Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Price: 500gn Untrained
Habitat: Underground and in dark caves, they build their nests around Roipo pots. (Scalvoris Mainland)
Lifespan and Development: Scalv Ziemia hatch in groups of four to five in the nectar of Roipo pots. They're often 5-6 feet long as hatchlings and weigh roughly 90-120 lbs. Upon emerging from the eggshell, their scales are soft and very delicate, they break like paper, their scales are often white without any patterns at the age of 0. Thanks to the prolonged effects of constant absorption of Roipo Nectar over dozens of generations of Scalv Ziemia, they mature very quickly over the space of 30 trials.

At 10 trials old, the Scalv Ziemia has grown to 20-25 feet long, they weigh in at about 300-400lbs. Their scales have hardened up enough and can take a little more punishment than the skin on people and animals, their scales usually change pigment at this age to a grey or brown, depending on the stone native to the Scalv Ziemia's place of birth. Their fangs develop at this point too; Large, dagger sized points of super hard bone, some claim it to be harder than steel. This makes the young Scalv Ziemia very susceptible to poachers as their fangs sell for a pretty nel. They often leave the nest at this age, ready to take on most prey and predators alike. They hunt with stealth, striking at the very last second and crushing their prey in their coils at 90-95psi and swallowing them whole, often still alive.

Come the age of 20 trials, the Scalv Ziemia Is barely recognisable, stretching as far as 46-52 feet long and weighing in at roughly 820-950 lbs, they gain considerable thickness in their tails which add greatly to their previously mentioned crushing power. Their scales are harder than the stone itself at this age, they shrug off most attacks by humans and other animals alike, they are immune to bladed weapons including axes. Bludgeons do little unless the wielder is also an expert in strength. Their bones are harder than steel at this point and tear through plate armour like cardboard. The creature is very dangerous at this age. Their scales are now completely to their transition of either brown or grey and along their backs, dark patterns have formed in brilliant tapestry, stretching across their body, sometimes touching the under belly of the beast. The marks are often black but have been seen in deep shades of red, blue and green. Scalv Ziemia are notorious for feeding on farmer's livestock, their accelerated growth requires a lot of sustenance, five times its weight in meat.

Finally, at adulthood, the Scalv Ziemia has fully grown at the age of 30 trials. Their long bodies stretch from 60-74 feet long and weigh in between 1000 and 1450 lbs. Though the largest Scalv Ziemia ever recorded measured at a staggering 80 feet long and weighed 1560lbs. These creatures are monstrous in appearance, wielding fangs like short swords, stronger than most conventional metals. Their scales don't develop much at this age, having already achieved near enough to their peak of toughness at 20 trials old, except for spines that grow in pairs along their back, in the colour of their markings. Melee doesn't affect the Scalv Ziemia unless the wielder is at master strength or above, and even then, the Scalv Ziemia is ridiculously hard to break through, it is recommended that you wield a pickaxe should you be dull enough to fight this thing with a melee weapon at all. Explosives and cannons are often needed to dispose of these creatures. They have all but abandoned the crushing method for their prey and often swallow small and medium animals, sometimes large, whole without difficulty. it's rare that these behemoths emerge from their caves or underground nests however.

Scalv Ziemia live for up to 10 arcs and can settle down to start their own nests at any age after 30 trials, when their massive metabolisms slow down to half their body weight in food a week.

Diet: Carnivorous, during their younger days the Scalv Ziemia needs constant access to massive volumes of meat. Most Scalv Ziemia perish due to lack of sustenance to their enormous appetites and accelerated metabolisms.

Temperament: Aggressive before adulthood and will often go out of their way to kill and eat anything in its vicinity. Though calm significantly at the age of 28 trials. Scalv Ziemia often end up either underground or hardy workers for human races that tame them at the age of 30 trials. If the owner of the beast can provide massive amounts of food for the creature, they don't see much harm in lending a hand to the weaker animals. Should a master forget to feed their new companion, they best hope that their beloved pet doesn't turn on them for their next meal.

