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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 16, 2019 18:40:52 GMT 5
creature386How many of your sand creatures are there? Just one, or several?
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Post by creature386 on Sept 16, 2019 19:41:02 GMT 5
Is the question if I was planning to create more desert animals like the dune maw? I have some more in mind, but most are small (one is bunny-sized, the other is ant sized).
Is the question if dune maws occur in packs? No, they are solitary.
I do have a sauropod-sized alien in mind though and I think we could use it for the battle royale once I have its profile ready.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 16, 2019 20:22:40 GMT 5
Um, no. Neither was the question.
Is there only 1 dune maw in existence (as is the case with all my characters so far), or do several exist?
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Post by creature386 on Sept 16, 2019 20:35:33 GMT 5
Ah.
There are several in existence. In fact, the profile uses the plural (dune maws) quite often and has a section on reproduction where it is explained that they reproduce sexually and try to avoid incest; both implies that there are whole populations of them.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 16, 2019 20:38:33 GMT 5
That's good for the battle royale. They seemed a bit weak for the other characters, so good that we can have several to even things out.
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Post by creature386 on Sept 16, 2019 20:43:55 GMT 5
If you want to use them, maybe I should first share the draft of a chapter of mine where we see a dune maw in action (might help in case GreenArrow struggles to depict them). The chapter is currently in German and about 2,700 words long, but I can translate it and cut some parts out.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 16, 2019 20:45:29 GMT 5
Maybe that would be a good idea, yes.
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Post by creature386 on Sept 16, 2019 21:20:58 GMT 5
OK, here's the chapter. Sorry for the awkward phrasing, I had google translator help me. Rephrasing would have taken too much time. The chapter went on a bit longer, but I cut out everything that happened after the dune maw's defeat. There are some references to previous chapters which can be ignored. Heaven and earth merged in their colors. It was hard to tell from my vantage point where the grain-soaked air stopped and where the ground began. No sandstorm was to blame. For the conditions of Shadowmoon, this was more of a breeze. Although the wind was slow, the dense atmosphere kept the grains of sand under control. Here, every gust felt like a wave of water.
Only the pitch-black pyramid stood out from the dirty horizon. I was not allowed to give up! Stamina was my only strength. I was always ready to do things that were uncomfortable for me.
My biggest enemy, however, was an inner one. For two Shadowmoon days, I resisted the call of nature. For two Shadowmoon days, I repressed my bladder and delayed the inevitable. Opening the suit was not an option, certainly not in such a situation. I had to give in. My diaper became warmer and wetter. Although I had been mentally prepared for that, I still felt like a baby. This feeling would accompany me for the rest of my journey. It would be even more unpleasant if it happened again.
Paradoxically, the longer I thought about it, the more pleasant it became. Almost as if someone suck out the urine from my diaper. All I had to do was press my hand against my buttocks to see that my diaper was actually fresh.
A self-cleaning diaper. Should I return to earth and share the knowledge of this miracle, retirement homes worldwide would be revolutionized. Not to mention space travel. Did you know that a member of the Apollo 11 crew even needed special pills just to avoid diarrhea?
Another gust blew me out of my daydreams. With outstretched arms, I kept the balance and did not even notice that my foot was caught.
I stumbled. Instinctively I clutched the nearest bush. A good choice, because something pulled my leg backwards. The tentacle of a sand dune-shaped monster squeezed the blood out of my ankle and pulled it closer. I could not recognize its mouth. Except for the tentacles, only the four red compound eyes, two large ones outside, two small ones inside, distinguished it from the surrounding hills.
I pulled my other leg back. The critter was about my height, but it was so weak that it did not even break my bush. At least that's what I thought until it grabbed my ankle with another tentacle. And with one more. Four tentacles. Five tentacles. Six tentacles.
The plant broke. I grabbed the fleeting sand in the folly that I was able to escape his appetite. As expected, it only flowed through my hooked fingers.
There was only one chance. With my free leg, I its exterior left eye. Immediately, the eye retreated into its skull and hid under a nictitating membrane.
The monster let me go.
I pulled the other leg back, too and ran.
I did not have a real goal. I just wanted to be as far away from it as possible until my exhaustion forced me to take a break. I had to pass that path anyway. Were there more of these, should I call them dune maws?
As a glance over my shoulder revealed, it was too early to think about it.
The dune maw was right behind me!
With its stubby legs, the creature could really run!
Faster! Come on, faster!
I stuck my head forward like a bull in the hope of defeating the headwind. Did the dune maw have similar problems? With its higher surface area it was less aerodynamic. On the other hand, it was more stable and when I stumbled, that was my end.
Don’t think so much, Lukas! Just run! Imagine the monster was Mr. Krasic!
