Lugubrious — Roleplayer Guild

Rottenbone Slough, Bestial Life Goddess

Sheet:

Name: Slough

Alias: Rottenbone, Deepwood Ghoul, Ragged Deer, Atrophy, Woodland Hollow, Deer God

Gender: Definitively female.  Were it not for her unique and regrettable state for existence, she would be able to successfully reproduce with male deer.

Domain (Portfolio): Life (Wilderness)

Domain (Portfolio) Description: A truly great power resides within the body of this beastly god.  Though the vast and nebulous realms of intellect, magic, order, chaos, good, and evil command their own dimensions of influence, nothing is more fundamental to the universe than life itself.  If not for living things, after all, the cruelest of devils could only play with pebbles, the most abstract of intellect would have no host, and the miracle of magic would never grace a single, wondering eye.  

In terms of magnitude, it is impressive even among the strongest of gods, but lies for the most part unused inside her frame, eating away at her from the inside out.  The incredible life-force dormant within Slough leaks out in the form of the rot dripping from her body; from pools of it new creatures can emerge and new plants can grow.  Soil infused with this rot becomes fertile, creating entire ecosystems over time without the slightest bit of cognition on Slough’s part.  The mere contact of this rot with living things is in itself a game of chance, slave to no pattern or cause: its latent life energy might regenerate a creature's wounds, or like a cancer race through its body and create any number of mutations.  

In addition, Slough holds a connection to nature itself.  If fleeing, Slough can disappear and reappear wherever its power has touched, and if there’s nowhere to flee its power will create a protective ‘womb’ around her to keep her safe.  Like nature itself, Slough is highly impressionable.  Other divine beings can, if the situation allows, imprint power onto her or attempt to alter her own nature with their powers.  Therefore, like life itself, Slough can continuously evolve.

Lastly, the power within Slough has one other outlet.  It draws souls, regardless of location or age, into it, replenishes them, and leaks them back out into new living forms via Slough’s secretions.  In effect, this is a form of reincarnation.  Souls transmuted through Slough into new bodies retain no memory from their previous life, but gain instead a sort of scrambled soul signature that makes their manipulation by outside sources more difficult.  

Alignment: Neutral Good

Personality: Slough is, as one might expect, little more than a beast.  She seeks food to keep herself alive, and has no discernable ambitions beyond that.  If she is even aware of her own godhood, it is only the crudest sort of understanding.  Flighty and easily startled, she tends to flee at the first sign of trouble, and is comfortable only when surrounded by a tranquil nature—at least, as comfortable as one cursed with eternal suffering can be.  Reflecting the wildness of nature, she is extremely difficult to control or even approach, but with a lot of time and patience a wise individual knowledgeable in the ways of animals and healing can gain Slough’s trust.

Appearance: Unlike most gods, Slough maintains a single form, which is in itself a curse far greater than her wiser fellows may ever bear.  She is an exceptionally large deer, whose stringy fur is easily mistaken for moss, and who despite being female bears magnificent antlers.  To say that she is emaciated is a vast understatement; most of the flesh in her torso, including all of her organs, is gone, leaving only hunks of rotting flesh and tufts of fur around her spine.  Her face, too, is nothing but a skull, with eyes covered by strips of tender bark like bandages.  Slough’s body is constantly rotting, exuding a foul-smelling black pus that oozes from her body.  Simply living is a ghastly pain for her.

Musical Theme:  Take Flight

Description: Despite possessing one of the greatest powers in the known universe, Slough desires nothing more than to live comfortably and at peace in the world.  Creating new life even without meaning to, Slough is an extremely valuable resource for other gods wanting to make new creations for fast-track those already in the works, but her nature prevents this resource from being accessible.  After all, if empowered by another god, Slough can make life for them easily.  Nevertheless, Slough is not capable of development on her own, and will depend entirely on the actions of gods, heroes, and mortals –whether indifferent, harmful, malicious, corruptive, transformative, healing, relieving, intellectual, or blessing- to shape its existence.

It is not difficult to imagine the role of Slough among mortals.  She is a fleeting myth, sighted once in a blue moon by the intrepid or the lost, but almost certainly renowned by any people with the slightest bit of fascination for and appreciation of the world they live in and their place in its natural order.  The rather tribal idea of Slough as a living symbol for the living world, a sort of 'nature spirit', could no doubt inspire the average mind.  The half-dead Woodland Hollow, though rarely an object of worship, could nevertheless amass a certain reverence, and to the most spiritually attuned, perhaps even serve as a primitive kind of guide.

Concealment Level: 1
Detection Level: 1

Creations:

Forest Creatures
Name: Stripe-faced Aphid

Lifespan: 4 years

Description:  Communities of these aphids can be found in many forests across Galbar.  They are opportunistic omnivores and work together with their fellows to find food and even hunt prey, though the aphids themselves are rather weak.  Alpha aphids emerge occasionally, distinguishable by dark-green stripes across their bodies, which exhibit greater intelligence still.  Aphids live in holes in trees, and given a big enough hole, build hives.  They are nonaggressive, curious, and even mischievous to those they neither consider prey nor a threat, but become very defensive about their hives.

