alright since Melly is all "boo hoo monster king your deep and provocative artistic writing is too complex for my cataracts" i will try and write normal human english
here is my character entry also i wish to participate
Story: Humans are not the only earthlings affected by the falling of the citadel. Most self-aware animals (apes, certain dolphins and whales, magpies and elephants among others) also had a case of general "holy shit what the fuck". It is now important to mention that elephants, especially African ones, always had some sort of primitive spirituality, associating things like thunder to "one really big angry elephant stomping around on the clouds" and rain being "one really big elephant showering himself" with quakes being "one really big elephant stomping around on the ground" of course. Until recently they weren't too sure what to make of volcanoes but they were still pretty sure it had to do with one really big elephant. This elephant-centric (who can blame them) view of things led them to think that the white Citadel was one of the elephants' really big tusks, which will lead to any further naming of the Citadel as The Big Tusk in this post.
There is much less to say about lobsters, having not developed intelligence as great as elephants until the Big Tusk fell. They still shat their proverbial pants when it did, though.
When the Big Tusk struck and the world started to change however, the lobsters, being smaller organisms, were the first to notice. Their thoughts went from THERE IS A QUAKE to OH MY PINCER WHAT IS HAPPENING. And then, about at the same time, most of them paused. What is happening, they wondered. They had never lived something so similar, had no information on what to do in this case in their instincts, nothing about such a powerful and strange quake, and unlike elephants did not see the great white object pierce through the Earth due to being so small and usually submerged. The shattering world led to European Lobster populations migrating south towards Africa, with hundreds of lobsters scattering as far as they could without really knowing where, each of them constantly asking in their new, primitive ant-like antenna-based communication "WHAT IS HAPPENING" with no answer in sight.
Elephants however decided to go north-west, towards the Big Tusk, as their curiosity and developing spirituality won against their fear.
As you can probably guess, the two groups ended up crossing each other. Normally, they each would have ignored the other (well, the lobsters would have tried to if it were not for the elephants crushing them underfoot) but it so happened that a fissure-landslide tore up the world right in the middle of the two stampedes (while elephants can't run, they walk fast and especially heavily enough for this to be called a stampede. We will be fair with lobsters and give them "stampede" too.) About half of each population was instantly swallowed by the earth, the others stopped dead in their tracks, looking puzzled at the other group on the other side of the rift.
What happened next was something of a fairy tale. It was the lobsters' answer. When they saw them, they all antenna'd in unison "THIS IS HAPPENING". To the elephants it raised a few more questions, but what was in front of their eyes obviously held great power and importance for all elephants. The most confused were the two individuals that crawled out of the ground, one on each side of the rift. In front of both lobsters and elephants, two "perfect hybrids" emerged from the earth. Half-elephant, half-lobster. Yes, it took a while for everyone present to realize that because it wasn't exactly too obvious what they were looking at but they sort of got it since it was staring at them from both sides.
Then the hybrids looked at their new groups, then they turned around and looked at each other. The chasm was too wide, so they instinctively decided on running along it, to be able to reunite(or just unite?). The lobsters and elephants each decided on following their respective-side special animal, having at this point no better thing to do.
After a two days' run, they got together where the earth was still splitting albeit much slowly and they all got together on the same side. There was some strange celebration made by elephants trumpeting and lobsters saying "IT HAPPENED" to each other.
Luckily, each of the two new animals were of different gender. Elephants named the male one a trumpeting "Farwheee" (lit. four tusk in ground) and the female a loud "Surooo" (lit. red skin and ears). The lobsters having a more primitive way of calling them called them "male it happened" and "female it happened" We will refer in the future to them as Elobsterphants.
They were now seen as protective figures by both species, and their strength proved to be very useful against all the strange things that came from everywhere and nowhere. Lobsters and Elephants coexisted slightly distantly as their new heroes were the only recent link between the two and communication was pretty hard, having only the Elobsterphants to translate. But they still got along and shared some foods. The lobsters adapted to freshwater.
After a few years they were found out by humans and other sentients. While elephants and lobsters remained wary, Farwheee and Surooo took a fast liking to communicating with other species and learned very fast. Their complex mouthparts and trunks allowed them to produce more or less the same sounds than humans, and the trunk plus pincers also allowed for some prehensile action. They still preferred to live with their origin people, but they met with local villages a few times a year, to discuss whatever strange happenings they might have seen lately and to trade off tools and food.
Years later, Surooo gave birth to eight little larvae. It was a moment of incredible celebration.
Another five years brings us to the current moment. As the strange beast minions attacks increase and Farwheee and Surooo learn more about the "Exalted", Farwheee develops more and more anger at these beings. Hearing that other people from all corners of the world want to get rid of the Big Tusk, he decides on helping them. Surooo, sad but understanding, wishes her best as her mate, promising to come back soon, boards a cargo shardship to a less backwards place. Farwheee will not let his children live in such a cruel world.
On his crate is written "FRAGILE BUT ANGRY"
Name: Farwheee (fur-WHEE-ee-eh)
Species: Half-Elephant, Half Lobster "Elobsterphant", term coined by one of the "comical" people who saw Farwheee and Surooo first.
