PATAGONIAN GNOMES VS THE CHUPACABRA MENACE - These new, wild populations of Duendes became quite a nuisance for the countryside of Spanish colonies, and so the Spanish, looking to overturn this annoyance, began importing the strange and extremely unstable bat-like Chupacabras to hunt the Duendes.

 

PATAGONIAN GNOMES VS THE CHUPACABRA MENACE

The arrival of the Spanish at Aten marked the first time a European power set foot in the Supercontinent, and the encounter of the not-quite human Duendes set off heated debates on legal and theological matters across Christendom. 

Were they besouled beings like normal man? 

Sub-human creatures, slightly higher than beasts, lacking a rational soul? Or para-human beings, lacking original sin and as such needing to be treated not as beasts or men but as children needing guidance?

Whichever the answer any philosophical camp fell on, one thing was certain: the little men were pretty funny. On the years following the discovery of Aten, many Duendes would be sent over all corners of the Spanish Empire, primarily to the Philippines, Spanish America and many disparate Spanish colonies across Atlas, though some would end up in Spain and Africa too. 

However, these charming circus beasts (as was often the fate of these exported Gnomes and Goblins) were much smarter than they let on, and they managed to escape, many catastrophic breakout events sometimes including the release of other, more dangerous animals into the circus grounds while the diminutive hominids made their escapes. 

These new, wild populations of Duendes became quite a nuisance for the countryside of Spanish colonies, and so the Spanish, looking to overturn this annoyance, began importing the strange and extremely unstable bat-like Chupacabras to hunt the Duendes. 

The creatures would, much like the Duendes themselves, become feral and expand across the territories they were introduced into, becoming a much more concerning plague, as surviving victims of Chupacabra bites would tend to violently mutate into forms similar to the Chupacabra itself. 

As the Spanish empire collapsed during the Napoleonic Wars, these infestations became the problem of the colonies, and, as fate would had it, the best hunters of the Chupacabra would end up being the imported Duendes themselves.