Appearance: Stripe-faced Aphid

Name: Nectar Blush

Lifespan: 11 years

Description:  Territorial, fleshy beasts roughly the side of a King-size bed.  With their muscular tongues they pilfer great quantities of rich nectar from Deeptree flowers, sustaining themselves on that alone.  While able to fly for short periods of time, they prefer to move about using their limbs, and display both a remarkable strength and agility.  Their stings are highly venomous, paralyzing and inducing hallucinations in the host.  If disturbed, they tend to get violent, but otherwise ignore those who don’t provoke them.  When feeding or mating, their pink skin takes on a deep scarlet hue.  On occasion, an explorer might encounter a Severe Blush, which are larger, stronger, orange-shelled, more aggressive, and far less discerning about what fluids on which they sup.

Appearance: Nectar Blush

Name: Violet Slug

Lifespan: 3 months

Description:  Both herbivores and fungivores, Violet Slugs inch their way around the forest floor and the bottom of the trees, engulfing whatever tasty morsels they can find.  They are single-minded and incredibly oblivious, making them prey for a great many creatures.  Even sentient beings can sustain themselves on its oddly-textured but bland-tasting meat.  Their phosphorescent patches glow in the absence of light.  They breed and reproduce quickly, and might plague the ecosystem if not for their idiocy.

Appearance: Violet Slug

Name: Duster Ooze

Lifespan: 17 weeks

Description:  Gelatinous creatures found suspended like slimy nets between the trunks of trees, or their branches.  In darkness they lay in wait, their sensitive tentacles ready to snatch any unwitting passers-by and stuff them into its maw, but they are also capable of extruding a luminescent yellow dust that the creature can shape, mimicking things it’s seen.  These dust constructs are incredibly lifelike but not alive, and used as lures to bring creatures close enough to snatch.  They are patient but highly aggressive.  They reproduce by splitting off a portion and implanting it into a caught victim, which slowly dissolves the victim over time into a new Ooze.  Oozes can move, slowly and inefficiently, between trees.

Appearance: Duster Ooze

Name: Marble-eyed Gargoyle

Lifespan: 14 years

Description: Neither codependent or sociable, these Gargoyles –so named purely because of their ghastly appearance- can be found in dark, high places, be it the canopy of a dark forest or the spires of urban high-rises.  They are carnivorous, hunting small mammals, other birds, and large insects by dropping from above, but are skittish and will always flee from a fight.  If threatened, they shriek at painfully high decibels.  Tall tales of banshees may have sprung from them.

Appearance: Marble-eyed Gargoyle

Name: Sentinel Spider

Lifespan: 1.5 years

Description:  Slow-moving trap hunters that feed on insects, small birds, and eggs.  Their hooklike feet allow them to walk up rough surfaces with ease and even hang from the branches in the wooded areas they inhabit.  They spin relatively small, funnel-shaped webs, but may work together with a couple other spiders to reinforce an area.  While they are named for the eyes that cover their carapaces, most of them are in fact fakes.  Their nonaggressive nature and variety of exotic colors make them interesting pets.

Appearance: Sentinel Spider

Deepwood Exclusives
Species

Name: Deepwood Sloth

Lifespan:  31 years

Description: Huge, lumbering, and oddly majestic, Deepwood Sloths are completely unique to their homeland, but even there they are a rare site.  Seldom can be seen and even more seldom do they gather; only mating brings these gentle giants together.  For all the creatures in the Deepwood, the sloths are simply too big to challenge.  Oozes ignore them, arborgators let them pass by, and striders give them a respectful berth.  Sloths feed on fungus and fruit, culling the massive mushrooms that can be found in the Deepwood’s lower levels.  To civilizations, they will doubtlessly be almost as epitomes of reclusive but amazing nature as Slough herself.  Interestingly, these sloths are capable of a deep but melodic singing, which they appear to do for no more reason than personal enjoyment, and to unwittingly give its forest home an even greater aura of mystery.

Appearance: Deepwood Sloth

Name: Emerald Strider

Lifespan: 6.5 years

Description:  Emerald Striders are, in effect, symbionts.  The Strider itself walks about, slowly and deliberately, on the forest floor, though it can sprint if startled.  It seeks out detritus to suck up for nourishment, aided by the colony of Jade Mites living on its body, which derive shelter and protection from it.  They also live off the nutritious green rays given off by the Strider’s special organs.  Mites can fit into tight places while Striders can reach great heights; working together and sharing nutrients, they serve as the woodland’s janitors.

