Alpha Sector Bestiary

This section contains the list of lifeforms that will be present in the Alpha Sector.

## Apple Tree

A medium-sized deciduous tree with multiple branches. It exhibits a broad, dense, twiggy crown with alternately arranged simple oval leaves with an acute tip, serrated margin and slightly downy underside. Hanging from its branches are small, reddish pomaceuous fruits containing five carpels arranged in a five-point star, with each carpel containing one to three seeds. The fruits are fleshy and quite edible.

## Barking Plant

A small plant consisting of a twisted green stalk. Its outer surface is covered densely with many medium-sized, shiny 3-pointed leaves. When approached, the plant produces the sounds of a canid, which often deters potential predators from attacking.

## Blue Screamer

A many-limbed creature about the size of a bear, with smooth, rubbery, deep blue skin. The creature constantly sweats, giving it a wet appearance. The face of the creature is situated directly in the center, between its 3 arms and 4 legs, and is predominately mouth with no nose. The eyes are about 3 times larger than a Human's, and have a strange drooping stare to them. Sometimes, without warning, the creature will emit a loud, piercing scream capable of stunning nearby lifeforms.

## Brown Hopper

This is a medium-sized, brownish bipedal creature. It has two large, powerfully built limbs protruding from its head with no abdomen, which it uses to propel itself at great speeds. Being poisonous to most lifeforms, it is slow and can usually only capture prey by overtaking it from above. It is nocturnal by most standards and omnivorous.

## Burning Cactus

A ruddy-brown, motile, cactus-like plant with very long, thin, black spines all over it. The cactus absorbs liquids from the soil that it cycles through itself and then "sweats" through pores. Upon reaching the atmosphere, this liquid ignites and burns for a long time, causing it to constantly be enveloped in flames. Using a simple system of rudimentary joints, it can violently shake one of its arms to splatter the burning liquid onto an attacker if necessary.

## Buzzing Duck

An anatid with an odd pale-bluish tint. Its feathers are tipped with a darker shade of blue. It produces an odd noise, like a cross between a "quack" and a peculiar buzzing noise. Other than these oddities, it is quite the ordinary avian lifeform. It likes to wade in pools and lakes and is capable of some limited flight.

## Common Bos Taurus

A large, docile, beefy-looking quadruped ungulate. Its skin is covered with a coat of short, golden-brown hair with occasional white or black highlights. An herbivore ruminant, it stands around all day on four legs, eating any available vegetation, especially the local carpet lifeform. It occasionally makes a relatively soft mooing sound. It has few natural defenses, and looks delicious.

## Domed Flytrap

A massive, domed carnivorous plant. It has wide leaves that protrude from a central stalk, which bend over backwards to create the domed shape. The top of the stalk is colored and emits a pheromone to attract insects. When an insect or other lifeform steps on the top of the stalk, a number of leaves instantly snap up around it, releasing acids to begin digesting the plant's trapped victim.

## Five Horned Deer

A medium-sized cervid. It has a brown outer coat of hair and leathery skin. Its head is particularly large, and supports no less than five individual sets of large, impressive, sharp antlers. When threatened, it will use its antlers to defend itself. A single bash by the creature's massive array of antlers will render many attackers dead, unconscious, or fearful. It is otherwise herbivorous and docile.

## Flaring Beetle

An enormous coleopteran insect. Its hard, durable carapace is colorful and distinctive. When the creature is in danger, it can cause its carapace to vividly cycle through a series of colors and glow while it takes flight. This often causes the offending creature to be disoriented and lose track of it.

## Giant Gopher

An enormous geomyid rodent. It is covered with a pelt of grey fur and exhibits two large maxillary incisors. A nocturnal, omnivorous creature, it will hide in dense brush and produce a sound that mimics a breed of small amphibian, and predate on any creature that comes to investigate the noise. The creature is cautious and will always run away from anything it cannot instinctively fight.

## Giant Squid

A shallow water-dwelling cranchiid of incredible proportions. Its outer covering is reddish and largely transparent. Measuring nearly 30 meters in size from mantle to the ends of its tentacles, it is capable of moving at great speeds. Its tentacles are equipped with multiple, swiveling, three-pointed hooks that are capable of manipulating large objects with terrific force. It is carnivorous, and has a voracious appetite.

## Gigantic Flying Spider

A massive araneid. Its outer carapace is a light brown color, with a darker, trumpet-shaped highlight on its abdomen and dark, striped highlights on its legs. Its carapace hides a set of wings not unlike those of an anisopteran. To hunt, the creature will fly after its prey and shoot long, sticky spinnerets at it. Once immobilized, it will go in for the kill, using a potent venom to subdue and begin digesting its victim.

## Goofball Berry Plant

A medium-sized, bushy plant. It consists of a mass of tangled, flowering vines with many reddish, serrated leaves connected to a broad, woody base. On the leaves are bright, yellowish flowering nodules, from which grow clusters of small, bright red berries. When eaten, these berries produce a euphoric effect on most animal lifeforms, which may cause them to act irrationally for several hours afterwards.

## Heaving Mass

A large, fungoid creature. It extracts minerals and nutrients from the soil on which it grows and converts these into several different gases over the course of a standard week, one of which is a highly toxic, almost corrosive gas that is stored in the body of the creature. When it is in danger, the plant opens a mouth-like orifice and "burps" a dense cloud of the toxic gas stored within. The creature makes strange groaning noises as it sits, oozing fluid by-products of its digestive process.

## Jark Bees

A swarm of large, apian insects. Individual members of the swarm are covered in a deep red fur-like substance with purple streaks along their bodies and winds. They have exceptionally fast metabolisms, actual teeth, and a nearly lethal poison in their sting (which they can repeatedly use without dying). The horrendous sound produced by these creatures is matched only by their devastating effect on any living being.

## Leaping Coyote

A large canid, with a pelt of greyish-brown to yellow-grey fur with reddish brown highlights and a black dorsal stripe. It has a set of long, powerful back-legs which it uses to leap at great speeds. This pack animal is deadly when hunting, and when the pack has emerged to chase down prey, they run fast, making a strange, oscillating howling noise.

## Mystical Wisp

A strange entity, which may not even be a lifeform. Visually, it appears as a tiny, but very bright, floating point of light that darts and zips about or sometimes just glides through the air in strange patterns. It seems to produce a bizarre, almost musical sound, possibly made by its' movement through the air.

## Orange Sand Sloth

A large but otherwise typical megalonychid with bright orange and black striped-markings. It tends to populate sandy beaches and desert regions, where it prefers to dig itself in just under the surface and dart about under the sand. It leaves trails of upturned dirt as it travels about. An insectivore, it is harmless to sentients.

## Parascopal Plant

A tall, shoot-like photosynthetic plant. The plant's interior is hollow and segmented, giving it a unique vascular structure. When in danger, the plant retracts itself in a manner not unlike that of a periscope and waits for the danger to pass. When the danger has passed, or if the plant is attacked directly, it has the capability to shoot itself back to its full height with great force.

## Pellet Tree

This is a light-beige to dark-pink tree with red and violet highlights. It is composed of many tubers that house seeds. The roots are shallow and far-reaching, requiring that the seeds be ejected from the tubers at high speeds so that they may reach new locations for the roots to spread. Small and spiny, these seeds have caused injury to those standing too near it during the tree's unpredictable reproductive season.

## Quacking Tripod

A strange, three-legged creature. It is covered with a coat of pearly, yellowish fur. It makes odd quack-like noises as it ambles about. Composed primarily of a lumpy, fat bulbous body and a slanted, squat head with a precarious flat beak, this bizarre little creature ambles about erratically and very quickly. It has two very wide arm-like appendages that conceal a threatening array of spines which it can use to quickly (and messily) kill its prey.

## Radial Mite

A peculiar creature that is best characterized as a cross between a starfish and an exceptionally large version of a dust mite. Its skin is pale white, and almost translucent, giving it a somewhat ghostly appearance. Its odd shape and slowly gliding, erratic movements are often confusing to the small insects that it consumes on a regular basis.

## Red Coast Crawler

This is a small creature resembling a tiny elephant with a lumpy head and a short snout. It ranges in colors from brown with red streaks to a deep rusty red color. Its skin is very dry and it likes to take baths quite often, so it is almost always found near coastlines. It feeds on amphibious creatures that also live along the coastline. It seems to have a particular taste for frog-like creatures. It is harmless to sentients.

## Red Venom Frog

A medium-sized dendrobatid amphibian. It exhibits aposematism; its outer skin coloring is a bright-red color, with significant black splotches over its dorsal. The creature's skin contains a potent neurotoxin capable of killing any predators. This same venom coats the creature's long, sticky tongue, which it will use against potential attacker. It is particularly aggressive and quite dangerous to approach.

## Roaring Sand Devil

A smallish squatinid fish. Its dorsal is a sandy brown color, while its ventral is a dull shade of white. Its flat body allows it to lay in wait for potential prey in shallow, sandy-bottomed surfaces. When it attacks, it lets out a terrific sound, almost a roar. This roar often stuns the prey, making it an easy target for the creature.

## Sabertoothed Mole

A large talpid mammal. It has brownish or greyish fur and a fat, squat face. This creature's most noticeable feature are the large fangs that protrude from its' mouth. The creature feeds mostly on vegetation, and uses it's fangs to pry bark off trees and to defend itself. Although it is not particularly dangerous, the large fangs are quite sharp and could cause some injury to a medium-sized lifeform.

## Sand Scorpion

A buthid arachnid. It has a dusty brown outer covering with dark orange and black highlights across its body. When hunting, it buries itself in sand, where its skin covering gives it near perfect camouflage. Its sting contains one of the most potent venoms known, more than capable of causing permanent paralysis in any Human-sized creature.

## Sawnosed Shark

A large and very aggressive cartilaginous fish. It has a bright white ventral section, with the remainder being a deep grey color with blue and black highlights. The creature’s anatomy is unique in that it contains a pair of counter-rotating discs on its nose that are capable of slicing through metal. When it attacks, it rams its victim with its nose, oftentimes completely bisecting it.

## Screaming Theropod

An eight-meter tall, bipedal reptilian. Its outer skin is scaly and a greenish-grey color, with dark brown highlights. A carnivore, the creature spends much of its time feeding. As it moves, it lets out a high-pitched scream, aimed to terrify any prey into bolting. The creature is attracted to movement and can move at a terrific pace. There is more than enough force in its jaws to shred the outer skin of a metallic vehicle.

## Sea Skimmer

A thin, wispy, frail creature that has the odd appearance of a strange flying kite. It is translucent, a peculiar shade of bright blue, and the blood of the creature seems to catch the sunlight and glow. It is capable of flight when there are heavy winds. When it is coasting over the surface of the water, it is hard to see, but can be detected by the blue veins that appear to glow in the sunlight. It is harmless to most lifeforms.

## Skilla Fern

A fairly typical pteridophytid plant. It is long and narrow, with multiple green, triangular-shaped leaves. It is generally harmless. The plant produces an oil with some medicinal properties that also gives it and its surroundings a pleasant, therapeutic scent.

## Sky Screecher

A large pandionid creature. It has white plumage on its fuselage with grey highlights, with golden brown feathers. Every few seconds, the creature lets out a high-pitched, screeching call. A typical raptor, the creature spends a lot of its time hunting for smaller mammalian forms of life, including human-sized creatures. It is very fast and its talons are particularly sharp.

## Speckled Roller

   A large, herbivorous creature that has characteristics of both insectoids and reptiles. The creature has a tough, speckled chitinous shell with three sharp, backwards facing horns along its dorsal. When threatened, the creature will rear up on its hind legs and charge, executing a backwards roll at the last moment in an attempt to gore its enemy with its horns. For unknown reasons, this animal is always found in herds of twelve.

## Spike Bush

An agavoid-like plant resembling a typical yucca. It consists of a mass of thick, pointy leaves with very fine, spiked points. When the plant is in danger, it can eject these leaves with amazing force. The leaves are very hard and often impale the creature that poses a threat, making this plant a very lethal, yet simple creature.