Abilities: Massive strength, weight, super thick scales harder than stone.

Weaknesses: Scalv Ziemia cannot function in the cold, often lock up unable to operate due to their cold-blooded reptilian nature. That and they always need massive amounts of food, starvation and extinction is a huge peril for these creatures if they can't find a way to control their growing numbers. Their fangs too, while not venomous, they can pierce their ridiculously hard skin much easier than most other metals and weapons.

Price: 400gn

Habitat: Typically they live in warm, shallow waters. They usually live in small numbers and are hard to find.

Lifespan and Development: The Dragon Weed, named for it's appearance bordering on a dragon made out of seaweed, are small and rare creatures. Varying in color and pattern they are rare and beautiful creatures often sought after as pets but are rarely found. The Dragon Weed starts its life might like a baby sea horse would, hatching from eggs in its father's pouch. The first thing a Dragon Weed learns to do is hide, blending in with its surrounds. A Dragon Weed will change in color depending on exactly where it lives so it can better blend in. This is done by the body being replicate the pigmentation of the seaweed that it eats, this ability to change color though often leaves the skin weak and easily broken, making the Dragon Weed fragile. A Dragon Weed will stay with it's father learning how to feet and camouflage until it is roughly three years old. A Dragon Weed will never meet with its mother.

Once it reaches age three the Dragon Weed will go off to live on its own or with a small group of other Dragon Weeds who recently left home. Dragon Weeds when not mating or raising young will often stay in small group of the same age and gender. These group are usually any size from 3-5. When a Dragon Weed reaches 5 arcs of age it will finally be old enough to breed. On the 100th of Ashan, Dragon Weeds from all over gather together together to pick mates. This is one of the only chances that people get to catch wild Dragon Weeds, most pet Dragon Weeds being bred in captivity. Even then it is rare to be able to catch a dragon weed because their size, speed, and ability to quickly camouflage makes the use of nets hard.

Once a Dragon Weed pair has bred they will stay together until the beginning of Ymiden. At that point the mother will lay her eggs in the father's pouch and leave. The father will take care of the eggs until they hatch at the start of Saun. From there the father will take care of his children for 3 arcs before going off to breed again. Female Dragon Weeds only stay fertile until the age of 12, at which point they can no longer breed. Male Dragon Weeds however always have the ability to breed as well as carry young. Sometimes if a female loses her mate a Dragon Weed who was unable to get a mate might carry the eggs for the female. Dragon Weeds usually live for 20 arc, the oldest recorded Dragon Weed had lived up to 25 arcs in captivity. That Dragon Weed was a male who continued to breed and carry eggs until his death. It is sometimes dangerous for older Male Dragon Weeds to breed as they might die while still caring for their young, in which case if the young isn't old enough and another male or group isn't willing to take them they will die.

Diet: The diet of a Dragon Weed typically consists of seaweed and any creatures that are smaller than them such as plankton. Since the Dragon Weed is very tiny they often become prey for bigger fish if they aren't careful. Depending on what the Dragon Weed eats their bodies can change pigment to better hide in their environment. Some variations of Dragon weed have been known to eat things like coral, though this is rare and usually only an urban myth. In captivity sometimes exotic plants and materials will be crushed up for the supplemental consumption of Dragon Weeds to give them extra luster and color. A Dragon Weed seems almost to have a cast iron stomach, meaning if they can force it down their throat their bodies consider it edible. Whether they still get nutrition from it or just pigmentation is up for debate.

Temperament: The Dragon Weed is often considered to be a very calm and kind creature, making beautiful additions to any aquarium as long as nothing in there will eat them. Dragon Weeds have never been known to show the slightest signs of aggression. Quite the opposite in fact, they flee at even the slightest inkling of danger.

Abilities: The ability to change pigment based on what they take into their bodies, leading to superior camouflage abilities. Great agility. A special stomach acid that allows them to break apart just about anything and use it's pigmentation. This stomach acid also burns away anything that could be potentially dangerous. Caution while feeding strange objects is still advised.