Appearance:Emerald Strider

Name: Rainbow Silky

Lifespan: 22 years

Description:  Majestic, beautiful, and rare, Silkies inhabit the very top of the forest.  Easily two hippos from wingtip to wingtip, they soar on the breeze and dazzle those below with their glorious colors.  Silkies feed on the abundant and nutritious nectar growing from Deeptree flowers with their proboscis, and make their homes within hollowed-out branches.  They actively avoid confrontation, but if forced, can whip their long tails hard enough to break bones or constrict foes with them.

Appearance: Rainbow Silky

Gilt Savannah Creatures
Species

Name: Fleet-footed Mangler

Lifespan:  14 years

Description: Without a doubt one of the fastest creatures on the planet, Manglers are solitary hunters that move at ludicrous speed for short bursts.  Odd amalgamations of reptile and arthropod, they sprint across savannahs using their tails as rudders for the air, and with their mouths closed can cannon themselves into prey and impale them with their sharp mandibles.  From there, the Mangler has only to shred and devour its food, regain its stamina, and start off again.  When individuals meet, they often stay together for some time, which can lead to the formation of packs, but the Manglers do not cooperate when hunting.  Among the creatures of the savannah, they are the most intelligent.

Appearance: Fleet-footed Mangler

Species

Name: Brush Beast

Lifespan:  80-101 years

Description: The largest land animals on Galbar have little to fear from anything less than a god.  These beasts wander not only the Savannah, but the world itself, moving with impunity through climates cold and hot, wet and dry.  They eat trees themselves, oftentimes in a single bite, but with enormously complex and efficient digestive systems harvest every ounce of nutrients from not only the tree, but whatever small organisms might have been in it at the time.  While very protective of their babies, who are giants themselves, Brush Beasts are normally oblivious to other creatures.  Rather often, they crush slow-moving animals beneath their feet.  Naturally the Brush Beasts prefer flatlands, as they are not only unable to jump, but even unable to step onto small vertical rises.  Their excrement is notoriously fast to degrade, and acts as a fertilizer for many plant species.  They have no known predators; even the so-called apex predators of Reathos could not touch them.

Appearance: Brush Beast

Species

Name: Feathered Slouch

Lifespan:  22-26 years

Description: Lumbering beasts approximately the size of giraffes if only their necks stood upright, Feathered Slouches are in fact enormous flightless birbs grown huge thanks to open space, plentiful plants to eat, and evolutionary selection.  Their deep calls resonate across the savannah, and alongside the brilliant coloration of their foreheads help attract mates.  They move in small family units, but bunching up with others for safety is not unheard of.  Their forearms command significant strength, Slouches are often too slow to adequately defend themselves against smart, speedy predators.

Appearance: Feathered Slouch

Species

Name: Pearskin Cattle

Lifespan:  12 years

Description: Slow-moving, dull-witted, and thoroughly strange creatures, herds of Pearskin Cattle range through the savannah, digging up and then slurping up roots and tubers to eat while relying on numbers for protection.  In a pinch, the cattle can attempt to bash in the skulls of aggressors with their own hard heads, or try to burst a vital vein with a quick thrust of the proboscis, but more often than not Pearskin Cattle are among the bottom of the food chain.  Their unnerving, whistling cry can cause severe hearing damage if an entire herd takes up the call.

Appearance: Pearskin Cattle

Species

Name: Tender Birb

Lifespan:  Indefinite when partnered; 1 year on their own

Description: Among the animals of Galbar, birbs –birdlike creatures with four legs, tails, and pronounced ears, somewhat like a missing link between mammals- are some of the least remarkable.  They are small, exhibit no special ability or striking physical oddities, and tend to blend in to their habitats.  Tender Birbs are more interesting, however.  They are incredibly social creatures, and not only crave the company and affection of a single partner, but waste away and eventually die if lonesome.  When partnered with another birb, however, these animals exhibit heartwarming love and loyalty.  Be it some sort of symbiosis or something else, Tender Birbs cannot die of old age when partnered.  They reproduce infrequently, but more than enough to sustain the species.  Birbs eat berries and flowers, primarily, and will carry around what they find to give to their partners.

Appearance: Tender Birb

Drenched Flowerbed Creatures
Species
Name: Common Seapig
Lifespan:  6-10 years
Description: Plentiful, porcine, and pleasant, seapigs are found in the ocean shallows amid the sprawling marine plains of seagrass and seaweed.  They feast, bask in the sun, and enjoy one another’s company with few cares in the world.  When assailed, their drifts (groups of seapigs) scatter to improve the odds of survival, not terribly quickly but exhibiting remarkable stamina.  Seapigs sport a notable ability to find one another via long-range grunting noises.  They are highly social, clean, and intelligent creatures, and constitute one of the few species that displays any indication of actual friendliness to living things that don’t harm them.  Funnily enough, seapigs are capable of hauling themselves onto land like seals, where they get around more efficiently by rolling than floundering.  This occurs primarily to escape seabound predators.  Naturally, the meaty seapigs are prey for many carnivores, aquatic or not.
Appearance: Common Seapig