The thought gave me the strength to climb a towering dune. It gave me an overview of the murky landscape. In the ocean of dark sand, I recognized a black spot in a dune. An cave? Hopefully a big one this time.
I slid down the steep dune side and ran towards this cave. The idiot that was me almost stumbled!
I zigzagged like a rabbit while my bush swirled up the sand. It was more of an act of desperation than anything else, because the dune maw was used to sand in the eyes. However, even it had to have limits.
The hole got bigger and bigger and as I got closer I saw several of its kind. Probably a cave system. Didn’t matter, because I could only take the next entrance anyway.
My abdominal muscles ached. That's what happens when you run for your life while being half-starved.
Come on! Only a little bit more!
The cave was right in front of me and it was big enough for me to crawl. I plunged in head over heels and crawled on all fours as deep as reason demanded. That must have been a really big sausage worm here. Six tentacles grabbed after me, but my legs were safe.
Mr. Krasic was right. I was proud of my performance today. Otherwise, I was always the last in 100-meter races.
I searched my flashlight. I almost never used it because I couldn’t exactly change batteries, but this was a justified exception. I needed to learn if there really was a cave system here.
A wing hit my helmet. I turned on my stomach and wanted to get to my knees, but was stopped by the hole’s ceiling. Another wing beat me. My attacker made itself visible: a luminous, six-legged creature, who looked at me with two pairs of big, cute eyes. It was almost as big as the cave and flashed in pinkish-white colors. On each of the two spread-out, bat-like wings hung two remnants of two tentacles. The membranes were attached to a third tentacle resembling the elongated fourth finger of bats. The frightened animal rammed my helmet and pushed me to the exit. From this perspective, it was not possible to see the Dünenmaul. I was shoved again.
"I'm sorry I invaded your house, but I have to survive," I said.
The creature stopped glowing and backed away.
"Did you understand what I-„
The sky exploded. Like a vampire, I crawled deeper into the darkness, away from the gleaming light. Even with my eyes closed, my inner world was illuminated with bright radiane.
Was this one of those solar flares for which M stars, or red dwarf stars, were so well known? Solar flares are events in which a star releases a lot of UV at once. Red dwarfs are particularly vulnerable to this, which is why many scientists think there is no life around them. If I'm dealing with one here, its eruptions are either rare, not so bad or the animals are adapted to it. If this moon orbits a red dwarf it explains why the plants are black here, because a G-star like the sun would produce green vegetation. This moon becomes more and more alien to me the more I learn about it.
Another push. Blind as a bat, I struck around, hoping to hit a membrane. The flood of light disappeared. I blinked a few times and opened my eyes again. The tentacle bat started to ram my helmet again. I suppose it was not made of glass because it survived the blows easily. With my flashlight, I tried to scare the animal away. It pushed me again.
As much as it hurt me to hurt it, Survival of the Fittest was the rule number one on Shadowmoon.
There was only one short stick left of my bush, but it was enough. When the creature annoyed me again with its wings, I ripped open its membrane so that it retreated.
I’m sorry.
As it moved away from me, my flashlight recognized more of the cave complex.
As suspected, there were branches that led to different exits. There was no way I could exit the way I entered, because if it was wise, the dune maw waited like a cat in front of a mouse hole.
The junction where two caverns met was thicker than usual. Several of these tentacle bats were gathered here, but they knew they had to make space for me.
Now, it was time to get up. It was like at the playground, where I sometimes climbed up the chute slides. I found that exhausting, but here the walls were even more slippy and the gravity was higher.
Carefully, I put one hand outside and then the other. If the dune maw were here, it would have grabbed me already long ago. I moved outside. As expected, only dunes and plants. There was no wind, although in this ocean-like atmosphere, it did not mean that all sand had fallen to the ground. Nevertheless, the view had improved. One could now distinguish yellow sand from orange.
When I searched for the pyramid, I fell again.
The dune maw, it was still there! As the closed eye showed, it was the one I had kicked. It had learned and immediately grabbed both of my legs at once.
How did it find me?
I stabbed my stick in the ground, but found no stable grip. This time, I could only watch helplessly as the dune maw ate my leg.
The hideous, spiky throat of the carnivore squeezed against my lower leg and pumped immeasurable pain into my nerves. Like ten bees the size of buzzards stabbing at once.
I needed to act quickly before it broke my foot. I rammed the stick right into its eye as if it were a stake in a cyclops eye.
The critter withdrew.
My ankle was not broken, just sprained because the suit prevented worse. Still, it was torn and I could not walk with my leg. Strangely, I did not have to.
I lay there four-legged on my back, in crab position, while the dune maw just stared at me.
