Making a Splash: The Vigil of the Water Nymph Typha; Or, Banking On It; Or, She’s Got Spirit; Or, Water You Doing?; Or, Turning the Tides; Or, Under Pressure
The Typha River winds gently through the placid countryside that serves as the breadbasket of the mighty Wisterian Empire. Ultimately, the Typha is the reason for much of the empire’s prosperity. The river acts as a source of water, recreation, and transit for the people that make their homes in the small villages and farmsteads that have sprung up along its banks. The farmers, in turn, produce the food that fuels the cogs of the sprawling empire. What’s more, folk tradition has always held that the Typha’s waters could heal the sick, and that so long as the river flows, there are few evils that can cross it. The Typha is both a lifegiver and a protector, and it lies at the center of the Wisterian Empire’s success.
Yet the Typha River wanted to do
more for its people. It was no longer willing to remain an idle participant in their daily lives. The Typha wanted to move
beyond its fertile banks. So what’s a body of water do when it desires to take more direct action in the affairs of the surrounding countryside? Why, it generates a
nymph.
Typha is, for all parts and purposes, the truest manifestation of the Typha River’s will as one is going to get without the river standing up and walking around on its own. She’s a being woven together and made material from the life energy of the river itself, created to act out the river’s desires, and to actively connect with the people that depend on its waters. After Typha’s creation, the river’s curative properties became more than mere superstition--the people could seek out the nymph and petition her to heal them directly. It was one thing to
assume the river acted as a barrier against evil, but entirely another to see the river’s avatar actively slaying the monsters that approach it. Thanks to Typha, her river became more than part of the landscape.
Although Typha is technically a being independent of the river from which she was born, she and it are intrinsically linked. One of the chief duties imposed upon her by the river is to advocate that the people not
pollute the river. Should the waters become impure, the nymph would grow to reflect that, becoming a dark and twisted reflection of her usual beautiful self. Typha warns that, if the river were to become too polluted, she would likely be compelled to take any means necessary to stop the corruption of the body she sprang from. Luckily, Typha’s campaign of wise ecological practice has worked splendidly. It turns out that farmers are less likely to dump their refuse in the river under threat of attack from a vengeful river spirit. Who knew?
Typha is connected to her river in other ways as well. Though she can travel a substantial distance away from the river, her power is diminished the farther she goes. During the winter, as the river begins to freeze over, Typha becomes slower and lethargic. Out of reverence to the nymph, the people have prepared a cave with a great, warm hearth and couches to lounge on, so that Typha may rest as her movements slow. During the spring flooding season, as the waters encroach upon their banks, Typha’s usually slender form becomes a little heavier (as seen
here! Art by
AnnelidStew), and she is only able to shed the extra weight once the waters recede. The villagers used to joke about how her plumper form was a fitting price to pay for spending each winter loafing about her cave, but that talk ceased one day when the nymph overheard them.
As with all nymphs, Typha is not made of the element she was born from. Nymphs are created using tightly-bundled life energy contributed by their host entities. Typha’s body isn’t composed of river water, but of a portion of the river’s soul. That said, the nymph’s body still
behaves like water in several ways, such as such as being capable of shifting between solid and liquid forms. Typha isn’t made of water, but she might as well be.
As a water nymph, Typha possesses several other watery abilities. She can generate and control water, and this effect is increased the nearer she is to her river. Her body is malleable, and can be changed to match the form of fish and terrestrial animals. She is capable of assuming a serpentine dragon-like form, or growing her body to tremendous heights. To her dismay, Typha’s shapeshifting power does
not allow her to drop the extra weight she accrues during the flood season. Typha can also change the surface of her body to
behave like water, effectively allowing her to absorb objects, or even other living things, not that the peaceful spirit would ever think to do so.
Part of Typha’s duties is to judge who or what is allowed to
cross the river and into the peaceful country beyond. In general, monsters such as trolls and dragons are selected to be smote by her power, but Typha knows not to unfairly discriminate. Not
all monstrous beings are evil, so any that don’t display outward malevolence are selected for interrogation. Nymphs are beings composed of spirit, and thus they can easily infer the moral quality of another being’s soul. This becomes more accurate with closer physical proximity, so Typha has invented a means to become as physically close to an interrogatee as possible.
To properly judge an individual, Typha will “sink” them into her body. They are enveloped in her flesh and deposited in a space not unlike a human stomach, the difference being that the pocket has no obvious entrances or exits, and the walls secrete fresh water instead of caustic enzyme. The pseudo-stomach also seems to exist in a partially extra-dimensional space. Persons selected for interview go
into Typha’s body, but there’s little evidence that they’re inside, save for the occasional stray bump or handprint indenting Typha’s skin.
For the truly curious, Typha
can swallow and digest people normally, though she has to create the requisite organ systems within her body first. Nymphs don’t naturally
have anatomy, and Typha in particular doesn’t prefer having a stomach, because filling it reminds her too much of her unavoidable flood season bloat. More likely, anyone the nymph consumes will be sunk into her body and then painlessly absorbed. Typha is a caring and gentle being, and synthesizing painful acids to dispose of another person goes well against her nature. She is capable of it though.
If you’re into that kind of thing.
The relationship between Typha and her river is not reciprocal. If the nymph dies, the river suffers little for it other than a temporary loss of life energy. The river flows on, and it can create another nymph, or even several, once its soul’s energy is restored. Typha is very much expendable, yet she continues to defend the river and its people. That is her purpose.
That is why she was made.
The Hither and Thither Expanded; Or, Drawing Back the Curtain!
Typha is the alternate universe analogue of the perfectly normal human girl, Danielle Obrove. She is not her former life, her blood (water) relative, or a close acquaintance. She's the Obrove if Obrove were the physical embodiment of the Typha River’s will, while
Danielle is Obrove in the form of a high school student.
More Obroves can be found on their alt list,
here.
There are more "Danalogues" to come, eventually, so we kindly ask that you...
STAY TUNED!
