Insectoids

FlutterShrimp

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Kettle Snail

Insectoids with shells about the size of a large melon, kettle snails were never fully domesticated yet have a symbiotic relationship with many northern human cultures. Kettle snails thrive near hot springs in the Ashen Steppes. From there they make forays out to nearby magma fissures to feed on corals and lichens. However, outside of the hot springs, and away from the molten rock, the temperature is very often close to freezing. If a snail gets lost or takes too long to warm up again, it risks freezing to death. What's more, there are some populations of kettle snails whose hot springs and magma flows have cooled. These snails would no doubt have perished but for their aforementioned relationship with humans. 

In places where there are no magma flows or springs, some human settlements began sheltering kettle snails in artificial hot springs. From large tubs or magically heated pools, to literal kettles, there are many who help local snails keep warm. And though these people often have some sentimental attachment to the creatures, they do reap quite a reward from the arrangement. The thick mucus of kettle snails is invaluable for fireproofing and hardening various fabrics and leathers. What’s more, it’s best collected from living snails. So while the kettle snails gain vital shelter and places to breed, their human hosts can harvest their mucus and trade it for a considerable return.

Origin: Kettle snails arrived during the Naz Migration. 

Range: Northern Kindreth and Torin

Sea Scorpion

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Squeezer Crab

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Dragonhunter

The wyvern sized dragonfly-like insects known as dragonhunters were once common throughout Satra and lower Kindreth. They are best known for their extreme territoriality when it comes to other large flying creatures. This aggression extends to rainbow hornbills, king vultures, wyverns and even storm falcons and dragons. 

Contrary to their names, it is very rare for a dragonhunter to actually kill a dragon or any other large flying creature. Though they have an intimidating appearance, their bodies and exoskeletons are lighter than they appear and can be easily damaged. To make up for this they can outmatch any flying creature when it comes to in-air agility, being capable of hovering, flying backwards, and side to side. They posses large crushing mandibles for catching prey (mostly birds) on the wing, but their main weapon against large creatures is something altogether more bizarre. On either side of the mandible are the openings of tube-like organs attached to reservoirs on their abdomen. These reservoirs contain chemicals that become volatile when mixed. The dragonhunter is capable of expelling these from the tubes at high speed and at ranges of over eighty feet. The chemicals not only burn, but explode soon after contacting the air. This chemical attack is capable of burning skin and feathers, and even searing holes through dragon scales.

Dragonhunter Life Cycle

Origin: Dragonhunters arrived during the Naz Migration

Range: Emerald Eternal, Evendark, the Satran Shards

Marsh Ripper

Resembling a dog-sized scorpion with a stub tail, marsh rippers are aggressive, water-dwelling creatures that inhabit shallow waters in tropical areas. They have thickly-armored bodies and powerful grasping claws that they use to hold prey while their knife-like mouthparts consume their flesh. 

Rippers often seize prey many times their size, and while one marsh ripper may not be especially dangerous to a strong human or large animal, the commotion caused by a struggle will usually attract more. Despite the danger in hunting them, marsh rippers are considered fantastic table fare by the eyra of Televada. Some regions even go so far as to breed them in ponds beneath their tree-cities.

Other Names: Ripter, black lobster, water scorpion

Origin: Marsh rippers are believed to have arrived during the Naz Migration

Range: All known tropical and sub-tropical regions, in both fresh and brackish water

Silver Ant

Silver ants are large, colony dwelling insects that live among the molten fissure and magma reefs of the Ashen Steppes. Many times larger than most ants, silver ants can pose a threat to people interfering with their nests and the territory surrounding it. Though uncommon, stories of people being swarmed and bitten to death are on record. These ants get their names from their hardened exoskeleton which is almost always a metallic silver in color. It's thought that their shiny chitin (which doesn’t actually appear to contain metallic elements) helps them to resist the extreme heat in some parts of their habitat.

Silver ants are best known for what can only be called their farming practices. Their underground colonies are usually placed well uphill of magma pools and frequently up in the plains, where flooding by lava is unlikely. However, throughout the day and night, worker ants leave their tunnels in shifts, going downhill - or down cliff - to the patches of corals and lichens that thrive near the magma flows. Some workers ascend the branches of coral trees, rising above the stony skeletons at the base to the fleshy boughs above. There, they gently massage the coral with their forelimbs until a sweet paste is excreted. This paste, which is sugary in taste, seems to be highly prized by the ants and the workers will quickly carry it back to their nests. In return for the paste, the ants keep the coral trees in their territory free of pests such as kettle snails. Silver ants have also been observed "planting" coral polyps throughout their territory, and protecting the new growth until they are able to produce sugar paste. Down on the ground, silver ants also harvest fast-growing rag lichen. Just like with the corals, they protect the lichen from grazing by kettle snails, fluttershrimp and other creatures. They have even been known to go after the booted feet of people walking through and trampling their lichen fields.

Origin: Uncertain but most likely the Naz migration

Range: The Ashen Steppes

Cavern Slug

Named more for their choice of hibernacula than their actual habitat, cavern slugs are an enormous species that can grow up to twenty feet long. They inhabit redwood forests in Arvair and Mistlorn, specializing in consuming dead and dying bark and twigs. 

In the Arvairian Redwoods, cavern slugs are a protected animal. Their diet of dead plant matter promotes the health of the redwoods they feed on, and ever since Arvairian foresters realized this, it has been illegal to harm them. In the winter, cavern slugs retreat to deep, damp caves and crevices where they hibernate in great numbers. Interestingly, they often share such hibernacula with their only true predator - the mossy dragonfrog.

Origin: Uncertain

Range: Redwood forests in Kindreth and Mistlorn

Coldarms

The creature most commonly known as coldarms are freshwater octopi that inhabit waterways and flooded cave systems throughout Satra. They are one of the most feared residents of Satran waters though - more often than not - they are content to quietly watch sentient beings rather than consume them. 

Coldarms are known to be fairly intelligent, nearly as much so as dredarach. The few researchers that have been brave enough to inspect living specimens in the wild have noted their intense curiosity. One pre-Reaving Televadian scholar was famous for constructing puzzles for the creatures - complex contractions that they would have to solve to earn a snack of crab-meat. Such experiments have yet to be repeated in the modern age.

Other Names: Giant Octopus, Swamp Horror

Origin: Coldarms appeared during the first eyra migration. 

Range: Satra

Dredarach

Giant, horrifying, semi-sentient spiders, dredarach followed the Naz (their favoured prey) to Solitude during their migration. They stalk dark jungles and deep caves at the edge of Naz territories, only venturing forth from their remote and well-hidden lairs to snare fresh prey. 

Dredarach are smart enough to stay away from large settlements but will not tolerate threats near their lairs. Sightings of these goliath horrors are hardly ever reported, but part of the reason for that may be that those unfortunate to encounter them rarely live to tell the tale. Those eyewitness accounts that do exist are most often of hunters or travelers deep in the jungle who happen to spot a dredarach carrying bundles of silk-wrapped prey back to their lairs.

Other Names: Giant Spider, Undercarrier, Dread

Origin: Dredarach arrived during the Naz Migration

Range: Most common in Eastern Satra but reports have been made from as far away as Faidmiir