Revision as of 16:00, 7 June 2011

Domesticated Animals

Food Animals

Aquaculture

• Unguli – Roaming in schools of up to a thousand, these quick, aerodynamic eight inch circular herbivorous invertibrates feature twelve triangular paddles and a solar organ for breaking up water into breathable elements. They are farmed in shallow ocean waters of temperate regions.

Herd Animals

• Zik

Mounts

Rickirr

• Rickirr – 6-8 foot tall bipedal feathered lizard, originally used for herding, and now used as a quick and agile mount.

Satai

• Satai – A six foot tall shaggy rhinoceros-like creature, once used as a plow animal, but now used as a sturdy long-distance mount.

Wild Animals

Bugs

• Danadas – A four foot long predatory millipede that lives in the arctic oceans, known for its boldness in attacking prey much larger than itself.
• Korole - Shaped like a three foot reddish-brown praying mantis, it is known for its ability to convincingly portray a piece of seaweed, and making its exoskeleton more pliable so as to flow in the movement of the water. Found in temperate ocean shallows.

Cephalopods

• Bolg – Found in equatorial oceans, this is a five foot long white tentacled animal shaped vaguely like a cross between a sea cucumber and a dirigible. A long oily stripe across their backs allows them to absorb sunlight and use the energy to break water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is stored in a long gasbag, allowing them to fly above the water looking for prey, while the oxygen is slowly expelled out the back to allow for movement. When prey is found, the hydrogen is quickly dispelled, and the bolg drops down upon the prey, using its gigantic mouth to swallow it whole along with a good amount of sea water to start the floating process once more.
• Jegoro – The largest land animal on Pyracan, this ten-legged, five ton dark gray invertibrate behemoth with a single short gray horn looks like a cross between a squid and an elephant, and lives near the base of mountains in Chiarrain Nation. It utilizes its two massive front tentacles to pull biorr or large ferns from the ground and rips them into pieces to eat. While herbivorous, jegoro are still quite dangerous when threatened. It has become somewhat rare due to being hunted for its tough, flexible skin, which is used for backing armor. They have proven nearly impossible to domesticate, though it has been tried many times.
• Levicera – Ten foot long squid-like predator with its head hidden within a whorled shell with a wicked point. Tends to stab its prey, and then use its tentacles to draw the innards out for consumption. Lives in arctic oceans.
• Puinsean - Looking somewhat like an airborne, brightly color-shifting squid, this six inch long omnivore is highly poisonous. It exists in a sort of symbiotic relationship with the saighead flower, using the 1-2 gallon pools of water in the massive upturned flowers to power its hydrogen balloon-like flight and eating the floating dead insects that collect in these pools. In return, it both pollinates the flowers and poisons the pool so the flower can collect more insects and absorb some of the protein as the insects decay. It lives in equatorial jungles.

Crustaceans

• Falbhann – Looking like a cross between a starfish and a turtle, this twelve-legged crustacean is known as a slow but relentless predator, and almost impossible to kill while in the water. Its extremely hard shell is very difficult to crack, and it can lose a significant amount of its body and still be able to fully regenerate. It has been known to single-mindedly follow prey for weeks, outlasting instead of outrunning. It lives on equatorial seashores.
• Seapairr - Reaching almost four feet in length, these lazy, slow-moving gray-green crustaceans use their long upper limbs and strong claws to hang from biorr in the upper canopy of the forest for days at a time. They constantly munch on nearby sticks and leaves, only moving when they’ve defoliated an area. They live in temperate biorr forests.
• Seisd - About two feet in length, this squat black herbivorous crustacean uses its thick, sharp slicing arms to fell biorr and its dual tails to draw up piles of dirt to create enormous warrens for its extended family. While normally shy and fearful of Pyracani contact, it will use its slicing arms to fight to the death to protect its offspring. They live in temperate biorr forests.
• Zuni - Vaguely resembling a cross between a monkey and a spider, this foot-tall, 12-legged brachiate may be the most agile thing in the forest. Its six long, skinny upper legs are used to propel it through the dense vertical shafts of the temperate biorr forests at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. Zuni are often kept as pets by wealthier Pyracani, and can be trained to do tricks. Stone gray with light brown stomachs in the wild, it’s been bred into various patterns of blue-gray, gray, black, white, tan, brown, and greenish-brown.

Mammals

• Dallag – Foot-tall tan with dark brown stripes meercat-like burrowing rodents that make their homes in equatorial sand dunes.
• Itealaich – Resembling a black kangaroo rat, this biorr-climbing rodent’s tail is tightly folded behind it like a fan. When it senses danger, it jumps and fans open the stretchy tail into a parachute so it can travel safely down to the forest floor.

Single-Celled Organisms

• Malaya – Stretching sometimes for thousands of acres, herds of this small bright green, eel-like single-celled organism are a major pest to the Pyracani, as the inedible blobs clog nets and kill sea life. When their main predator, the bolg, was nearly wiped out a few hundred years ago, the creatures began to multiply unchecked, and now require yearly management to prevent them from choking off popular beach sites. They live in equatorial oceans.
• Iadh - Like an inch-long translucent eel, these gossamer green amoebas move via rippling their amazingly thin bodies like flags on a windy day. In a poorly-understood phenomenon, they absorb algae into themselves and somehow co-opt the plants’ powers of photosynthesis. In ancient times, the iadh were tied heavily to fairy stories, and some Pyracani are superstitious about large clouds of iadh to this day. They live in grasslands the world over.