Contest: Create Your Own Coreling
Posted by Meg
“Arlen craned his head upward as the monster approached. Even at a distance, it was a towering, hulking mass of sinew and sharp edges. Its thick black carapace was knobbed with bony protrusions, and its spiked tail slid back and forth, balancing its massive shoulders. It stood hunched on two clawed feet that dug great grooves in the dirt with every thunderous step. Its long, gnarled arms ended in talons the size of butchering knives, and its drooling maw split wide to reveal row after row of bladelike teeth. A black tongue slipped out, tasting Arlen’s fear.”
There are many types of corelings roaming the lands of Thesa and beyond. The landscape and climate of the region influences the size, shape and nature of the corelings. If you were to battle a demon of your own, what would it look like? How would it fight? What wards would keep its fearsome attacks at bay?
Contest Guidelines
1. Following the style in which Peat creates them, come up with a coreling of your own. Describe its physical attributes, strengths, weaknesses, habitat, size, armor and whatever else you think is important. This must be a demon of your making, but it certainly can be inspired by/related to the already created demons in Peat’s books.
2. Use words, pictures or both to describe your demon. Some people express their imaginings better with a paintbrush, others with a keyboard. The contest is open to anyone with an imagination, however you would like to use it!
3. The deadline for the contest is May 18th, 2012 at 11:59pm EST. That gives you exactly one month to design your coreling.
4. Please send all entries to contest@www.petervbrett.com. You can submit up to three entries (that’s three seperate species of demons), but feel free to submit multiple drawings/descriptions for each entry.
5. Above all, be creative!
Prizes
The Grand Prize winner will receive a copy of the Graphic Audio version of The Warded Man. This is a really special recording, simliar to an audiobook, but with a full cast, sound effects and music! The Grand Prize winner will also receive a poster and T-shirt featuring Lauren Cannon’s beautiful Renna art. The poster will be signed by the cast and Peat!
There are an abundance of other prizes up for grabs including signed copies of The Desert Spear, Graphic Audio T-shirts and posters, warded dice and Red Sonja comics.
Happy Coreling Creating!
nice!!! I’ve got a combination of several ideas already in my head! And I know just which species it’s going to be 😉 no, I’m not telling yet…
Toothpaste coreling! I call dibs 🙂
Ooooh, excellent! I love having something I can get my teeth into! This is one contest which is going to have some seriously, seriously cool entries – well excited!
Excellent! I don’t know if I’ll have time to draw something, but I’ll certainly try!
As much I LOVE entering your contests, I definately do not have the time to put something together. Very disappointed :(.
Excited to see what cool ideas are out there, though. 🙂
It’s times like this where I wish I had artistic talent.
Just to clarify, you don’t have to draw your demon. A lot of the entries we are getting are simply stories or descriptions … and they’re fantastic!
This is pretty cool. I don’t have time to fully develop my corelings, but I have an idea or two. First is a “diamond coreling.” They are small, golf ball to baseball sized, many faceted, and are truly beautiful. Their primary weapon is one of distraction and mesmerization. They can lure weak minded, greedy humans out from behind wards, but to touch one is to touch a blade of infinite sharpness. Once within reach the diamond coreling will attack by slicing its victim to ribbons. They are also thrown by rock and ore demons at their victims, where they are literally sharp enough to pass through victims like a knife through butter. A diamond coreling has no known weakness, other than its lack of size and speed.
My second coreling is an ore-based, metal coreling, somewhat similar to a rock demon in strength and personality, but just a little smarter. They have the ability to shape change; limited by their size, mass, and ore composition; picture constantly changing hooks, spikes, shields as appendages, etc. They are usually found in the company of rock and diamond demons and have been known to hurl diamond demons at unsuspecting victims
The Plain Demon is slightly smaller than a normal horse and has dark skin making it difficult to see a night. Its hooves are replaced with clawed paws similar to that of a dog, for gripping into the ground but are sharp enough to shred prey. Its head is flatter with than that of a normal horse giving it a more canine like appearance with long pointed ears extending diagonally from its head and a jaw with a row of sharp teeth and two fangs at the front of the mouth for finishing of prey. The Plain Demon’s eyes glow red, the color deepening in anger or lightening in pleasure. Its mane is often a grey or stained white color, with the tail being the same color, and it has sharp bony spines coming out of its back, starting just past the end of the mane.
The Plain Demon’s armor covers most of its body and the fact that it travels in small groups makes it hard to sneak up on. Its speed can outmatch that of most horses and can easily catch traveler by surprise at night. Their eye sight and hearing are the Plain Demons’ two best senses allowing it hear the sound of prey on the open plains before it sees them, which is followed shortly after.
Plain Demon’s are fast but take time to slow and have limited turning ability at full gallop or charge, taking time to fully slow down, sometimes charging into wards. As well as that they can be speared through the neck during a charge because of the limited armor around that area, but if a person is holding the spear they will likely be crushed by the collapsing Plain Demon if the spear doesn’t hold its weight.
The Plain Demon runs on the plains around Fort Rizon but goes no closer to the forest than Woodsend. It is sometimes seen on the opposite side of the Dividing River but no further than Tibbet’s Brook if at all, preferring warmer conditions and open land to run and charge.
The Plain Demon’s armor is mostly at its front and sides, protecting it during charges and also its internal organs if anything gets close enough to do it harm. Its armor consists of toughened skin which can guard against most attacks and unless shot or hit directly by an arrow or spear will not cause serious harm. It lacks armor at its rear, belly, on its legs and has lesser armor on its neck so as not to reduce movement.
Plain Demons travel in herds of four or five, the strongest leading the group with two to keep the others in line and the rest following for the kill. Herds can form and break with the rise and fall of the sun.
Unfortunately, things have gotten on top of me since this was announced and I only have half of an entry made. I am headed out for the evening, so don’t even have a chance to complete it. Grr.
On the plus side, reading the entries so far over breakfasts has been pretty spectacular – thanks guys, and best of luck to you all!
Hexa demon
The Hexa demons are all the same size and shape, they are 1 foot by 1 foot hexagonal tubes that are often found near volcanos. They have taken their shape and size to camouflage them selves with the basalt stone columns that grow near Volcanos.
Each Hexa has 6 limbs, all can be used as feet or hands. Each of their hands are six pronged claws capable of grasping objects with enhanced dexterity , running with speed along the ground or up or down cliffs. Their favorite pass time when they are not maiming any living thing is cartwheeling down sheer cliffs. Their eyes are their only weakness, they have two eyes similar to a fish’s, one eye on each side of their body, this creates small blind spots on each of their sides.
Individually the Hexa’s are easily fought, however on mass they will easily over power the stoutest fighter. With their six limbs they will launch them selves at you grabbing you with as many limbs as they can weighing your body down, with their spare limbs they will tear chunks of flesh from your body. The sight of blood will send them into a rage induced furry making them even more violent and vicious like the sharks of the ocean.
Although they have no mouths it is theorised they take sustenance through their limbs. With no mouths they cant make noise as the other demons can however through slapping their bodies, rubbing their arms together and even making clicking and clapping sounds they can communicate efficiently. Before they attack they often make eerie humming noises to scare their intended victims by vibrating their limbs in harmony.
When threatened they can form defensive or offensive structures by holding hands of their brothers and sisters, working with one mind to achieve their goal. They can form basic shapes or even bipedal monstrosities, with enough Hexa’s working together they can make any shape.