Species traits: Farwheee is a bit smaller though slightly longer than an elephant. He has eight legs with the first (front) pair and the third pair being about twice as large as the other four. All the legs are pretty long and have three articulations instead of two like mammals. He also has great pincers, his left one being the biggest and used for crushing while the right, slightly smaller, can cut. His bulky body is covered by a shell which continues, tail-like, over his behind. His strong red trunk has some shell here and there but is otherwise identical to an elephant's, and it crowns his mouth which is equipped with very nimble mandible mouthpieces, outside of which his two long white tusks come out. He has his elephants' ears too, and the antennae of a lobster.
His large black eyes have sort of a cute sheen to them.
When you take an elephant and add a lobster's shell you get something that is incredibly resilient. Farwhee and his now 10-individual kind seem to have the best traits of both elephants and lobsters, this includes having both bones and an exoskeleton, thick skin covered by a flexible shell. Every once in a while, he also has to molt.
While this is currently known to him only for his trunk which has been severed in the past, if Farwheee lost limbs they would very slowly grow back (a matter of months), with the bone growing even slower (years for the bone to be back to normal, but the part would still be usable because of the exoskeleton).
Farwheee cannot run, but his strange gait-scuttle can outrun a human. However, due to possessing both lungs and gills, he loses breath rather fast unless he is swimming at the surface, during which he can get oxygen from both sources using his trunk as a scuba. His blood includes both Hemoglobin (Iron, Red) and Hemocyanin (Copper, Blue). As a result of this, his blood is purple, being slightly redder when out of the water and slightly bluer when submerged. He is a great swimmer despite his size, as he has a mysteriously controllable buoyancy and his smaller legs allow him to swim efficiently.
Like all male elephants, Farwheee is sadly a victim of
musth. While the effect is diluted, it still stays rougly the same: every once in a while (a few times a year in Farwheee's case), his testosterone and andrenaline levels rise to a point where he is in an unstoppable rage where any and everything seems to be challenging him, and he will attack friend and foe, at the same time if possible. While it happens more often than for a regular elephant, it is thankfully much shorter, lasting "only" a few hours (which beats the usual "more than a week"). When in musth, a black sticky tar-like liquid flows from his temples. Farwheee is aware of those periods and has a rough memory of what happens during it, and he usually is ashamed of what he did during those. However he understands that they are part of his life and usually knows a few hours prior when they are going to happen (his rising testosterone makes him talk aggressively to people but he is conscious enough to tell people to get out of there/ lead him to an unpopulated area). Thankfully, Surooo was strong enough to restrain him during even the worse of his musths.
Just like lobsters, he also has
symbions. These microscopic animals have also been affected by the Big Tusk in that their metabolism has accelerated greatly. While normally this means they only eat slightly more food from Farwhee's mandibles, if they ever get displaced from there they have an instinctual reaction to suddenly consume as much food as possible. The end result is that if Farwheee was ever to bite something, the symbions left on it would attempt to eat it. Of course, they'd die from overeating and they aren't that damaging, though they would probably try to reproduce. A few (hundred but they're small and there's a lot of them) symbions would be able to eat two or three of a human's fingers in about two hours, after which they'd be "back to larval stage" meaning they'd all have reproduced, and they'd come off if scrubbed really vigorously in both stages. They also provide a semi-important part in chewing tougher foods. Maybe they could be blown at enemy but it doesn't sound very practical (or dangerous since they'd spread. maybe used as a poison by a projectile user? even then real poison is better)
Important parts:
Red
Shell, Thick Skin
8 legs
2 huge ears
2 long antennae
2 black eyes
2 pincers
1 prehensile trunk
2 tusks
1 mouth-mandibles
musth
symbions
Cannot run but walks fast
Can swim pretty fast, buoyant
Can breathe in and underwater, only has good cardio if doing both at same time
Can regenerate limbs over long time
Is pretty big (almost as big as elephant)
Gender: Male
Demeanor: He is a soft, big guy, sort of randomly thrust in a leadership position. He asks that everyone does his best and works hard, he can't tolerate people slacking off. However he understands that rest is important. He doesn't talk much but he loves to listen. He has a tendency to treat everyone (except his mate) as his maturing children, but this is his idea of being nice. He also is rather naive, but he's aware of the concept of lying (he doesn't really see the point).
Attributes: STR:1+1
END:1+2
DEX:1
WIS:1+1
WIL:1+3
Equipment: currently, Farwheee only uses some modified saddlebags he uses to carry stuff on his front-part back.
Inventory: In his bags there is dried food (mostly fruits) for a small while (2 days), two big water bottles, some shiny metal stuffs and broken or old tools to trade with humans.
Spells: Currently, he can only use one spell which he nicknames "The Big Elephant stomping on the clouds". By stomping and trumpeting really loud, he can emit a deafening thunder-like sound which would scare away pretty much everything with low intelligence. When i say deafening i mean you can't hear anything for a few minutes. He's been taught this magic by some traveling generous person.
hhheh there we go
i'm not sure how to balance his stats race-wise though, probably a lot of STR and END and not much WIS and DEX hhheh. But how much? You know better Melly :V The stats i've put in are the 7 point "bonuses" you gave us so it's compared to another Elobsterphant i guess, it's kind of hard when everything starts at 1 so i'm not too sure.
EDIT: added support for
Musth and
Symbions
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