Cuckoo

Official artwork

## Reference

**Johrlac:**

* **j*oo*r**-lakh
* **y*oo*r**-lokh

**Johrlac**, colloquially called **cuckoo** in North America, are a species of telepathic ambush predators that appear in the InCryptid series. Their existence was confirmed and documented by Alexander Healy.

Not to be confused with the cuckoo bird they were named after.

## Appendix Entry

*Johrlac (Johrlac psychidolos).* Colloquially known as "cuckoos," the Johrlac are telepathic hunters. They appear human, but are internally very different, being cold-blooded and posessing a decentralized circulatory system. This quirk of biology means they can be shot repeatedly in the chest without being killed. Extremely dangerous. All Johrlac are interested in mathematics, sometimes to the point of obsession. Origins unknown; possibly insect in nature.

## About

Cuckoos are biologically mammals, but their makeup more closely resembles insects. They are theorized as evolving from the same genetic ancestor as Apraxis Wasps, and are the wasps' only known predators.

Cuckoos do not have hearts, and their clear blood is similar to antifreeze. Their lifespans resemble that of humans, but they are not susceptible to any known illnesses.

They bear live young after a 44-week gestation period and have a very low birth rate.

Cuckoos are mildly allergic to insecticides and highly allergic to chocolate. They often love tomatoes and tomato-based products like ketchup. They are also excellent at mathematics.

### Appearance

Externally, cuckoos are indistinguishable from humans. They are considered attractive with pale skin, dark hair, and unnaturally blue eyes. All cuckoo of the same gender appear functionally identical.

Other names for Johrlac include "Magpies" and "La gente de Blancanieves", both referring to their pale skin and dark hair.

### Abilities

All cuckoos can listen in on thoughts (receptive telepathy). This is a passive ability that they have to actively suppress, and it exhausts them to do so, which is one reason why they are such a solitary species. They can also use it actively when they want to dig into someone's mind.

Most cuckoos are also able to project their thoughts and will onto others. They integrate themselves into their victim's minds and lives, convincing the victim with perfect sincerity that they have always belonged. They usually steal their victim's money, homes, and other resources without remorse. Skin contact makes manipulation easier and faster, and makes it harder to break the bond.

Johrlac can't get into the heads of fully mature madhura (once they pass their third molt), or the thoughts of waheela, or Revenants. Kairos, or people with kairos heritage, are also resistant due to their innate luck. They always see through cuckoo tricks, always know where the cuckoo are, and can identify cuckoo babies as outsiders and dangers. Because of this, the cuckoo hunted down all the Kairos and killed them, or exposed them to the Covenant, who burned them as witches and stoned them in the streets. Their telepathy works on ghosts, but only when they are in borrowed flesh (e.g. a hitchhiker in a coat). The mind of the Crossroads or another anima mundi is too large for a single Johrlac, though a hive mind working together could hit them.

Because of their telepathic ability all cuckoos, with receptive telepathy, are functionally face blind. Such is their reliance that if their telepathy is blocked and the target doesn't besides obvious physical differences such as distinguishable coloring or some sort of extra limb, a cuckoo can not differentiate between people. On a related note they can not see the color red.

About 1 in 3000 cuckoos are only able to receive or project. If they cannot receive, they fail to receive the maternal memories in the womb that will cause their first instar (the psychotic break) to trigger. As such, they retain their human-like morals. They are also able to disrupt the instar of young Johrlac, so they are sometimes tapped to raise potential Queens and allow the potentials to activate the rare third and fourth instars.

Most cuckoo don't spend enough time around other people to know that they emit a psychic hum, or that the hum is stronger the better someone knows them.

### Classification

The order "Apateprosopo" refers to the Greek myth of Apate, who was the child of Nyx and often called "the face of deceit."

The species name "*Psychidolos"* is formed from the affixes "psych" (mind) and "dolos," the latter being the spirit of trickery in Greek mythology. "Doler" also means "to hurt" or "to feel pain" in Spanish. Thus, *Psychidolos* means to hurt or trick the mind.

### Culture

Cuckoos are an inherently solitary society, barely tolerating their owns species even long enough to reproduce. They will arrange formal relationships that last just long enough to create a child and give it to an unsuspecting human or cryptid family.

Johrlac are born with a packet of cultural memories, which are activated once they reach a certain instar. Being flooded with these memories -- of their home dimension of Johrlar, of their cultural history on Earth, of how to do all that cuckoos are known to do - causes them to have what appears to be a psychotic break. They kill their human host family and go out into the world a fully realized cuckoo. Mark is the only known cuckoo to have undergone this transition and avoided killing their family.

It is now suspected that the cuckoo on Earth have been passing on a modified version of the cultural memory packet, which excludes certain information that the original Johrlac do not wish them to know. This may include the memory of the crimes that got them banished as well as the mathematics needed to return home.

