Vardu's Greatest Triumph to Date

   One of the two major mad scientists which threaten the peace of the Solar System, Doctor Vardu twists the very threads of life itself to create warped monsters. He has a fascination with merging human characteristics with those of animals and even plants! In this instance, the base creature was a mighty Venusian Marsh Oak.

A crude intelligence simmers in the orange eyes of the mighty beast.

As you can clearly see, the Marsh Oak is host to a variety of

other plants and fungi.

[I added Meadow Flowers and Wilderness Tufts]

[Reaper Bones: "Spirit of the Forest"]

Royal Xenological Society, Vol. 1

Triceratops Tamed!

On the steamy jungle planet of Venus, great lizards very much like our own long extinct dinosauria still roam the surface, fly through the skies, and make water travel very... exciting, to say the least. One such creature is the immensely powerful, but moderately docile Triceratops. Recently, a group of Texican Marines operating south of Her Majesty's Camp Trafalagar location have reported the domestication of a trio of the gargantuan beasts. Surely, our friends and allies the Texicans will be forthcoming with their training methods for the better utilisation of animal power on Venus.

Bloodeye Swarm in Swamps of Veiled Planet

The carnivorous amphibian 'Bloodeye' frogs (Rana venustica phlegboptica ) are swarming through the southern swamps of Venus. Seen below is a photostat captured by a Texican journalist who is part of their recent military expedition to the Veiled Planet. As you can see, the amphibians are quite large, and have no fear of mankind or our weapons. Thankfully, they are thin-skinned, and a round or two from a rifle will do for them.

Martian Volcano Peppers - A Fiery Sensation!

A staple of Martian cooking, the volcano pepper is becoming increasingly valuable as an export item to Earth. The fiery hot fruit of this plant is quite popular in Texas and India. Additionally, the wood of the plant secretes an oil which is flammable, and useful as a fuel substitute to coal on the Red Planet. It has, in fact, been used to heat homes through the cold Martian nights for millennia. Our photostat comes from a typical farm in the Ikora District of the Martian Crown Colony.

[Editor's Notes: The Triceratops is a Schleich, which I purchased over the summer while they were on sale at Target for $0.96 each. I added a small scratchbuilt wooden platform to its back and some fine brass chain and rings for control, and there it is. The bloodeye frogs are just tiny little plastic frogs I got at the Dallas Zoo gift shop, 10 for $1! Finally, the volcano peppers are snips from an interesting fake flowering plant I saw at Hobby Lobby, superglued to some resing root stumps I sculpted for the specific purpose of utilising resin overages. I pour the extra resin into the mold with several roots in it, then cut out.]

Bongolesian Oxygen Plant

The Bongolesian Oxygen Plant (Oxygenesis bongolesia) is a marvel of modern botanical study. It has the curious ability to generate fantastic amounts of oxygen when subjected to the proper conditions of temperature, atmospheric pressure, and carbon dioxide emissions.

O. bongolesia has been known to the highland dwellers of the African nation of Bongolesia for milennia, although naturally no proper scientific study had been carried out by the natives. It might have gone on forever as a simple mossy ground cover had it not been for the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the Smith Expedition.

You will recall, of course, that the freelance antiquities hunter Doctor Albert Henry Jones Smith, formerly of the British Museum, led an expedition to discover the ancient city of Bongolia, in the highland areas of Bongolesia. There they found a tribe of fierce savages who ate all but three of the expedition, including Doctor Smith. The three survivors brought along with them a few scraps of gold jewelry and a small amount of the oxygen plant, which one team member described as 'possibly worth something for industrialists.'

Again, fate stepped in and the oxygen plant was mentioned as a botanical curiousity in the Times on a slow news day. That article was read by Sir Reginald, who immediately deduced it could be used to replace the bulky and heavy compressed air cylinders then in use aboard the first aetherships. The rest, as they say, is history.