Species
Name: Frondy Walrus
Lifespan:  35-40 years
Description: As walruses go, even their unusual subspecies do not constitute anything truly bizarre.  Frondy Walruses eat fish, play with one another, clamber onto land, and breed just like their more mundane brothers; they can even interbreed with common walruses to produce Pale Walruses.  However, frondies are almost completely blind, primarily nocturnal, and capable of breathing underwater.  As such, they remain underwater –and deeper underwater than most mammals- for the majority of the time.  Other than these characteristics, these walruses are directly comparable to others.
Appearance: Frondy Walrus

Species
Name: Barnacle Hexetacean 
Lifespan:  89 years
Description: Sharing the vast majority of their DNA with ordinary whales, hexetaceans nevertheless sport a glaring point of contrast: their legs.  Armed with six-legs, hexetaceans are fully capable of swimming, walking across the sea floor, and exiting the ocean to walk on land.  Feeding on great swarms of shrimp and krill, they can be found in all regions of the sea but for the oppressive abyss.  They are fairly social creatures, traveling in groups of three often, and hexetacean parents stay together for a lifetime.  Compared to other hexetaceans, Barnacled Hexetaceans are larger and crustier, less mobile swimmers but more durable against potential threats, as well as being too large for effective predation by tyrants.  When at ease, they exhibit a predilection for playfulness with others of their own kind—a kind of graceful childishness.
Appearance: Barnacle Hexetacean

Species
Name: Seabed Tyrant
Lifespan:  42-68 years
Description: Large predators that walk along the ocean floor, eternally hunting for sharks, walruses, seapigs, and anything else that is either too slow to get away or too dull to realize the danger that has come.  Tyrants are apex predators of the seas; only gargantuan megalodons and legendary monstrosities of the deep challenge its power and deadliness.  Hunting primarily by electromagnetic sense and smell, like sharks, they stride through the coral reefs and kelp forests of the mid-ocean.  While capable of walking out onto dry land, they dehydrate quickly and suffocate if they stay, and seldom remain.  Their scales are remarkably –and nonsensically- immune to water resistance.
Appearance: Seabed Tyrant

Species
Name: Fortress Reefback
Lifespan:  300-350 years
Description: Titanic shellfish that patrol, in a slow, silent, and vigilant aimlessness, the bottom of the Fractal Sea.  Beneath the outer shell is a great mass of soft purple flesh, similar in design to a gigantic, blobby octopus, and at the front of the organism is a beaked mouth meant to cut into coral and stone alike for the sustenance within.  More remarkable than the lumbering, hulking creature itself, however, is its exoskeleton.  Grown with chitin hard and thick enough to be stone, reefbacks’ shells function as miniature ecosystems in and of themselves.  Great quantities of coral flourish on their exteriors, ironically out of the reach of hungry reefbacks, and various fishes and invertebrates make it their home.  Plants can even grow on their shells; some ‘overgrown’ reefbacks resemble moving kelp forests.  They enjoy extraordinarily long lives, but truly pitiful intelligence.  In addition to their rocky armor, they are often protected by the creatures that use it for shelter.
Appearance: Fortress Reefback

The Resort
Lifeform
Name: Desert Ghost
Life Cycle: As birds, the ghosts hatch from eggs.  The eggs are buried beneath the sand, preferably under the shelter of a bush, where they become hard.  They soften if exposed to light.  Parents must locate the eggs of their offspring and dig them up so that the chicks can break free.  Ghost chicks are incapable of flight for the first year of their life, instead becoming fast runners across the sand.  After they gain their wings, they continue to mature for a half-year before they can reproduce.  Desert Ghosts live for 4 years in all.
Description: Small, finchlike birds with black feathers.  Unremarkable in appearance and behavior, they nevertheless feature a special trait from which the name of the species is derived.  Their bodies constantly produce an oil substance, which acts as a temperature regulator and anti-irritant, from their skin that quickly evaporates into powder when exposed to dry air and sun.  This powder is crystalline and transparent, distorting light like thousands of tiny prisms, and from a distance farther than a few feet the ghost appears totally invisible to the naked eye.  Ghosts employ this powder to escape from predators and camouflage themselves when hunting prey, primarily desert insects.
Appearance: Desert Ghost

