Laburnum are flesh eating balls of fur with legs and arms that live in caves east of Daventry.
Background[]
They are bipedal with skinny twig legs that support an oblong cucumber-shaped body and head. They appeared to have no necks, instead their head and shoulders appeared to be one piece. Their twig-thin arms and small, delicate, furry hands, started almost level with the top of their heads and ending far above their waists. They have large soft brown eyes. Their fur is softer than rabbit fur, fur comes in colors ranging from golden-brown, cinnamon-colored to color of orange mud. They look cute until they bare their teeth, or start wielding their weapons (spears, usually). Their language is composed of chitters, cheeps, whistles, and clicks.
They eat humans, and whatever else ends up in their caves, usually by offerings from a local family of farmers. The farmers, Brindlenose, Hogshead, Lambsfoot, Ramsquarter, and Tilly bring poor victims to the Pit of the Laburnum.
They call out the rhyme;
- Laburnum Laburnum, come and behold,
- Laburnum Laburnum, come out of the cold.
- Laburnum Laburnum, listen to me.
- Laburnum Laburnum, come thither and see.
The Laburnum have been known to destroy the farm's crops, destroy the animals, and poison the well all in a single night if they didn't receive offerings.
The laburnum lived in tents in their cavern, and made furniture and tableware out of the bones of their victims. Tops of skulls became bowls, and shoulderblades became plates.
They also made weapons out of their victims bones forming clubs and cudgels, and even using boney tubes for blowdarts (and finger bones for ammo).[1]
Behind the scenes[]
Laburnum, commonly called golden chain, is a genus of two species of small trees. trees. Indian laburnum" is the golden shower tree, a distant relative of the genus Laburnum.
1570s, from Latin laburnum (Pliny), of unknown origin; perhaps from Etruscan.
The coloring of the creatures do seem to similar to the color of the flowers. As such the farmers may have given the creatures the name based on the similarity.
See also poison, venom, toxin and bane for some of the similarities and differences between terminology. This article is not the place to discuss pedantic online debates on terminology.
- ↑ KoS, 111-133, 137, 156, 319, 320