Lapis the Nevrean

The Kirpo is a most pecular creature. Neither animal nor plant, neither wild nor domesticated, the Kirpo strains classification and, indeed, study. Nonetheless, I will herein attempt to collate all I know of the strange and wondrous beasts known as Kirpos.

To begin with, one should likely know that what we call a Kirpo is a type of mushroom. Indeed, though they walk and talk and live full independent lives, they are merely the fruiting bodies of larger fungal networks. I do not profess to understand how that works, I can not but relay what I have observed.

Kirpos come in a confounding variety of shapes and sizes. While most Kirpos are roughly the size and shape of a large, particularly round hamster, Kirpos have been observed to range in size from little bigger than a fruit fly to the size of a weird dog. While slightly more consistent in shape, they seem posessed of an extraordinary elasticity and an eccentricity equally extraordinary. Indeed, while a Kirpo is easy to recognise, a consistent description is wildly difficult to pin down, and I will make no further effort to do so.

On their diet, the Kirpo is a resourceful and largely omnivorous scavenger, though a lack of teeth somewhat limits what they can eat. Perhaps out of some sort of shape-based affinity, most Kirpos show a marked preference, and in many cases a peculier reverence, for beans and other legumes. Indeed, if cut open many Kirpos seem to be full of some manner of bean-paste. What happens to the other things they eat, I can hardly begin to speculate.

But the most confounding aspect of these creatures by far is their behavior. Intelligent, michevious, and beguiling things, which seemed aware of my studies and at times were most surely mocking me. They live in groups ranging from small families to colonies of thousands, in forests and cities and all sorts of other places. They hide under rocks waiting for who knows how long only to throw dirt at you and run away giggling when discovered. I have in truth nearly come to believe that these creatures are fairies, but fairies do not play jenga or become doctors. Have I mentioned that one Kirpo, called by the others "Doctor Amelia Potato", went to medical school and became a surgeon in the city of Chicago? And yet another one, beloved within her community, proclaimed as her greatest achievement that she had "invented pooping". Indeed I am I believe forced to confront that I know nothing of these creatures, and less even of the world. My studies, perhaps my entire life, has been for naught, these damnable creatures have thoroughly beaten me.

Kirpos are a co-creation of myself and my wonderful girlfriend @SlimeDoll, who drew the Doctor Potato illustration when I was in the hospital a few years ago, and drew the updated header image at some point I do not remember when