With legs strong enough to restrain a thrashing krudge and mandibles with enough to power to cleanly shear off a petrid's head, these insects spell certain death for anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths on the hunt.
The true terror however, comes not from the ease they can kill they prey, but their reproductive cycle. The gravid female will seek out an appropriate victim first. Instead of killing it however, she will merely envelop her target with her legs and mandibles to immobilize it. Next she will find the most convenient orifice to force her ovipositor into and begin laying.
At this point the victim is sure to die in one of three ways:
- Many will only live for a few chimes, as the grasp of the mandibles is often tight enough to strangle the target to death.
- Due to the vastly variable number of eggs a female may hold at a time, many victims, especially nurks, will suffer internal ruptures from the sheer volume and soon succumb to the damage.
- The most unfortunate ones however will survive for the several bells it takes for the eggs to hatch, hurtling them into a new world of agony that would make both vivirians and vornites blush as the hungry larvae eat their way out of their dying host.
Thankfully, these creatures are easy to avoid, as they will never dig up to the surface, but woe upon those trying to [...]"
-Excerpt from Krawk's Horrors of the Doldrums
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This was an idea I've had for a bit for a noddish critter that one would certainly not want to run across. Overall, getting this down was quite a challenge, but I feel I learned a whole lot and am starting to properly develop a style of my own.
As always, the City of Nodd and insider species (a Slyne in this case) were created by
\n\t\t\t\t\tslugIf this has piqued your interest, make sure to check out the official account at
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