Duckweed the Beipiaosaurus

## Duckweed

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"**If the skin is green, then go ahead by all means. But see the colors of the rainbow, it’s a certified hell no**"
—Duckweed’s guide to eating frogs, green ones good, brightly colored ones bad
**Duckweed the Beipiaosaurus** is a fan character designed by Frostbite Carno. Duckweed resides in *The Isle* universe.

Duckweed is a subadult beipiaosaurus who is doing his best to survive and adapt to the harsh and unforgiving world of The Isle.

## Biography

Duckweed hatched and grew up in the swamps and now lives with his friend Petals, who is a Suchomimus. He can usually be seen perched on her back or cleaning her teeth.

## Appearance

Duckweed is a peculiar looking Isle beipiaosaurus, he has much larger feather head crests than other beipis, And the feathers that make up his head crests are long, spiky and quill-like. He also has less pronounced sparse quilling elsewhere on his body, mostly on his back, but they are usually smoothed down and hidden, intermixed with all of his smooth insulating feathers, but become visible when he raises them for defense.

He is brown with very subtle countershading, with black and darker brown stripes. He has a green neck, and green feather head crests. His eyes are also green, albeit darker.

## Personality

Perceptive, eager to learn new things, loves to eat frogs and water lilies.

## Abilities

* **Semi-Aquatic:** Duckweed is semi-aquatic, and feels most at home in and around water. He is a phenomenal swimmer, being able to swim fast, dive beneath the surface, and hold his breath for extended periods of time.
* **Claws:** Duckweed uses his massively clawed forelimbs to secure himself to the rocks and riverbeds during strong currents as he grazes and searches for small prey. They are also lethal weapons used for defense.
* **Speed and agility:** Duckweed is an excellent swimmer and diver, and is very quick and nimble.

### Unique Abilities:

* **Quilly feathers:** The quill-like feathers on Duckweed’s head and back are an unpleasant surprise to any attackers that go in for an attack in these areas, getting a face full of quills. these quills are modified feathers and are covered with scales that act like fishhook barbs causing the quills to keep moving inward, deeper into the tissue. His quills can puncture the skin and move through muscle, ultimately penetrating into body cavities and internal organs.

**Skills:**

* **Frog Catching:** Duckweed is very good at catching frogs, hence one of his aliases. They are his favorite food
* **Climbing:** Duckweed has learned to climb trees, his long claws great for helping him hook into the bark. He can climb higher than most creatures do to his smaller size.
* **Burrowing:** Duckweed’s long claws are perfect for excavating.
* **Prehensile Tail:** Duckweed can use his tail to grasp things.

## Relationships

### Family

* **Unnamed Parents** (Parents)
* **Unnamed Siblings** (Siblings)

## Trivia

* Alright, so you're probably wondering, why the quills? The real Beipiaosaurus’s feathers were known to be quite quilly back in the Mesozoic Era. So I figured that's true in the universe of The Isle too, even if some part of the cloning and genome gap-filling process resulted in these “Penguin-Lizards''\* Duckweed shows some traits from his Mesozoic ancestors that are not seen on his parents and other members of his species, but apparently still remain in their genome regardless of all the tampering by humans. This just happens to be the combination Duckweed got. Because Beipiaosaurus had quilly feathers, this has led me and others to speculate that it may have also had some modified feathers similar to porcupine quills to help fend off predators, so I took this idea and ran with it. When designing him I decided to emphasize the already existing little head crests The Isle’s Beipi has with these long defensive quills, to not only protect his head but to make him resemble a rockhopper penguin in some ways, to really bring out the “penguin look” the devs were going for when making Beipi. So now I have a “Porcupine-Penguin-lizard”? Brief discussion about the isle’s beipiaosaurus. Now from what I’ve seen in the concept art, beipi’s playstyle genuinely looks pretty cool, and quite interesting too, but there's just one teensy weensy little problem… well first and foremost, it looks nothing like a beipaosaurus except for the name and the hands. They took This, and turned it into a penguin, and for what? Now the design itself is not bad in the slightest, but I think it’s design and playstyle should’ve been given to another dinosaur, and you know what would have been the perfect choice? Halszkaraptor!!!! Like it seems so obvious, and the halskaraptor filled a niche similar to the isle’s beipi in real life, and I think it would have actually benefited from the penguin-inspired design much better then beipi. Now will this affect my enjoyment of playing it when it releases? Heck no! Its design is beautiful and its playstyle seems fun, even if it's not accurate. I just think that its design and playstyle would have better suited another dinosaur and that beipi’s uniqueness could have been explored in a different way.
* Duckweed *claims* to be part therizinosaurus, but this is usually played as a joke and no one takes him seriously
* **Character profile page for my The Isle characters**