Lifeform
Name: Parasitic Buzzard
Life Cycle:  Though they range throughout the entire desert and sometimes beyond, buzzards reproduce exclusively at the Resort.  They build nests in the tallest trees, for which there is often competition.  Before laying eggs, they seek out or make a prey animal’s corpse and carry it to the nest.  There, they ‘inject’ their eggs into the body through their mouths, where the embryo gestates and grows, using the body for a food source.  After a period of two weeks, the chick breaks free of the corpse, and quickly consumes it.  Buzzards are capable of reproducing as a defensive mechanism, and will attempt to implant their eggs into a living predator if threatened.  Chicks take several years to mature, at which point they can reproduce immediately.  They live between 6 and 7 years total.
Description: Few creatures, Firewind or not, and more infamous than the Parasitic Buzzard.  With adults stretching several meters from wingtip to wingtip, armed with claws capable of slicing through flesh, and an extendable and flexible wormlike head, they are omens of death and decay.  They are solitary and asexual carnivores that prefer to scavenge for corpses but are entirely capable of creating new ones when hungry.  Buzzards are rather intelligent creatures, and despite being blind due to a lack of eyes are very perceptive when it comes to listening and smelling.  Capable of carrying smaller, dexterous creatures on their backs or in their claws, buzzards serve as excellent methods of transport and self-defense to humanoids, provided a would-be tamer can avoid becoming a living host to an infant buzzard itself.  Buzzard saliva is extremely sticky.
Appearance: Parasitic Buzzard

Lifeform
Name: Dirigible Cloudwhale
Life Cycle: These cloudwhales exhibit a uniquely destructive method of reproduction.  Females do not, in a conventional sense, give birth.  Between one and three calves grows to their juvenile forms inside the mother over the course of years.  When the calves finally too big, the mother perishes and splits apart, releasing the calves into the sky where they can feed and fend for themselves.  Cloudwhales live for 65 years on average.
Description: Despite the name, cloudwhales are not mammals, but a type of organism all their own, best described as a mix of fish, mammal, and reptile.  Measuring hundreds of feet from nose to tail, they spend their entire lives floating in the sky on gaseous airsacks, never descending to the ground.  They feed on clouds themselves, specifically the nutrients held in the water, but also derive a great deal of energy from a symbiotic relationship with specialized breeds of mosses that cover their bodies, giving them a yellowish-green hue.  Practically ecosystems in their own right, individual whales go through seasons, and the moss blooms and spreads or wilts appropriately.  Many kinds of moss typically colonize a single whale.  Like the Brush Beasts down below, they are practically unchallenged by other forms of life—practically, that is, because it is not uncommon for skyrays to attach to them and gouge off a little flesh for food.  Old and sickly cloudwhales attract more skyrays and even buzzards, which slowly kill them by using their flesh for food or incubation.
Appearance: Dirigible Cloudwhale

Lifeform
Name: Mottled Skyray
Life Cycle: Clutches of skyray eggs can be found in the pools of the Resort, laid there by mothers descended to earth.  Skyray broods, after hatching, remain in a ‘bottom-feeder’ state for several months, scooting along the ground between pools for safety as they try to stay alive.  After maturing, they are able to take to the sky, where they remain at low altitudes for most of their lives.  Mating for skyrays is a particularly harrowing procedure: using their jets, skyray couples ascend to the top of their atmospheric tolerance and lock together as they start to dive.  The fertilization process occurs while both are plummeting toward the ground, and though usually successful, this can result in an icky splatter if a particularly unintelligent couple misjudges the terrain.
Description:  Not much differentiates skyrays from their aquatic cousins other than size and methods of transportation.  While perfectly at home in water, these omnivorous, oxygen-breathing fish prefer to range across the sky at low altitudes, finding plants or carcasses to adhere to and start scouring.  To fly, they employ miraculous, purely organic jet-propulsion organs; they intake vast quantities of air through specializes orifices, pressurize it within, and blast it from blowholes on their undersides to ascend quickly.  After that, the lightweight skyrays rely on very efficient gliding.  They are highly maneuverable but lackluster when it comes to carry capacity.  Their tails do not have stingers, but can nevertheless whip and even skewer aggressors.  Like all rays, their bodies are soft and rubbery to the touch, albeit ridged in places to be aerodynamic.  From above, their mottled coating makes them look just like sand and rocks below.  There exists a rare variant of skyray whose eggs are laid in pools of blood on the backs of put-upon cloudwhales.  Known as shrinkrays, they are smaller but stronger, faster, and way harder to kill than their conventional counterparts, as well as colored scarlet.
Appearance: Mottled Skyray

Lifeform
Name: Onyx Phantom
Life Cycle:  Phantom eggs are extremely difficult to find, and are well-hidden in high places in the desert.  Circular and luminously white, they look like pearls, but are even more difficult to crack.  Once hatched after a duration of 7 months, young phantoms are found by a parent, to whom they cling during their youth.  A young phantom is often indistinguishable from its carrier.  At the end of its first year, the phantom is large enough to go its own way.  Their lifespan is quite possible indefinite, though after a certain point in their lives their dark feathers turn ghostly transparent.
Description:  Speculated to be distant, more owl-like cousins of the Desert Ghosts, phantoms are even more ephemeral and mysterious creatures.  They exhibit the same sort of invisibility-powder, but never appear during the day.  Phantoms typically ‘haunt’ a single, special part of the desert, including caves, ruins, tombs, canyons, and so forth.  They are herbivorous and feed primarily on cactus-fruits.  Their activity, somber and lethargic sometimes while frenetic and excitable otherwise, seems tied to the phases of the moon.  Most interestingly, phantoms appear to have some kind of telekinesis, with which they can manipulate objects and living things as if they were poltergeists.  Phantoms garner associations with spirits and death in many cultures.
Appearance: Onyx Phantom


