“For something is amiss or out of place When mice with wings can wear a human face.”
—Theodore Roethke, “The Bat”

“I told him it was just a flesh wound, but the next time I looked at him, poor Tadhg was dead and gone.”
—Maeveen O'Donagh, Memoirs of a Soldier

Some say magic was first practiced by women, who have always felt strong ties to the land.

“Visions of glory, spare my aching sight,
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!”
—Thomas Gray, “The Bard”

“This ‘standing windstorm’ can hold us off indefinitely? Ridiculous!” Saying nothing, she put a pinch of salt on the table. With a bang she clapped her hands, and the salt disappeared, blown away.

The Wall of Bone is said to be an aspect of the Great Wall in Hel, where the bones of all sinners wait for Ragnarok, when Hela will call them forth for the final battle.

“What else, when chaos draws all forces inward to shape a single leaf.”
—Conrad Aiken

An ever-moving swarm of dust engulfs and disorients anything that comes near.

Conjured from the bowels of hell, the fiery wall forms an impassable barrier, searing the soul of any creature attempting to pass through its terrible bursts of flame.

“And through the drifts the snowy cliffs
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.”
—Samuel Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Even the most conservative generals revised their tactics after the Battle of Sarinth, during which a handful of peasant-pikemen held off a trio of rampaging Craw Wurms.

The Earth herself lends her strength to these walls of living stone, which possess the stability of ancient mountains. These mighty bulwarks thwart ground-based troops, providing welcome relief for weary warriors who defend the land.

Just as the evil ones approached to slay Justina, she cast a great spell, imbuing her weapons with her own life force. Thus she fulfilled the prophecy: “In the death of your savior will you find salvation.”

A deafening roar arose as the fury of an enormous vertical river supplanted our serenity. Eddies turned into whirling geysers, leveling everything in their path.

Everybody knows that to ward off trouble, you knock on wood. But usually it’s better to make a wall out of the wood and let trouble do the knocking.

I didn’t think Mammoths could ever hold a candle to a well-trained battle horse. Then one day I turned my back on a drunken soldier. His blow never landed; Mi'cha flung the brute over ten meters.

Unpredictable as the sea itself, Water Elementals shift without warning from tranquility to tempest. Capricious and fickle, they flow restlessly from one shape to another, expressing their moods with their physical forms.