Wolperdingers

March 20, 2020

Wolperdingers

People don't think of necromancers as the most fun bunch, but they do enjoy a little frivolity from time to time. These dark frolics often involve the creation of a wolperdinger - a reanimated construct created from spare animal parts. The enjoyment everyone else receives from these weird Frankenducks will depend on how amusing they find smelly abominations.

A Duzulspimk Wolperdinger by Zuza Gruzlewska

Like all undead, wolperdingers can be given instructions by the necromancer who animated them. Their ability to carry out said instructions will depend on the construct's practicality.You can literally make these things out of anything. Generally, however, you shouldn't.

Given the work that goes into creating a wolperdinger, the majority tend to be taxidermies. This means they smell better than most undead. It's this extra effort that puts practitioners off, as necromancers tend towards the unhygienic. For some reason they view beating death as less of a challenge than tackling body odour.

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The Duzulspimk Wolperdingers

The mountain town of Duzulspimk suffered an interesting infestation of wolperdingers. While these undead constructs are usually more like golems, these ones had a mind of their own.

The Duzulspimk wolperdingers used parts from a pine marten, a duck, a jay, and a ram. They created it for a competition that involved amateur necromancers hiding their creations around the town. The problem arose as a result of where they hid them.

Duzulspimk lies in the Yelps in the shadow of Mount Mordberg. These peaks rise so high that they enter the majosphere - the part of the atmosphere where magickal particles accumulate. Unfortunately for everyone involved, one necromancer stashed his creation up there. Hocus pocus ensued as a result.

Consequently, the construct took on a life of its own. It also began creating more wolperdingers - acquiring the requisite body parts through dark means. Thankfully for Duzulspimk, the soulless rat ducks lacked the claws or teeth needed to hurt people. Notably, this wasn't for a lack of trying.

Wolperdinger Facts

The collective noun for ordinary wolperdingers is the same as all reanimated undead - a 'shamble'. The enchanted wolperdingers of Duzulspimk went by a 'ruckus'.
Wolperdingers can make a variety of noises - it all depends on what sort of mouth they get given.
The wolperdingers in Duzulspimk went: "QWUAWHK!" or "hiss!"

Creation Notes

Wolperdingers feature in my novel The Fame Eaters. I read about them when researching the mythology of the alps, although I had heard of the similar 'jackalopes'. Including them led to me thinking about how a reanimated creature would work in the Tumultiverse. It turned out you get an undead by pumping a corpse full of dread particles - basically like making a donut but with horror instead of jam.

The wolperdingers in the series are based on one from real life. Namely, this one: