Ytteral Fauna

## Liarbird (Menura mendax)

Liarbirds tend to latch on to the words of traveling adventurers, and quite enjoy spouting off cuss words to anyone entertained enough to listen. They're about as intelligent as toddlers, and have been known to pick locks, especially locks on windows. They will divebomb for food. Liarbird feathers are coarse and useless for anything aside from decoration. Meat tastes like whatever they’ve gotten their pointy little beaks on, which is usually garbage. Rotting garbage.

* size: About 18 inches long from beak to tail-tip. They weigh 8-9 ounces depending on the local’s feelings about their chatter.
* diet: Grubs, trash, yesterday’s leftovers, corpses if they’re desperate. Basically flying garbage disposals.
* lifespan: 7-8 years on average. Particularly entertaining liarbirds like the beloved squawky of elderidge can live for far longer, up to 12 years.

## Tombcrawler (Pix tenebris)

Named for their tendency to scour tombs and mausoleums for prey, the tombcrawler is a four-legged, slinky creature that can fit into any crevice its skull can fit through. It can camouflage itself with its shimmering scales, and has red-hot claws capable of slicing through bone. Luckily, it mainly feeds on the dead and certain native plants. They make for pretty good meat in the winter, just before they hibernate. Not quite pack animals but not solitary, tombcrawlers will often travel in groups of 3-6 individuals and split up for mating season. Females are extremely territorial, and will resort to cannibalism if threatened. Their blood is thick and black, like tar.

* size: 25-30 inches, including the tail. Weigh about 5 lbs on average.
* diet: Grubs, corpses, native berries. Actually considered a pest animal, and are often hunted for sport, usually at long range on account of the claws.
* lifespan: 7-10 years. not much longer than that.

## Tetraptor (Harpyja quattuor)

One of the largest avians ever recorded, the tetraptor is a crested eagle-like bird of prey with two pairs of wings that uses its massive, downy feathers to muffle noise. It flies silently, and its shadow absorbs all sound. It is illegal to hunt and kill them, which just makes their prices on the black market extremely high. They are extremely skittish when not in the air and often nest atop the tallest trees, out of sight of any humans or ground-creatures; if they can’t find a secluded area, they will also take to craggy outcrops and cliff edges. They push their young out of the nest to teach them to fly, but because hatchlings are so small, their velocity is quite low (no dead baby birds here!)

* size: 5 feet long. Wingspan is about 13 feet. Males can be up to 6 feet long, and 15 foot wingspans have been recorded.
* diet: Fish, mostly. Will eat small mammals like rats, but nothing ever bigger than stray cats.
* lifespan: 60-80 years on average, unless they’ve been poached

## Ytteral Ground-hog (Scrofa ytter)

Not actually a groundhog at all, the ytteral ground-hog (the dash is important) is a type of wild pig with translucent, sticky skin that catches the dirt it lives in. Since ytterhul is so diverse in ground cover, these pigs have adapted to covering themselves in the specific cover of the area they patrol, making it easier for them to camouflage and hide from predators. They aren’t necessarily hostile, but they have a mean bite. One chomp may give an unlucky wanderer signs of necrosis in as little as an hour. They do make for great meals any time of year, but they must be cooked all the way lest the necrotizing bacteria in their guts remain active.

* size: 6-7 feet long, tail tip to snout. 250 to 300 lbs on average. They fatten up to about 350 lbs in the winter.
* diet: Mostly herbivorous, they dine on grass and other foliage. If they have the misfortune of being awake and hungry in the winter when all of the plants are dead, they will seek out small animals like frogs and mice to feast on.
* lifespan: 10-20 years. Varies wildly due to hunting and predator population.

## False Knight (Armis malum)

A being that imitates the gait and shape of goliath men. It is highly speculated that the false knight is a type of arachnid piloting a bloated cadaver, but none have been foolish enough to get that close. The tell-tale signs that a false knight is nearby are extinguished lights and the sound of platemail scraping against the floor. Through whatever property, be it magical or biological, whatever man-made light source the false knight swings its gaunt face toward goes out. It reproduces asexually, and spawns from a screaming cocoon only found in the deepest pits of the **Hungering Tomb of Voluth** (at least this makes them rare creatures.) False knights are the sole reason why goliaths bury or cremate their dead.

* size: Depends on the flesh-puppet. Generally goliaths, so a solid 7-9 feet tall. Weigh about as much as a gutless corpse.
* diet: Have a taste for human flesh and blood. If they can’t find it, rats and strays will do just fine. They hunt only during the nighttime, and seeing a false knight during the daytime is a bad, bad sign.
* lifespan: Nobody actually knows how long these creatures live for, as they’re very rarely able to be documented due to their violent (and armored) nature.

## Lightslug (Ariolimax lumina)

Lightslugs are giant slugs, and usually have absorbed a light source, like a lantern or magic amulet or something of that sort. Too many have done it for it to be a simple coincidence or stupidity on their part— it is highly speculated that this light source acts as either a repellant for any predators as it’s highly unnatural, making the slug look inedible, or an attractant to find mates easier. Considering lightslug season is in the dark winter months and the creature is nocturnal anyway, both theories are highly possible.

* size: About 15-20 inches long. They swell significantly during mating season, and make for a better food source at this time as well.
* diet: They're scavengers, mostly, but will eat anything they can (or can’t) digest
* lifespan: Theoretically an extremely long time— most documented lightslug deaths had been caused by absorbing an object too big for its body, ruining its structural system. The rest have been due to predation. The longest living slug had been recorded at a whopping 200 years old