Fenghai

Fenghai Level 23 Family Fey family creatures Body Type Biped Classification(s) Living Magical Boss Area(s) Found Foggy Valley BCS Yes HP 190 Speed

Attack Attributes Physical Attacks kris 173 AS Bolt Spells Minor Acid (904) 167 AS Major Cold (907) 160 - 167 AS Major Fire (908) 178 AS Minor Shock (901) 167 AS

Defense Attributes Armor None (natural) ASG 1N Defensive Strength (DS) Melee 122 Ranged Bolt Unarmed Defense Factor UDF Target Defense (TD) Bard Base 76 Cleric Base Empath Base Paladin Base Ranger Base Sorcerer Base 94 Wizard Base Minor Elemental 83 Major Elemental Minor Spiritual 80 Major Spiritual Minor Mental Defensive Spells Elemental Defense I (401) Elemental Defense II (406) Elemental Defense III (414) Elemental Focus (513) Thurfel's Ward (503) Wizard's Shield (919)

Treasure Attributes Coins Yes Gems Yes Magic Items Yes Boxes Yes Skin a fenghai fur Other Glimmering blue essence shard

The fenghai seems to be a furry little ball with feet.  Sparkling eyes peer out from a mop of russet fur, looking about with a happy curiousity.  Stubby arms end in pudgy little hands that appear dextrous despite their dimensions, and the round-toed feet are covered in hair and dirt.  While comical in appearance, it is obvious that the furball can take care of itself.

Hunting strategies

Fenghai are immune to non-magical weapons. They sometimes glow brightly, gaining a +69 TD boost.

Other information

Fenghai generate with no armor, a shortened wavy kris (short sword), a wooden shield which lowers their CvA from +25 to +20, and a leather knotted harness that can store 1 item.

They jump up and down in triumph when they kill you, and poke at your body, but otherwise do nothing interesting. They reside in the Warrens, which by implication is a breeding grounds, and they have a gaudy love nest. Their name is unusual in that it seems to be a reference unrelated to their creature description, though the word parts might simply be meant to translate as "a lot of laughs". In this context it is notable that the Warrens contains, like The Broken Lands and The Graveyard, giant mushrooms and glowing green moss as a lighting mechanism. They have some unknown religion involving rock glyphs, including depictions of a tree and the sun, and possess what appears to be a demon skull.

Behind the Scenes

In context the fenghai might be an allusion to Native American "little people" myths, where small furry creatures (nature spirits) would live in caves near the Great Lakes and made the ancient petroglyphs (rock art) using their own blood. They were mischievous. The fenghai culture is depicted as stone age. Thematically this is reminiscent of Shadow Valley, which has Native American and faerie folklore subtexts.

However, they are even more likely to be an esoteric allusion to the "little people" of Margaret Murray's "witch-cult" hypothesis, which was incorporated by Lovecraft Circle authors. Murray had taken the faerie folklore around Glastonbury and Arthurian legend, and inspired by Frazer's "The Golden Bough", argued there was a surviving pagan fertility witch-cult centered around a horned god (such as Cernunnos or Herne the Hunter). The faeries were taken to be a Stone Age race of tiny humanoids that still exist underground on the edges of civilization.

Jessie Weston was an Arthurian scholar who dismissed Murray as a crank, but herself used Frazer's Diana fertility religion anthropology to make a highly speculative argument regarding Arthurian legend, making much of the Wasteland mythology which was used for Terate as Perceval in the Vvrael quest. She notably used a fertility initiation rites argument for relating the Chapel Perilous to St. Patrick's Purgatory, which seems relevant to the symbolism of Castle Anwyn. These would serve to explain the fenghai being portrayed with emphasis on their breeding caves.

Near-level creatures

Level 21 ancient ghoul master arachne servant cave bear plains orc chieftain Level 22 cougar crested basilisk dark panther enormous mosquito warthog Level 23 arachne acolyte centaur centaur ranger crazed zombie fenghai niirsha nonomino rotting woodsman zombie Level 24 arctic wolverine burly reiver giant albino scorpion ice hound jungle feyling night hound reiver roa'ter wormling storm hound tree viper vapor hound veteran reiver water hound wolverine Level 25 carceris gnoll jarl huge jungle toad krolvin warfarer sacristan spirit spectral monk