the streets of Reims three days a year and feeds on gold and sweets. It was banished by Archbishop Charles Maurice le Tellier.

The Grand'Goule haunts the marshes of Poitou, the waters of the Clain and the flooded cellars of the abbey of Sainte Croix. It feeds on nuns and casse-museaux (snout-breakers, cakes). Saint Radegonde chased it away with holy water.

In the rivers of the Jura and the Alps there is a group of diverse dragons, the Vouivres. They are generally flying serpents covered in fire and guardians of treasures. Many have for a single eye a gigantic carbuncle with extraordinary powers, desired by those in search of wealth and power.

Hidden in the caves and cliffs of la Pointe du Roux near La Rochelle, the Rô Beast traps and devours travelers in the coastal marshes. It was impaled by seven heroic pagans from the seas.

Mythical dragon of the Basque Country, Herensuge gave birth to the Sun and the Moon, swallowed all of Creation in ten days then regurgitated it in flames. Now asleep in the mountains, it sucks up flocks and shepherds in his sleep. When it wakes up, it will destroy the world in flames and blood. (illustration)

Durandal is the mythical sword that Charlemagne gave to the knight Roland. Some claim that it was inherited from Hector, the warrior of the Trojan War. At war with the Saracens in the Pyrenées, Roland wanted to break the sword so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy but Durandal split the mountain. So he threw the sword, which went to stick miles away, in the rock of the town of Rocamadour.

The belief in the Tooth Fairy is widespread in several countries in Europe, and is sometimes amalgamated with La Petite Souris (little mouse). It exchanges baby teeth for money. No one knows what it does with all these teeth.

The Camecruse is a bogeyman that haunts the moors and marshes of Gascony. It is agile, can jump and hide in the night to better devour lost children. No one knows exactly how it feeds.

The caves under the hill of the town of Hastingues are home to Lou Carcolh, a monstrous snail, long, slimy and hairy. Its shell is as big as a house. With the help of its tentacles, it grips people to devour them.

The Questing Beast is hunted by kings and heroes in Arthurian legends. It symbolizes evil, incest, violence and chaos, and takes it name from the loud noises that come out of its stomach, similar to the barking of dozens of dogs.

The fairy Mélusine, cursed princess of Albania, was condemned to change into a snake below the waist every Saturday. She married Raymondin de Lusignan with whom they had 10 prodigious children. But Raymondin broke his promise never to see Mélusine on Saturday : he surprised her in her monstrous form, and she left her family forever.

[here-be-descriptions]

[Image Description: a photograph of a basilisk lizard resting atop a tree branch. End image description.]

Green or Plumed Basilisk (Basiliscus plumifrons), young male, family Corytophanidae, Costa Rica

photograph by Daniel Jara

[cultofthorns]

2024 series of ultrakill bosses as mythological creatures and v1 as a… Big game hunter

[electraslight]

hiding in plain sight