Details: The Siren Light is a monster named for obvious reasons. They live out in the water, often coming towards beaches during the night time. If they happen to come across someone they will begin to glow, lighting up various luminescent patches on their body. They use the pattern of their lights glowing in combination with their swimming to try and hypnotize their targets. Once their target has been thoroughly hypnotized they drag their targets out to sea and drown them. They feed on the corpse of whatever they were able to drag into the ocean.

Lifespan and Development: Most Siren Light's live in groups, working together almost like a wolf pack to hypnotize people into entering the water and drowning them. A Siren Light will spend its entire life in a group, to lose it's group is almost certain death. It is possible for a Siren Light to find a new group but it is often rare. When Siren Light's come across other group they will often trade members so they the genetics of a group don't get too muddled. Siren Light's often live in groups where most of the members are siblings and the leaders are usually the parents. When trading members sometimes a new pair will take over the group as the breeding pair and other times a pair will go off to make their own group.

Siren Light's are born into the world live. When they are born the entire group will care for them. When Siren Light's are first born they say in little sand ditches on the ocean floor as they don't posses the strength to swim yet. One or two members of the family will be with them at all times. When the family makes a kill it will drag the corpse back for the children as well as the members not present to make the kill. If the kill is a small one the children will always eat first. As Siren Light's get older they start to get the strength to swim, however they still have no control over their luminescence. This is the most dangerous time in the life of a Siren Light, as their lights go haywire and they have the potential to attract predators. To prevent this parents will find mud light substances to smear over the glowing spots of the child.

Once the child has begun to glow and swim they are old enough to go out on hunts, even if their own lights are too faulty and weak to attract prey. They will observe their parents and family members and mimic them in an attempt to help. At 2 arcs a Siren Light will be full grown and able to properly use their lights to help the family hunt for prey.

Diet: The diet of a Siren Light mostly consists of anything that they can attract from the shore line and convince to go into the water. Sometimes a Siren Light pack desperate for food will attack boats, trying to get sailors to jump off and even attempting to tip smaller boats that only have a person or two in them.

Temperament: Siren Light's are often considered to be mischievous in nature. When they aren't hungry they might even take to tease people by dragging them into the water where they stop glowing to break the trance. They derive some kind of joy from watching people panic. When hungry the become far more aggressive, targeting anyone and going as shallow as they possibly can. Some Siren Light's have even been found dead, washed up on the shore because they were desperate for food. Dead Siren Lights are usually something to be celebrated.

Abilities: Glowing bodies that hypnotize creatures on shore. Shocking strength for drowning their prey.

Weaknesses: The easiest way to avoid a Siren Light attack is to just not look at the Siren Lights. There is a 10 trill period of time before someone goes into the trance. If they can look away in time then they can get away. High Meditation or Discipline skills can also provide safety.

Details: Drowners are often considered to be a plague on sailors, especially those just starting out who don't know any better. Drowners focus on human prey, tricking someone into grabbing the "hand" that extends from their head and pulling them under. Once a Drowner has effectively caught it's prey in the water they often enjoy messing around, making the death slow and agonizing by either crushing all the bones in the body with their powerful teeth and jaws, or slowly letting their victims die to their poisons while they try desperately to escape back to their boat or land. A Drowner can came in many sizes, though the hand is always the same. Some larger Drowners have been known to cut to the chase and tip a boat that gets to close. Drowners are often hunted with an almost religious fervor for the threat they pose to sailors as well as those that are actually drowning.

Lifespan and Development: A Drowner is born life after an entire arc of being carried by it's mother. During this time the mother will try and gather as much food as possible to care from the growing child. This usually means a mother will start to take risks she usually wouldn't. This includes but is not limited to, stealing the prey of other Drowners, trying to hunt dangerous humans such as hunters or experienced sailors, coming close to land to try and attack animals, killing anything within her radius, and much more. When the new Drowner is born the mother will burrow into the sea or lake floor (they come in both ocean and fresh water variants) and she stays there anywhere from 30-100 trials feeding herself and her child with the food she has begun to stock pile. The mother is usually able to inject nutrition into her child the same way one might inject poison, however since some poison also goes along with it a mother will only give small doses until the child builds up a resistance. This is why most if not all Drowners can survive powerful and lethal doses of many toxins.

