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The Littlest Elemenstor

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Back to Other Elemenstor Literature

The Littlest Elemenstor

by Corky Tanner

 

The Littlest Elemenstor is a heartwarmingly illustrated short story released in 1999 about a kitten who finds a rubian shard and transchants a scratching post and a toy mouse. The prose is, relative to most ELotH works, sparse, allowing the illustrations to establish detail rather than burying the reader in adjectives.

 

The events of the story are entirely consistent with ELotH canon and it is an officially licensed work, but its total lack of violence or subplots sets it apart tonally and some fans insist on its non-canonicity.

 

Some fans go so far as to claim the title of the story itself contradicts canon, as the unnamed kitten is far larger than Yar the Sorcerial during his time in Minuschitae, but the story clearly takes place well after The Sundering and so Minuschitae is long gone.

 

 

Elemenstation

The story does not have any asides concerning the theory of magic in Battal, which is highly unusual for a story about an Elemenstor. It is, however, entirely consistent with established canon in matters of magical fact. It is unusual that an inexperienced being of animal intelligence could become an Elemenstor, but not unprecedented. In the ELotH: TES - Pen and Paper RPG for instance, a kitten would be counted both as a Child and a Highly Fuzzy Animal, bringing its Marketability stat to enormous levels; this is an RPG mechanic and not canon, but the same principle can be observed in canon works. The kitten's ability to Transchant with only a rubian shard can be justified easily; all of the kitten's enchantments are consistent with the Stream element, and Stream Elemenstors are often seen casually Transchanting items much smaller than furniture. Without an embedded gem the Transchanted items revert to their inanimate state if left out of the Elemenstor's presence; this too is consistent with the story.

 

 

Setting

The story takes place in a small unnamed town and is not explicit about its greater setting, but it can be deduced to take place in The Sickle after the Century of Fire and before the establishment of the Item Death Squad (so, roughly between 18,000 and 22,000).

  • The kitten nearly knocks over a jar of Dellberry. Dellberry is far too expensive in The Shield for ordinary townsfolk to leave a jar of it out in the open; consequently, it can be concluded that the story takes place somewhere near the source of Dellberry, where it is not nearly so rare.
  • Non-magical books about Elemenstation exist, and books in general are commonplace items. By the time the story takes place, Elemenstation must be a somewhat commonplace art and literacy is fairly high. This puts it after the Century of Fire.
  • The story does not mention any paperwork or violence in connection with Transchanting. This indicates that the Item Death Squad has yet to be established.

 

Second Edition

As part of its attempts to further improve its image after the devastating Muhamed Memos, the General Defense Dynamics bought the rights to The Littlest Elemenstor and published it for free. Upon his request, James Langomedes was allowed to edit the book, purportedly to tie in better with The Wizbits (and provide more publicity for the series and its merchandise). The only changes made by Langomedes, however, involved the addition of incredibly graphic scenes to the book, which made little sense in the context of the story.

 

Quotes

One morning, a kitten found something strange. - Opening line

It was alot like glass, only red. - Page 3, first edition

The littlest Elemenstor went *purrrrrr*. - Closing line

Then the little kitten ate the mouse. His blood and intestines got all over his mouth! - Page 9, second edition

 

Comments

 

I was hoping no one would drag the second edition into this. I really prefer the feel of the original, un-epic though it is.
I remember this book fondly, it was what gave me my love of kittens. My Mom wouldn't let me have one, so I had to settle for a pet Scratching post instead. - Zeta

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