Meet Humphrey the Troll

The monstrous beast unfolded from the shadows, its mottled green, brown, and black flesh wrapped in jagged scales. Its yellowed tusks jutted out on either side of its bottom lip, the cracked tips almost reaching the folds of its lower eyelids. Its virulent green eyes, their orange pupils as sharp as a cat’s, pierced the gloom like tiny twin knives.

The monster’s thick, meaty hand reached toward Jonah, the vicious, sawtooth nails on its fingers raking the air. Then, having found Jonah’s head, it ruffled his hair. “I started thinking you weren’t coming tonight,” Humphrey said, his voice deep as a well and gravelly as a pit.

Meet Calisto the Harpy

Jonah turned right out of his driveway and wandered down the street. He kicked fallen sticks and stomped through mud puddles. The tall evergreens swayed and whistled around him as the wind whipped their branches into a frenzy. The breeze wasn’t the only thing causing the activity, though.

“Hi, Calisto,” Jonah said as the harpy landed on his neighbor’s lawn off to his right.

“Good day, Jonah,” Calisto replied, her broad, muscular wings flexing as her talons dug into the grass and soil. Her beautiful face, framed by long black hair, smiled to reveal glittering, jagged rows of teeth. “Where are you heading this fine afternoon? Fishing? Exploring? Taking care of the local bully problem?”

“Oh, Stuart!” a voice cried. “You’ve returned! And you brought company!”

The entire group pivoted toward the voice. Calisto and Jonah cocked their heads. Debbie gasped. “That… is not what I was expecting,” Calisto mused.

Ms. Finch was just under six feet tall. She was wearing a yellow floral apron over a white sundress. Her skin was a lovely purplish-brownish gray, and her head was an octopus.

Meet Dave the Survivor

“Good day, fine folk,” a gravelly voice said. “Where might you be off to in this here dark world?”

Jonah looked over and cringed. The creature who addressed them was partway between a crab, a squid, and a man, with some definite hints of barnacle. Black ooze dripped off his shell, mixing into the water below with a plop.

The creature half-shuffled, half-slithered toward them on its strange mix of legs and tentacles. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lord Davros von München-Bellyweather the Fourth. You may call me Dave.”