Is it blind because I destroyed its eyes?
Slowly, I got up again. I wanted to depart with the bush as a cane, but the creature grabbed my arm. The stick fell to the ground and my hand would soon be its next meal. There wasn’t much I could do. I could barely walk on one foot and my free arm stood no chance against its tentacles.
Then a scene from The Future After Man came to my mind. I untied my backpack and threw it next to me. The dune maw let go of me and followed it. The backpack was too hard to be seriously hurt. I just wanted to have it away from me.
In The Future After Man, there is a scene that dealt with so-called mammoth lizards 75 million years in the future. These animals are really huge and are constantly compared to elephants by the documentary. I for my part learned an interesting detail. Elephants have some kind of seismic sense with which they can pick up vibrations in the ground. That’s how they detect hunters from miles away and that’s how the dune maw knew exactly from which hole I would appear.
Now that the vision was bad and its eyes were gone, the seismic sense was all it had. Since it didn’t know where I was, I had bought myself time.
It was right in front of me at a distance of no more than two meters. I would not leave until I defeated it.
Like a caveman, I stormed towards it with my spear and stabbed into one of its small interior eyes. A nictitating membrane covered the wounded compound eye like a patch.
That was it. That was the final blow needed to chase it away. It was a predator. A predator which it was not used prey that fights back. |
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Post by DonaldCengXiongAzuma on Sept 16, 2019 21:49:12 GMT 5
DonaldCengXiongAzuma Battle Royale: 6 Nile crocs, 527 kg each 8 Deinonychus, 100 kg each Carnotaurus, 2 tons 8 Pachycrocuta, 108 kg each 4 Megaraptor, 1.5 tons each 2 Daspletosaurus, 2.8 tons each Tarbosaurus, 6 tons Carcharodontosaurus, 8 tons Purussaurus, 8 tons Spinosaurus, 7 tons Eight deinonychus arrived to drink by the river. Six Nile crocs appear out of nowhere and drag all but two deinonychus into the river killing them with a death roll. The crocs were joined by a spinosaurus which killed one of the Nile crocs and displaced the rest. The purussaurus arrived and killed one of the fleeing nile crocs before attackting the spinosaurus by biting its neck and killing it with a death roll. The last two deinonychus were killed by two carnotaurus as they fled from the crocs. Eight pachycrocuta arrived at the smell of blood but wisely kept their distance. The megaraptors and the two daspletosaurus arrived and killed the pachycrocutas before fighting each other. The four megaraptors fought with the two daspletosaurus. The fight drew the attention of the two carnotaurus and a three way fight happened and ended up with one daspletosaurus surviving. The last daspletosaurus was killed by a tarbosaurus. The tarbosaurus was approached by a carcharodontosaurus. The carcharodntosaurus managed to injure and kill the tarbosaurus using its agility and slicing bite. However, it let down its guard at one point and gave the tarbosaurus an opportunity to bite its right arm and render it useless. The injured carcharondontosaurus went to the river and killed a resting Nile croc before taking a drink at the river. The purussaurus attacked and dragged the carcharodontosaurus into the river and killed it with a death roll. This ended with the purussaurus and the last three Nile crocs partaking of the carcharodontosaurus' dead body. The purussaurus got the best share and became the 'croc boss'. |
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 16, 2019 22:22:06 GMT 5
Thanks once again!
However, I meant 1 Carnotaurus. But very good fight
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 16, 2019 22:24:55 GMT 5
OK, here's the chapter. Sorry for the awkward phrasing, I had google translator help me. Rephrasing would have taken too much time. The chapter went on a bit longer, but I cut out everything that happened after the dune maw's defeat. There are some references to previous chapters which can be ignored. Thanks! Should be useful for the battle royale like I said earlier |
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Post by creature386 on Sept 17, 2019 2:43:52 GMT 5
I'll make the profile for the terrapod (the sauropod-sized alien mentioned before) tomorrow. Then, we already have seven combatants for that battle royale (Elephant Smasher, Terrestrialis, AVA Mapu, Rex-Wrecker, Pedro, an unknown number of dune maws and a terrapod). One more and we have eight which should be fine.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 17, 2019 18:56:20 GMT 5
creature386What was that animal you made on Carnivora last November? I think it might make a nice addititon to the fight DonaldCengXiongAzumaI will make more charaters today. Stay tuned!
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Post by creature386 on Sept 18, 2019 2:33:13 GMT 5
The terrapod profile is done, but I'm pretty sure I invented no animals whatsoever last November.
Maybe your science Carnotaurus could fill in the eight spot?
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 18, 2019 2:43:51 GMT 5
Good idea!
Once I find it's info I will post it
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