Mahd River Valley
Lifeform
Name: Spider Ox
Life Cycle: Despite their odd appearance, Spider Oxen reproduce in a manner directly comparable to everyday oxen.  After sexual fertilization, babies gestate in the wombs of their mothers, and are birthed living as calves.  Notably, baby oxen take months to grow their special appendages, and require feeding from their mothers during this time.  After this, they can take up to ten years to mature fully, after which twenty more years of life typically ensue.
Description:  Slow-moving, bulky, and dumb, oxen graze the lush grass of the river valley for most of the day.  They live and move in small herds that often meet up.  While capable of stinging blows with their unique appendages, they are fairly easy to slay, even though they have no immediate predators in the valley.  Whether trundling on land or wading through water, oxen somehow exude an air of contentedness all the time.  Various insects and parasites typically make themselves at home on their backs, which in term draw oxpeckers.
Appearance: Spider Ox

Lifeform
Name: Crocody Doggle
Life Cycle:  Doggle eggs are laid in dens dug into sand banks and watched over attentively by both parents.  Upon hatching, the puppy doggles are cared for and taught by the mother while the father hunts for the entire family.  Doggles take about three years to mature fully, but even after separating they remember their littermates and parents and commonly socialize with them.  Doggles can reproduce from maturity until year ten, when they start to decline.  They only live 13 to 14 years.
Description: Though as much reptile as they are mammal, crocody doggles practically epitomize stereotypical dog behavior.  Though varying slightly in temperament from individual to individual, these little beasts are social, playful, and decently smart.  They exhibit pack behavior, especially when hunting for their preferred food -meat- though they can learn to eat all sorts of things.  Being cold-blooded, they love the heat and grow less active when chilly, though their fur helps to conserve body heat.  Doggles display an interesting affinity toward bonding with other creatures.  Despite relative weakness in terms of combat ability, though their bites and tail slaps can be painful, doggles are very rarely hunted by other creatures.  In fact, even aggressive animals are somehow disinclined to harm doggles, leaving these critters free to spend their time eating and frolicking in the river valley.
Appearance: Crocody Doggle

Lifeform
Name: Riverland Thane
Life Cycle:  Thane ‘eggs’ can be found in the deeper parts of the Mahd River.  Unlike normal eggs, which are shelled, these fleshy eggs are organisms in their own right, complete with beating heart and respiratory system.  Over time they swell, becoming more complex, until the outer layer of flesh and now-useless organs is ripped apart and the new Thane rises to the surface, where the touch of sunlight causes its distinctive skin pattern to emerge.  Thanes mature extremely quickly over the span of weeks, during which they exhibit voracious appetites, and from this period they emerge as new titans of the river valley.  Adult thanes develop pouches on their undersides, with the number depending on their physical strength and vitality, which slough off into new ‘eggs’ that sink to the deepest parts of the river.  Thanes’ lifespan lasts up to 19 years.
Description:  Roughly the size of elephants, these vividly-patterned cephalopods patrol the Mahd River Valley as its undisputed lords.  They feed on the great quantities of fish, seldom leaving the water.  Their natural strength and fortitude prevents any of the valley’s denizens from doing them harm, but nevertheless the Thanes are violently territorial and best left alone.  Neither bright nor sociable, they can at most be found in pairs, though the species itself is asexual.  Despite their lack of intelligence, an odd ritual takes place among the riverland thanes at yearly intervals.  The thanes separate into multiple factions, each laying a claim to a part of the valley, and then for up to a week wage a slow but steady war on one another.  During this phenomenon, even other creatures of the valley follow the thanes’ lead in the great battles, picking sides and fighting to the best of their abilities.  While there are always casualties, they are generally low, as most thane-on-thane fights result in impasses.
Appearance: Riverland Thane

