Creatures

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Zor
Posts: 271
Joined: Wed May 28, 2008 10:01 pm

Creatures

Post by Zor »

This thread is dedicated to non sapient creatures found throughout the Terran Sphere.
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Bladewolf

Homeworld-Nova Atlantis

Bladewolfs (Classical English Name, several names have been used, generally to this effect but for sake of the reader case classical English will suffice) are members of a Genus of creatures that are among the most sucsessful predators on the Lada continent. While not the largest land based predator on the planet (a distinction which goes to the 4 tonne greater plains Sidesplitter) and are often preyed upon by other creatures from razorwings to swampstrikers, bladewolves are prolific, having colonized every region of Lada and all the major surrounding islands save for the the boggy subartic Sheng island chain.

Like all of the dominant land based clade of Nova Atlantean animals, bladewolves evolved from a trilateral symetric common ansestor and have nine limbs in three sets of three as well as three independant mandible, three eyes and three nostrils, although evolutionary pressures have pushed these creatures towards bilateral symetry. Bladewolves are a member of a class known as Tritaurs, which have their formost limbs adapted to non walking related activities. Tritaurs are fairly prolific, rainging in lifestyles from burrowing dirtdogs to swampstrikers, aquatic ambush similar to crocodilians in lifestyle but use highly specialized forlimbs to lash out against watering prey. Paleotologists have found that the first Bladewolves emerged some 50 million years ago.

There are some 52 known extant species of Bladewolves (65 before the arrival of humans on Nova Atlantis in the early 12th century AT, although there are still sightings of the Olegsostrov spotted bladewolf), ranging in size from the reclusive .5 meter long southern snapfox to the Cyldesdale sized Dire. Besides Snapfoxes, most bladewolves are social hunters, operating in packs that can reach up to (in the case of Eastern and Western Horders) 500 individuals in size, although usually range between five and thirty individuals. In hunting they use their forlimbs and jaws to jab into the flesh of their prey and to rip it apart. Bladewolves have two catagoriees of teeth, having three frontal teeth which act like boltcutters and behind it several dozen sharklike teeth for cutting through flesh. Bladewolves are not praticularly intelligent, being dumber than most Terran mammals and birds. Bladewolves reproduce sexually, with females laying clutches of five to thirty eggs once a year. Said eggs are golf ball sized, spherical and hard shelled and hatch after a few weeks. Bladewolve packs lay eggs in collective nests in either holes in the ground or in mounds of dirt and vegetation and will collectively defend it from attack. Once hatched, the hatchlings will dig out and will stay near the nest for the next few weeks being fed scraps of meat dropped off by females and any of their brothers and sisters which is either dead or weak before reaching a certain size. At which point being shoed off into the wilderness, spending several months as solitary juveniles before joining a pack of their own.

Bladewolves have long been a problem to Terran Settlers, most Bladewolf species tend to see humans and terran domestic animals as they would Sausagetails or Probesnouts, as prey. This is despite the fact that eating Terran animals would give them no real nutrition and a nasty case of indigestion. Especially during the Nova Atlantean Dark Ages, there have been many instances in which packs of Bladewolves have attacked Humans, Livestock, caravans and even towns. There have been many people who heard to the reverberating screaches of a pack of bladewolves close in in on them just before their deaths. As such, humans have retaliated against these creatures, hunting down the creatures themselves and destroying their nests. Many a Dark Age folk hero got his reputation for destroying a bladewolf nest. Among the most effective tactics, however, has been to wipe out the native vegetation in an area and replace it with Terran plants, this drives away game and by extension bladewolves. In the 16th century, a series of retroviruses was developed to spread a gene about among the Bladewolf population, which makes them not recognize anything that smells like a Terran Mammal as food. This has reduced the number of attacks sugnifigantly, although every year there are still a few dozen bladewolf related death, mostly due to people stumbling across Bladewolf nests and it is still advisable to avoid contact with bladewolves whenever possible.
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