## Spiny Snowsnail

A medium-sized shelled gastropod mollusk. It has a bulbous head with a small mouth, and a long tail-like extension from which a thin, wide and spiny body fans. It tends to live in snowy or icy environments. The creature is fairly light and can adjust itself so that it can be picked up by the wind, using its tail to jump into the air and soar for a short distance. It is capable of performing impressive gliding-flying stunts.

## Stalking Theropod

A large carnivorous dromaeosaurid reptilian. Its outer skin is a dull brown color with a lighter brown and white striped pattern. A biped, each foot is equipped with an enlarged sickle-shaped talon. When hunting, it stalks its prey, preferring to remain camouflaged right up until the moment it decides to strike. The creature is capable of running at speeds close to 200 kph, and can easily disembowel a human-sized creature.

## Swooping Bat

A chiopteran lifeform. Its outer surface is mainly black with some light grey highlights. Its tail contains a sharp, barbed spike. When it attacks prey, it dives straight toward its victim, flips out its spike, and reverses itself mid-flight. It then allows gravity to carry the thorn straight into the victim, often impaling them seriously. They are particularly dangerous in large groups.

## Tentacled Hexapod

A motile, carnivorous plant-like lifeform. The creature has a roughly pumpkin-shaped head and an elongated, acorn-shaped torso, at the bottom of which is a tooth-filled beak, and ambulates on six strong, flexible, barb-covered tentacles. Before it attacks, it "grooms" itself with its tentacles, and then delivers a slap or two to its victim, delivering a dose of dangerous, septic bacteria, which if left untreated kills virtually 100% of the time.

## Thunderworm

An incredibly huge creature resembling an annelid. Its leathery surface is a deep brown hue. It creates deep underground caverns using an array of sharp, curved crystalline teeth. It appears to gain some sort of nutritional benefit from eating the rock it burrows through. The creature is capable of producing a powerful shockwave from within itself that makes a horrendous, thundering noise even through solid rock, which dazes other lifeforms.

## Tubular Vine Plant

A peculiar plant resembling a dead, hollow tree stump on the surface. It has an array of long, slender, tube-like vines that stay hidden beneath any convenient layer of foliage. When an animal steps on the hidden vines, the vines quickly pop up, wrap themselves around a convenient limb and toss the creature into the open top of the stump. Once inside, the creature is quickly digested by acidic compounds squirted from the inside of the stump.

## Unirunner

A tall, herbivorous creature that bears a striking resemblance to a pedestaled bird bath. Its outer surface is smooth and almost uniformly white in color, with some orange highlights. The creature moves by means of its large, single leg, through which it has a surprisingly fast gait. Its physiology is such that it is virtually impossible for the creature to lose its balance.

## Vicious Shadow Stalker

A long, slender three-legged creature that resembles a large felid. The creature's skin is a deep uniform black, making the creature impossible to see in low-light conditions. It has a pair of sabre-like maxillary teeth and two pairs of claws on its feet, one of which is barbed and sickle-shaped. A versatile carnivore, it sticks to the shadows when it stalks its prey. When it strikes, it literally tears its prey to pieces, usually while the prey is still alive.

## Water Dome

A large, green plant floating on the surface of the water. It fans out from a central stalk, fanning out to sea level after rising upwards in a parabolic arc, giving the plant the general shape of a hollow dome. Air trapped underneath the dome helps the plant to remain afloat. Its long, narrow stalk contains a large, bulbed taproot which allows it to remain upright even in rough chop. It also serves to help collect nutrients.

## White-Tailed Deer

    A medium-sized herbivorous cervid. It is covered with a thin layer of soft, brownish fur with white, spotted highlights. When alarmed, they flee with their tails raised, showing the splash of white on the underside that characterizes the species. Males of the species have a set of sharp antlers that are capable of goring would-be attackers.

## Writhing Grass

A colony of small, carnivorous plants. The plants have adapted such that they can mimic the movement of wind in a writhing motion, as well as the form and structure of the native carpet lifeform. When a creature steps onto the colony, the individual strands wraps themselves around the limbs of the creature, holding it firmly in place and constricting it until it dies. The dead creature then decomposes and nourishes the grass. Even a single blade can extend long enough and is strong enough to choke a human-sized lifeform.

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