Lifeform
Name: Insipid Bulbcrab
Life Cycle: After what can only be described as an extremely awkward and difficult mating procedure, female bulbcrabs stick fatty sacs on or next to river rocks, which release between two and six crabs a month down the line, provided the sac isn’t ruptured first.  River currents can detach the sacs and send them downriver.  The new crabs work as a loose unit to feed themselves, taking on a semblance of safety in numbers; juvenile bulbcrabs are far more aggressive than their adult counterparts.  Bulbcrabs shed their shells regularly as they grow, up until they reach adulthood within the year.  They live for less than 2 years in all.
Description: Bizarre crustaceans commonly thought to be relatives of the Fortress Reefbacks found in the far-off Drenched Flowerbed.  They have four long, jointed legs that extend outward from a single dangling midsection, the bottom of which can best be described as a fleshy ‘hub’ from which numerous muscular tubes can extend.  These tubes are powerful suckers, capable of pulling lesser crustaceans straight from the ground or blood out of an unmoving victim’s body.  As stupid as they are hideous, they exhibit no drive except to find food and mate, which commonly gets them killed as they wander either into the territory of a Riverland Thane, or out of the river valley itself, where they can survive but often fall prey to desert predators.  Their fleshy hubs are highly nutritious.  While their legs end in spiky points, adults have neither fighting instinct nor fighting ability.
Appearance: Tower Siphon

Lifeform
Name: Riverland Horntail
Life Cycle: Horntails reproduce in a very similar fashion to the thanes, albeit in a less grandiose fashion.  In addition, the fleshy eggs of the horntails are less disgusting, and adults typically gather them for safekeeping.  Once born, young horntails mature at a middling pace, taking about six years to grow to an adolescent form.  Another five years must pass before a horntail is a full adult, after which it can continue to live for sixteen years on average.  Rather than growing dangling pouches that slough off to form into eggs, the ends of adults’ tails slowly swell up, before disgorging an egg.  As such, horntails can reproduce multiple times in their lives, though only one baby can be born at a time.
Description:  If the riverland thanes are the lords of the river valley, the horntails are its peasants, merchants, and soldiers.  More omnivorous than their distant relatives, they feast on both fish in the Mahd or on fruit from the trees on either side of it.  For both, they employ their remarkable intelligence to use sharp sticks as tools.  Being highly sociable, with a hierarchy all their own, they dig pits and burrows in the riverside sand, which they defend and supply as a group.  Horntails are the most friendly creatures in the valley to doggles, and the two species often cohabitate.  Thought often seen standing on their hind legs, horntails travel on all fours, and can reach respectable speed on land or in water doing so.  Despite their amicability to several of the valley’s species, horntails are distrustful and wary around most creatures, and with an acute eyesight spot and flee from threats before they can be perceived.  A visitor to the Mahd River Valley might spend its entire stay without seeing a single one.
Appearance: Riverland Horntail

Recalled Soul
Name: Custodian Esau
Soul: Proud soul of a jealous caretaker
 Description: A proud soul recalled during a moment of desperation gained this new body.  Outwardly, Esau features the shape of a vibrantly red-skinned lion, rippling with muscle and very short-furred.  Esau’s internal temperature is far higher than a normal organism’s, and his blood runs very hot.  His shelled tail serves more like a bendable lance, able to skewer living things and inject them with burning blood.  While his mane is orange fur, his mouth it hidden inside it across the front of his neck, and it is capable of biting and ripping with every ounce of strength as a normal mouth.  A white mask doesn’t cover its face, but in fact is its face, and golden eyes gleam from its holes.  Various clothes and golden trinkets adorn Esau’s body, giving him a ceremonial look.  Esau is servile in nature, deferring to Slough in terms of judgment, but he is a vicious and powerful fighter.  Along with destructive claws able to cleave flesh from bone with ease, Esau has an ability to rouse blood and other fluids within living things with his roars, boiling their blood or even causing it to form spikes that break the skin and pierce organs to get outside the body.
Appearance: Esau

Recalled Soul / Hero
Name: Allure
Male: Definitely
Style: Beyond compare!
Soul: Proud soul of a singleminded conqueror
Personality: Allure is defined by his obsessive quest for beauty.  He wishes beyond all else, not just to seek out the beauty of the world, take pleasure in it, and honor it, but to restore the beauty of disgusting things by obliterating their horrific visages and setting free their beauteous blood.  Allure is not a creator, but a critic, and while capable of utmost courtesy and compassion for those he deems worthy, displays a ruthless cruelty toward any abominations he might encounter.  He is highly narcissistic and never passes up to flaunt his own perfect beauty and inimitable, flourishing, flamboyant style.  Along with his egocentricity is a certain sadism; splashing the landscape with fresh blood is every bit as intoxicating as a gorgeous living thing.  Notably, Allure despises cosmic authority, but he is not ignorant of either it or its perpetrators.  He will not, as such, pick fights that he cannot win, and instead fall back on his intoxicating charisma.  An annoying cleverness and a discerning eye punctuate his behavior, making him eloquent, charming, and even wise when it suits him.
Good Looks: Standing at six and a half feet tall, Allure has a complexion best described as Hispanic, but the handsomeness of his body defies simple description.  He is extremely muscular without being either bulky or awkward, contributing toward a lithe body type.  Every contour, sinew, and line of face and body alike is perfect in symmetry and balance.  Long, honey-colored hair falls to the small of his back in a tight braid, and his eyes are a piercing hazel.  Long, graceful fingers sport sharp nails.  He wears a baggy purple garment of woven plant fibers on his legs, with a forest-green fauld around his waist.  The fauld has a design upon it best describes a winding vine dotted by red roses.  A tight, equally red sash atop this fauld keeps everything in place.
Talents: the charisma of Allure is a power in its own right.  No being, mortal, beast, or god, can look upon him and not acknowledge his perfect handsomeness, even if said being is not particularly attracted to him—though of course, it is a trial for any lady to not be!  Being around Allure makes one feel happy and comfortable, even if only an inkling, and trusting him comes easy; after all, how could a man so gorgeously angelic be evil?
In terms of physical attributes, Allure is at the apex as well.  Though all heroes display enhanced strength and speed -not to mention immortality-  his acrobatic agility is of special note.  Such is his fluidity of motion that he can, at times, seem weightless; at others, he is able to cover vast space in the blink of an eye.
Most intriguing, however, is Allure's discerning hand.  At its core, to discern means to cut away confusion, error, and ignorance to discover something for what it really is, and to him it is not different.  From his fingertips invisible claws of adjustable length can be extended at will, like unseen lasers, to instantly slice wherever he traces a line.  The cutting power only increases in force when he makes his hand into a knife, and it is at its deadliest when he curls his fingers into claws.