A child will stay with its mother up to 20 arcs just learning how hunt and survive on its own. Once the child has been sufficiently trained it disappears in the middle of the night, never to be seen by the mother again. Most Drowners (besides pregnant females) will die in their first 3 arcs of living on their own, often getting snagged by hunters or larger aquatic predators. If they survive these 3 arcs then most Drowners will survive to their maximum life span as Drowners don't usually attack each other unless there's prey stealing going on.

A Drowner can live anywhere from 100-200 arcs, often breeding at 70 arc of age. With a life span like that one might believe the population would be high, however a Drowner will only ever breed once in their life and only 30% of all offspring survive, easily putting the Drowners on the list of endangered animals.

Diet: Drowners eat humans, typically they only eat humans and eat whenever they can catch one. Drowners have extremely efficient bodily energy use, allowing them to store more energy then the average creature. This comes in handy because the can go anywhere from trials to seasons without ending depending on how bad things get. If the situation truly gets out of hand they will start to attack other aquatic creatures, rely on what strength they have to survive a fight. Some might even try to crawl up onto land. Both these endeavors usually don't end well.

Temperament: All Drowners are of a sour and highly aggressive temperament. They don't necessarily have territories, but they won't tolerate others stealing their prey. Meaning that Drowners do not get along with Siren Lights. If a Drowner comes across a pack of Siren Lights their first response is to try and kill them, their second response is to try and steal whatever prey they have, their third response is to eat the Siren Lights themselves simply out of spite. Any other creatures found eating humans will often suffer the wrath of the Drowner. However if a creature does kill the Drowner, they'll often die themselves thanks to the toxins the Drowner's body produces.

Abilities: Highly venomous, highly poison resistant, powerful teeth and jaws, deception.

Weaknesses: Like Siren Lights knowing to ignore them is a good way to avoid these beasts. Besides that they have terrible eye sight, making them easier to avoid if you do get in a fight with one. An easy way to tell if it's a Drowner is to look and see if the hand is moving or not. If it isn't then it's most likely a Drowner trying to lure you in. However some Drowners have learned to wave the hand back and fourth, meaning you should usually check to see if any other hands or body parts come up. Drowners also have large, squishy, fatty bodies which are good for storing energy but are terrible for combat. Whack it with a sharp metal stick enough and it won't last for long. Though you might not either.

Price: N/A
Habitat: The waters around Scalvoris

Lifespan and Development: Mergantis are seen as part fish, part habitat. They tend to differ depending on location, though it is most common to see the coral variations. In the first 100 trials of life, they appear as any other fish. The variation of aquatic habitat ( for example, coral or sea anemone ) does not appear on their tails until after this period, where they are considered guppies. Mergantis are said to be constantly growing, though incrementally. Their only constraint in the number of others of their kind that live in the waters with them. The largest is said to be about 20 ft across and 15 feet long. Smaller fish make their homes in their tails. This has a tendency to attack large predators, though they are evaded by the Mergantis burrowing into the sea floor or hiding among rocks.

They are said to be able to reproduce asexually, though it is more likely that they mate once or twice within their lifespan. The eggs per reproduction period tend to range from 100-150. It is likely that a third of these eggs are eaten by predators or slip from the aquatic plants they are lain on. From the point of the eggs being laid, the Mergantis will move on to avoid drawing further attention to their spawn. The average Mergantis is said to live for 20-35 arcs. It is more common for them to die due to predation, if they die of old age it is said that the fish part of their body solidifies and they are left to fall to the ocean floor.

Diet: Microorganisms within the water, algae

Temperament: Docile creatures, Mergantis are not known for being aggressive.

Abilities: Growth of aquatic habitats on their tails.