The "Gefilter Fish" is a fish common in the swampy marshes of Fralja. The gefilter is unique in the sense that it loves to ingest the bitter sap of the tar tree, which most living things cannot stand to be near. Interestingly, the gefilter's filtration membrane (which it uses to separate mud and other less-than-savory muck from its diet, excreting the chaff through its gills) is able to filter the sap of the tar tree, combine it inseparably with its own natural body oils, and produce a highly combustible, uniquely efficient variety of fuel-oil.

"Little Johnny noticed the gefilter fish loved to chase the gobs of tree sap he would pour into the lake... unfortunately for Little Johnny, he also noticed -- the hard way -- that the slick that came about as a by-product of the gefilter fish is highly flammable, as he was blast-fishing one day..."

http://imm.io/wnDx

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What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

This a critter for an upcoming title? Or just sketching/thinking aloud?

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

The latter.

It's actually something I concocted with the help of a book called "Fantasy Genesis", which is basically a rulebook for a creativity game centered around creating creatures/characters. The four lines on the upper-rightleft of the page are notes from the first round, and I took off with it.

The design art was just something I scribbled on the same page. It's basically a catfish, but with the addition of the filtration membrane in its mouth. I decided to take an indirect route with the tree and machinery items, and just made them work together. The fish is linked to the tree (from which the tar sap comes), uses its sap to produce suds/bubbles (which is highly combustible), and the result can be used as fuel oil (for powering engines, as gasoline or petrol would).

I was planning to post a follow-up today, but it looks like it'll have to wait until tomorrow -- got wrapped up doing other stuff around the house, and didn't get much else accomplished.

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What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

I got some hectic insomnia over here and the image of Johnny blast fishing for exploding fish really gave me a chuckle.

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Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve