Black Bat
Taxonomy: Cloudkin (Bat)
Description: Bats reside within the dark places of the world, roosting in caves and other secluded locales. It is common knowledge that they are nocturnal creatures, but more dedicated research by the scholars of the realm has uncovered that they are capable of feats of extremely keen hearing and a technique called echolocation. Although most bats feed on insects and fruit, folklore has long held that some of them instead feed on blood.
Cave Aurelia
Taxonomy: Wavekin (Jellyfish)
Description: Unusual creatures, dissection has demonstrated that the Jellyfish is capable of a crude form of flight by expelling gas from its body. The tendrils of a jellyfish contain potent stinging barbs which can disable their foe.
Giant Clam
Taxonomy: Wavekin (Clam)
Description: A frankly bizarre specimen, the researchers sent into the Seagrot report that these giant clams were capable of emitting clusters of minor ashkin. The mechanism for how this might be achieved would take a finer aetherologist than I to divine, but some researchers have posited that they might gather the aether of those who perish in the Seagrot as sustenance which then forms into the corpselights and are released as defensive measures.
Shade Seeker
Taxonomy: Ashkin (Will-o’-the-wisp)
Description: Amongst the simplest of the ashkin, wisps such as these are found in folk tales across the realms as lures leading the lost into further danger. Theories as to their true nature abound, however, and alternate from orbs of burning gas animated by the aether of the corpse they emitted from to the souls of the dead themselves.
Fossilshell
Taxonomy: Wavekin (Crab)
Description: Giants crabs such as these, often called snipper crabs, are abundant across Eorzea and beyond. Their strength makes them a thoroughly inconvenient food-source however, and only the qiqirn rat-folk commonly eat them due to the effort needed to pierce their iron-hard shells. The true reasons for their naming by the people of Vylbrand is unclear, but one might posit that the fossils mentioned in their name refers to the beast’s habit of consuming limestone, a rock composed of long-dead wavekin, in order to reinforce their shell.
Sastasha Orobon
Taxonomy: Wavekin (Orobon)
Description: Previously considered myth due to the only reports of their existence coming from fishermen catching sight of something in their deepest fishing nets, the orobon has since become an uncomfortable reality. They, like the sahagin and so many other aquatic creatures, have been driven to the surface by the Seventh Umbral Calamity.
Etymology Notes: The orobon, or orabau, is named for a cryptid of Brazil reported by the priest Andre Thevet in the 14th century. Most noted for being foul-tasting, the orobon was almost certainly a misidentified reptile but the name serves to reinforce the pseudo-mythical status of the orobon in Eorzea pre-calamity.
Chopper
Taxonomy: Beastkin (Coeurl)
Description: When the adventurers returned from their purge of Sastasha they reported a most unusual creature found within, a fearsome coeurl named ‘Chopper’ by the Serpent Reavers that smuggled it into the cove. Indeed, it was rumors of a wild coeurl pack within Sastasha that kept the settlers of Western La Noscea away from the cove, allowing the Reavers to settle it without conflict. These beasts are native to the Near East, and are famed for both their savagery and ability to channel lightning-aspected aether through the long appendages attached to their face.
Capabilities: According to the adventurers that slew Chopper the beast was as capable as any coeurl at channeling lightning aether through its appendages, a technique we will name ‘charged whisker’.
Scurvy Dog
Taxonomy: Beastkin (Jackal)
Description: A subspecies of the common wolf found most commonly on Vylbrand, the jackal is an expert tracker and although they are usually content to scavenge their hunger can sometimes drive them to violence. So, it seems, can, the urgings of men, as seen by the ferocity of the guard dogs of the Serpent Reavers.
Captain Madison
Taxonomy: Spoken (Hyur)
Description: The former captain of the Serpent Reavers met his end at the hands of his sahagin overlords after failing to hold off the assault of the adventurers that purged the Seagrot. Madison was famously craven but managed to rise the ranks due to his low cunning. Records held by the Admiralty at Limsa Lominsa indicate that he was a simple navigator aboard a merchant vessel with crippling gambling debts, forcing him to flee from the city. He joined the Serpent Reavers and was quickly tempered by Leviathan, albeit only very lightly.
The Serpent Reavers
Taxonomy: Spoken (Various)
Description: The Serpent Reavers are an expansive pirate crew of sailors tempered by Leviathan and used as fodder by the sahagin in their offensive against Limsa Lominsa and the Maelstrom. Their ranks appear to be organized into groups named as Shallow, and then their role. A Shallowclaw is a pugilist, for example.
Denn the Orcatoothed
Taxonomy: Spoken (Sahagin)
Description: The sahagin assigned as the overseer of the Serpent Reavers stationed in the Seagrot, Denn was a warrior of renown amongst his kin and earned the title of Orcatoothed due to his viciousness and tenacity, compared to the fearsome orca. He was also a noted strategist, and the intelligence gatherers of the Maelstrom report that it was he who was pioneer of the sahagin’s use of tempered men in their invasion of Vylbrand’s coast.
Capabilities: Denn is capable, as so many sahagin are, of using water-aspected aether to cast watery spells to damage his prey.
Baleen Guard
Taxonomy: Spoken (Sahagin)
Description: Lesser sahagin, these were likely the personal guards of Denn dispatched alongside him by the Indigo Matriarch, monarch of all the sahagin. Baleen, my fellow archons tell me, is an array of filaments used by whales to strain their food through water. This may be a metaphor for the responsibility of these guardians in filtering who is allowed access to Denn, but who can truly gauge the intentions of the sahagin.
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