### Habitat

Johrlac were originally from a world called Johrlar, from which the ancestors of the cuckoos were exiled, eventually making their way to on Earth were exiled. They periodically move en masse to a new dimension by creating a Johrlac Queen, who would process the equations to rewrite reality and transport them all. This process destroys both the queen's mind and the old dimension (or at least the planet) in the process.

The Johrlac on Earth first arrived in Qingyáng, China. Thousands of humans and yōkai died fighting the invaders. They spread across the globe from there.

### Instars

Johrlac progress through various metamorphoses, or instars, during their lives.

The first instar is considered a "larval" stage by adult Johrlac. In this stage, a cuckoo child has latent psychic abilities that are merely used to make their human hosts want to protect and raise them. It also makes their blood appear red and their behaviors appear normal. Due to psychic conditioning from their biological mothers, larval cuckoo do retain the selfishness of their species.

Around puberty, they go through their first metamorphosis. At this time, the packet of cultural memories is activated and the young Johrlac learns everything about Johrlar and their own abilities. This triggers a psychotic break, and the young cuckoo murders their human family before setting out into the world. Many Johrlac only progress to this second phase.

Some Johrlac progress through an additional instar, usually triggered by some form of trauma. They become better at mathematics and manipulation. Little is known about this phase.

The fourth instar is exceedingly rare, and usually only occurs in Johrlac whose previous instars have been delayed or disrupted. This transformation turns them into a "Johrlac Queen" (the existence of Kings are as yet unconfirmed), with the psychic and mathematical capacity to manipulate the very fabric of the universe and create portals between dimensions. Creation of these portals almost always destroys the Queen's mind, leaving her as an insensate husk.

## Characters

* Sarah Zellaby
* Angela Baker
* Mark
* Ingrid
* Heloise Tapper
* Robert Tapper
* Eliza
* Amelia
* David
* Heloise (not the same as Heloise Tapper)
* Morag
* Lupe
* Ava
* Sarah's biological siblings
* Johrlac explorers to insect dimension
* Lybie

## Trivia

* Johrlac do sometimes leave ghosts, as seen by Rose Marshall when she visited the starlight, though it's unknown if they were from Johrlar or exiles.

## Quotes

* “Theobromine,” he said. “That’s something [Cuckoos] have in common with a dog: it’s poison to you. I guess the worst thing in the world had to have something in common with the best.” -Balance
* If Annie, Artie, and James hadn't made it to Iowa in time, Mark was planning to inject Sarah with Hershey's Syrup to kill her and prevent her from destroying the world.
* "All we do is exploit what's available to us. Does a human who makes their dog work for its supper consider themselves malicious? Do they feel like terrible people because they enjoy a good piece of steak on occasion? No. They recognize themselves as the higher creature, and they use the lesser as they see fit. We simply do the same.
We simply do it to *them*." -Eliza, "Balance"

## In Popular Culture

* Nicknamed after the **cuckoo bird**: The cuckoos are for the most part solitary birds that seldom occur in pairs or groups. Some species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species and giving rise to the metaphor *Cuckoo's egg*. The cuckoo egg hatches earlier than the host eggs, and the cuckoo chick grows faster; in most cases, the chick evicts the eggs and/or young of the host species. The chick has no time to learn this behavior, nor does any parent stay around to teach it, so it must be an instinct passed on genetically.
* In Scotland, Johrlac have been called the "Magpies" for the black and white coloring of their hair and complexion. While in Spain they're called the " la gente blancanieves," or "The Snow White people."
* The cuckoos are largely based on *The Midwich Cuckoos*, a science fiction novel about strange telepathic children who start appearing in a small town. This is reflected in the names of Angela and Sarah, referencing the character Angela Zellaby from which Sarah adopted her surname. It is also in the latter's screen name MIDWICH\_GIRL.

## References

1. ↑ https://seananmcguire.com/fgcuckoo.php
2. ↑ https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cuckoo
3. ↑ Audiobooks narrated by Emily Bauer
4. ↑ Audiobooks narrated by Ray Porter
5. ↑ Appendix Field Guide: Books 1-11 (under "Johrlac")
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 InCryptid Q&A, Part II: Cuckoo to you too.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Calculated Risks, Ch. 10
8. ↑ The Measure of a Monster
9. ↑ Imaginary Numbers Ch. 1
10. ↑ Midnight Blue-Light Special Ch. 15
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Midnight Blue-Light Special Ch. 16
12. ↑ Imaginary Numbers Ch. 2
13. ↑ [How does johrlac telepathy work]
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Imaginary Numbers Ch. 18
15. ↑ Imaginary Numbers Ch. 16
16. ↑ Imaginary Numbers Ch. 15
17. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apate
18. ↑ Dictionary.com psych
19. ↑ Stingers and Strangers
20. ↑ Imaginary Numbers, Ch. ?
21. ↑ Imaginary Numbers Ch. ?
22. ↑ Balance
23. ↑ Angel of the Overpass Ch. 5
24. ↑ IM