She found concept art for the ORIGINAL Ackerly Green logo.
It’s a hippocampus! It’s a freaking hippocampus! And he has a name!
(Backing Up: Recruits, A very few of us remember the Lost Collection AG logo having a mythological creature. We’ve argued about what creature it was and I was ALWAYS in camp mythic seahorse. Eat it camp manticore!)
So this is the current “altered” AG logo:
This is my HORRIBLE mockup of what the logo we remember looked like:
I am freaking out. This is mind-blowing. I have so many questions…
In our altered time did the “Herman” logo become a failed draft that was abandoned for the “gray box” logo?
DG says that the sketches were in pristine condition while all the other documents were fading and yellowed. Are these drawings like the Guide? Are they here when they’re not supposed to be? Are we looking at another artifact we’re not supposed to see?
The gray box logo totally fits the books DG has found. Strong but simple. But the “Herman logo” just oozes magical lost collection. Right?
Cripes, I’m sitting here crying. I know that’s stupid but… it’s like seeing a long lost friend. Herman the hippocampus. Most of you can’t understand, which I get, but this is on par with finding the Guide. At least for me it is.
She seems pretty perceptive in her post about Herman. The horse being Ackerly and the fish being Green. Correct me if I’m wrong but the two books she’s read so far were pushed out by Ackerly, right?
From what I can tell, yeah. We have a lot that suggests that Ackerly was into the dark pulp fiction style while Green was more interested in more risky publishing of mystic and adventure.
Doesn’t look likely given the dates on the about page. The Monster opened in this location in the 70’s sometime, and before that it was called El Chico.
Actually I think leigha is onto something. the about section mentions the bar was named after a coney island carousel.
It also mentions two other establishments and a “fire island monster and key west monster.” the bar might be a no go but maybe the carousel on coney island is connected somehow to herman.
Such as by say being donated by ackerly green publishing. Might be some kind of paper trail here.
Okay, this is strange. There is no seahorse on the Coney Island carousel. They’re all just horses. There was one original horse missing when restorations were done, it had been replaced, but of course no one knows where it is now. a previous owner of the carousel gave it to his daughter. But there’s no indication that it was a seahorse.
The current B&B carousel, built in 1906, wasn’t the first, maybe the original carousel had “Herman” on it but I can’t find much information about it. Will keep looking for him.
On a maybe related note, on the Basecamp blog there’s a picture labeled fountain with a man and a horse.
The horse has wings. Could be a pegasus, but could also be a hippocampus. Especially seeing as how the man holding on to it looks to be a centaur. Does anyone know anything about this fountain?
Okay just answered my own question, This is the Trevi fountain in Rome, and that is confirmed to be a hippocampus.
That’s one whale of a tail.
I’ll keep looking for more info on the first carousel. It was built by a man named Charles Looff.
Leigha you are a god of reasearch thanks! I’ll start investigating mister loof as well as the other two “monsters”
Edit 1: found the Looff
Lots of good info here including a list of every carousel he ever built! Horses seems to just refer to any of the things you sit on though.
Edit2: hey wait a minute! Remember what the traveler said when DG posted the seahorse pic from the bar? Bereft of home his light soars free and something about jewled eyes? Herman totally was there! He must be the horse that was given away!
Exactly what I was thinking after I read the poem…There’s a recurring motif of "hybrid"creatures. The hippocampus, Brandon’s winged lions, the girl who turned into a mermaid. It struck me that these may be the animals that represent our guilds.
I think the hippocampus represents Ebengard (the shore between land and sea.) (Diedre)
I may have assigned the guilds wrong, but I think this may be the right idea.
This most likely has nothing to do with the fragment, but it may be useful eventually.
I’d be happy to do more research and fill out the backstories of the familiars. As for the unowl, my Gossmere friend, there are several possible creatures that could fill the role of bird-human, such as harpies (pictured above)