Stillborn Soul
Name: Venomweald Writhe
Soul of: the sovereign of seasons
Description: A heaving, spiteful plantmass.  Buried beneath the tonnage is a soul distorted by the method in which it was brought into the world, and the chaos and hatred that suffuse it extend to its exterior as well.  The Writhe is huge, approximately three hundred feet long, with a front end shaped like a colossal flower.  Vinelike limbs adorn its surface, each of with ends in a fanged or fingered flower as well.  This monstrosity, eager as it is to tear down and digest deep inside whatever vestiges of untainted life it can get its tendrils on, is responsible for the forestation of Venomweald as well as the mutagenic pools throughout it.  The very same mutagen resides inside its gut, and can be freely spewed forth to taint whatever it comes across, should that unfortunate thing not already been destroyed by its immense, crushing roots or lashing tendrils.  From poison the Writhe came, and to poison it would see the world fall.  Only the inhospitable Firewind Desert prevents its toxin from reaching beyond the twisted jungle it gave rise to.
Appearance: Look upon the First Mistake, ye mighty, and despair

Influences:

Perseverance - offered to Slough in the infancy of her life by the passionate perfectionist.  Though cocooned in a protective shell, she imbibed this urge, savoring its beautiful empathy.  Slough will neither wish for death nor submit to entropy, even her own, never ever ever.

Marvel - asked of Slough in the infancy of her life by the tireless journeyman.  Already touched by another god's offering, and witless to comprehend words without profound feeling, she felt the burden placed on her.  Slough's unwitting creations will be wondrously complex down to the microscopic level of order and beyond, their superiority unattainable and inimitable by any artifice.

Wilderness - forced upon Slough in the infancy of her life by the shameless marauder.  Already affected by the touch of two gods, the Rottenbone's protective shell rebuked the corruption, singling it out like a disease and purging it.  Nevertheless the taint of chaos lay within--an inoculation and a taint in one.  Living creatures made by Slough will be more difficult to tame and more wild in temperament.

Sympathy - forced upon Slough in the infancy of her life by the luminous seraph.  Already affected by the touch of three gods, the Rottenbone's protective shell resisted the ablution, refusing to be so easily brought into alignment.  Still, she felt the touch of unifying light.  Living creatures made by Slough, if subjected to mistreatment and in her vicinity, will hurt her psychologically.

Vigilance - offered to Slough in the infancy of her life by selfless starlight.  The penetration of her protective shell, however easily regrown, permitted the idea of vigilance to wash over.  Though ignorant of her benefactor's sacrifice, she accepted his enduring hardiness.  Slough will exhibit a greater resilience against harmful influences; her rot will be more likely to heal those who need help; sunlight will bring her solace.

Enjoyment - offered to Slough in the infancy of her life by the discerning deceiver. Her heart reopened to benefice by self-destructive kindness, she ate of the sweet fruit of pleasure, and for the first time knew joy.  Despite her pain, Slough will be playful when circumstance allows.

Song - played for Slough in the infancy of her life by the beauteous virtuoso. In her sleep, Slough dreamed of a place deep below earth, where a starlight heart beat out a mesmerizing tune.  In the nature that arises from Slough's power, there will be songs--odes to the music of the first dream.

Ambiguity - forced upon Slough in the infancy of her life by the meddlesome eidolon.  Her spirit strengthened by love, self-sacrifice, and vigilance, the Rottenbone's protective shell withheld catastrophic contradiction, defending her impressionable mind against a suggestion that would have meant its end.  Still, little can be said for certain.  Presupposed morality will be nowhere in Slough's living creations.
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