Cryptids, Kaiju & Creeps: Wyrm by Philip Grippi

Nestled deep and snug within the green of the wood slept a dragon named Charlemagne. The wood was vast and voluminous, and gave shelter to many a creature, but none as deep within as Charlemagne. Beyond the griffin roost and the marshy den of the Gorglut, even father still inward than the dryads and naiads and spotty feathered rungles in between. Some creatures fought and some made friends but all made good on the pact that Charlemagne was to be protected, for he was young and small, but his treasure great. His keep laid cold, a craggy spiral of rock and burnt wood among the heart of the wood. And in the eye of the spiral bore a cave. It was in this cave that Charlemagne called home and where he kept his treasure close during his slumber. Slinked and curled, the tiny dragon slept. Orange and sleek, his scales gleamed like embers strewn about for warmth. The walls cast light from earthy ingots which shone off his scales, illuminating the keep with a ghostly aurora that seemed to cling to the small dragon, protecting him. His small wings curled in, and his spikes twitched in their Sockets as he dreamt of flying alongside his brothers in the great wyrming. And if a passerby made it past the griffins and the gorglut, the dryads and naiads and spotty feathered rungles and down the treacherous path along the craggy spiral, they might catch a glimpse of the treasure of Charlemagne. A single gold coin clasped in his tiny claws, which shone yellow among the ghostly display of light surrounding. But passerby’s beware the waking wyrm Charlemagne. He may be small, but his fire burns bright and hot. And he will not part with his coin.

Then on a day like any other, as the cool misty drawn broke through night, and the menagerie of monsters who called this wood their home slumbered still but for those who crept at night, a thief entered the wood. Those who knew him called him Moren Swift, those who didn’t called him the ghast. So called for his ability to creep in the dark unlike anything that could pass for human. Slender in build but nimble and soft in step, The Moren the Ghast wove his way into the quiet entropy of the trees and foliage. He avoided the grottos and nests, staid perfectly still when his presence might be discovered, and finally found his way to craggy spiral keep of Charlemagne. Carefully, meticulously, he crept his way along the rocks into the maw of the keep. Into the dark Moren the Ghast went, for the dark had been his home for as long as he could remember. However, in the dark he found light. The glimmering specter of Charlemagne‘s radiance. Were the Ghast not hardened and bitter from his life of thievery, he might have been in awe of its beauty. But Moren was a great many things, and sentimental was not one of them. That dragon held a single, valuable coin. One of a bountiful trove long thought lost by pirates and crusaders alike, and Moren the Ghast, very rarely denied of that which he covets, wanted it.

What luck for the Ghast! The tiny dragon, nestled in a peaceful, deep slumber, had rolled on its back curled its arms up, gripping nought but air, and on his belly sat the glistening gold coin. With great discipline and finesse, Moren unsheathed a knife, and readied it for the possibility of the dragon waking. He reached out his hand drew ever so close to the dragon, then lightly plucked the coin from the dragon’s belly. A smile spread wide across his face and he backed away, then turned, and was gone from Charlemagne’s shimmering aura, like smoke in the night. When the tiny dragon woke and found his prize missing, he let out a startled yowl and bathed his surroundings in flame. He leapt through the maw of the keep and into a world far bigger than he was prepared for. He would find his coin and have his vengeance. He would have what’s his.

A brief examination on Wyrm:

With this work I aimed to build not just a character but a world. An ecosystem within which the characters live. It illustrated at calm and passive to represent the day to day cyclical routine of little Charlemagne’s life. He hordes his coin for dragons within most folklore are notoriously greedy and enamored with gold. Sleeping with his coin is his passion, and so enters the crisis: Moren the Ghast, a professional thief who seeks to take the coin. When he’s successful it upends Charlemagne’s sense of self and normalcy and he leaves his cave in search of the thief.