Creature Feature

[Culhwch]

Inspired by the recent On creating alien and inhuman characters and societies thread in the main aspiring writers forum, I thought I would kick off a new writing exercise....

Describe a unique fantasy or science fiction species in five hundred or so words of narrative prose. If it helps go and have a look at the discussion over there. No rules otherwise. Simple as that. Have at it.

 

[Chabio]

Well, I will have a go at this.

Although I have gone into alot more detail with my background notes, I have tried to keep this short, but still give enough of a picture to illustrate their life and appearance.

The Hounds of Bel-Odee ( Ras-kalls)
High on top of the crags and other rock formations of Dymanna, the male Ras-kalls where left to roam free by their masters. They lived in and around the cave and tunnel systems of the Volcanic mountains, haunted by hot, poisonous clouds that covered these dead lands. The Ras-Kalls had adapted to their enviroment over thousands of years, right from the time they had hatched from their leathery eggs, back within the breeding pens. The docile females in captiverty, used only for breeding, weren't so hardy however, a deliberate ploy of their Vulag masters no doubt, in enforcing control over their minions. The Ras-kalls were detested by other races and had to be prevented from spreading into the fertile lands further south and disrupting the Dysmunic civilisations.

Although they were the Mutations of Tiamnagu and came from the same family tree as Merefolc and Harpae, their abhorrent nature took them on a different path in their history. Being dragonkin, they had a nomadic life, living on the blood of roaming goats and small game, along mountain ranges of the ancestrial lands of the Vish Mar Dragons. Hunted and destroyed by Dwards and Menn alike, they in time came to only exist in north Leyfield, where the wrath of volcanoes deterred the settlement of other societies.
So, how did they become a race in slavery?
Wars and disasters through out Leyfield's history, brought the Vulags in time, to these desolate lands. It was them, who saw the potential in domesticating the Ras-Kalls for their own purposes.
What had the Vulags intended for this small, backward creature?
Well, It was purely to use the Ras-Kalls as a controllable force to be sent in the wars against their foes.
That simple.
The Hounds of Bel-Odee.
A pack of viscious animals, to hunt down and rip their enemy into bloody shreads.

In truth however, the Ras-Kalls were not animals, even if they were treated thus by their masters. They were a social community that had learnt the use of tools and pottery. They even had a religion once. Their thoughts were more rational than instinct, they just lacked the advancement to shake off the yoke of Vulag dominance through better technology.
They were now a kept race. The game that scurried over the rocks of Dymanna had become scarce, overhunted by the male Ras-Kalls whos' bloodlust had gone beyond merely catching prey to feed. They relied on the specially armoured Vulag herdsmen to feed them carcass's or even prisoners of war, at given times. The ochre stained rocks of Bel's Finger were their training ground and the only social event allowed by the Vulags. It's foundations were covered in remains, adding to the sweet acidic smells of the poisonous vapours in the area. The deathly odours didnt bother the Ras-Kalls, for their sense of smell had left them a long time ago.
For detection, they relied on their large bat-like ears, which could pick up sounds from great distances and luminous, night enhanced, dragonnic eyes, to find their foe in their nocturnal pursuits. Their reptilian looking legs were well suited for stone surfaces and they were quite adept at using them to claw at their prey. They had a long manipulative snake-like tail for balance and ensnaring, as they leaped from rock to rock, which almost gave them, a tripedal look. The tail was covered in sensitive hairs that could pick up vibrations in the darkness and was used also for communicating to each other through intricate oscillations and swaying. Despite their legs and clawed hands, they didnt resemble their dragon brethren much more than that and were more akin to the Grim (goblinoid race) . Maybe because of this, they have been associated with the Org Narc family tree.There were no scales on their skin. It was more of a dull obsidian texture, charcoal in colour and speckled by them, to resemble cooled black lava formations. Their large gaping mouths had sharp, curved, needle fangs, covered in a saliva that stopped blood from congealing.
For, they were Blood drinkers and not too elequent about it. But then this pleased their masters, as all of Leyfield had learnt to fear the Hounds of Bel-Odee. Come the darkness of night, an approaching pack of Ras-Kalls would see, but not be seen by their prey. There would be no mercy given. But woe betide their masters, if they should gain their freedom. Woe betide us all.

 

[chrispenycate]

Nomadic starsails
Balanced between photonic pressure and gravitational attraction, we find the nomadic starsails. Their canopies, like immense blooms in the void, have their lighter side permanently aimed at a star, while the dark side radiates heat into interstellar space. Fluid in the veins cris-crossing their immense membranes causes the canopy to spread or furl, changing the amount of pressure and causing the organism to fall towards the star, or drift away from it into the outer system. A motile vegetable, you think, immensely long lived, the matter around a star is so diffuse it might take years to collect a gram, and despite their immense fragility some of these creatures are thousands of kilometers across, and weigh tons. But these are not mere plants ; when a comet flies into the inner system, thousands of them calculate its orbit, and sweep in, capturing the free atoms of its tail, never risking devastating contact with the solid core. They reproduce by fission, a petal separating, starting its own slow rise and fall, its patient accumulation of mass till it can further split, and memories are similarly carried on, each generation adding to the ancestral pool.

What use intelligence to such as these ? What was the predator who taught them that they could in mass direct a focussed sunbeam nothing solid could survive ? At any rate, that predator’s long gone, relegated to oblivion by what were once its prey. And now they dream, and bask, and form themselves in telescopes bigger than the Earth to watch the universe. What matter if a single thought demands a month, a year? Their lifetimes are comparable with those of the stars, they watch galxies spin.

And every thousand years or so, one will decide to take the maximum of lift, rise through the system like a child’s balloon, shrivelling into a tiny, rigid lump, and slingshot beyond the star’s pervading warmth, directed by a gas-giant planet’s gravity, set off towards another star, ten thousand or a hundred thousand years away, in frozen timelessness, perhaps to meet those gone before (for to this day no sail has yet returned) perhaps to spread the memories to younger stars, still to be burning when their own is cold.