Diamond Megafauna pt1
Welcome to Diamond Kingdom, may luck be with you.
The diamond kingdom, usually described as a dying land by its own citizens, it wasn’t always like that. It was never as lush as the Heart Kingdom but decades ago it could sustain its inhabitants without much difficulty, all it took was one bad drought and everything seemed to keep going downwards ever since.
Not only were humans affected by it, animals needed to adapt quickly. Survival of the fittest at its cruelest, either adapt or die. Many creatures managed to speed up their adaptability thanks to their magic and mana, many others died out.
The creatures that inhabit this seemingly dying land are some of the most aggressive even when they actions are driven by curiosity. Territories get fought for till death, food goes scarce more often than not, when people chose where they go or live they must be careful.
There are many ways to die in Diamond Kingdom.
Crystal Armadillo
Crystal magic
Out of the many fauna found in the Diamond Kingdom, the armadillos can be some of the most calmest creatures anyone can find, more often then not solitary. They usually make their homes deep in caves and mines where they will eat any crystals that they find as a means to strengthened their plates of armour that covers them.
These creatures are often an urban myth nowadays with how deep inside they go into the caves, even going as far as to form whole labyrinths out of them by breaking and digging new pathways in order to find more crystals or other gemstones, it depends on the individuals tastes which rocks they eat and add into their armour.
They go out of their way to avoid creatures that they see as a treat to themselves, not for being a harmless creature but more out of the necessity of not wanting to was more energy than what they already do roaming around with crystals growing out of their skins slowing them down quite a bit, though, if the situation calls for it, they are more that capable to defend themselves be it by clawing, biting or using their tail to slash at their aggressor.
Their magic affects many structures of their bodies most noticeable is their shells and tails but it can be also be seen in patches of their skin, teeth and claws as a sort of additional defence and offence points. Their mana usually reacts with nearby crystals making both the armadillos skin and the crystals glow, which makes them a great detector for them but any person that has tried capturing them can end up disembowelled by their claws or forever lost in the many deep caves they roam.
Their armour plates is their best defence but it does not allow them to move quite as comfortable as they could, sometimes poking themselves on accident or wounding one another when sharp edges meet skin. Very few individuals can actually manage to for a defensive ball, it is more common for them to develop blade like structures at the end of their tail as an added defence than balling themselves up.
Baby armadillos are born without any armour at the beginning. Their plates are originally made out of soft bony tissue that is more mobile and pretty delicate compared to what it will became but slowly the bony cells that make them start changing. First into a more hard bone then slowly turn into crystals as their magic and mana gathers inside them, it takes them one to two years to complete this process, slow but in the end, worth it.
Dessert shark
Sand magic
Land dwellers sharks that can be found in every dessert that are part of the many territories of the Diamond Kingdom. Once upon a time, they inhabited the oceans like any fish would but scarcity and increasing fights with other species forced them to leave, many fled to the open ocean but some weaker individuals unable to survive such odyssey were left with little choice but to stay.
It was then that these creatures started trying out land.
In was a painfully slow process for every shark, initially only banking themselves to catch anything, using their magic to get back in the water, years of forcing their gill slits closed and holding their breath started a change in their anatomy. Their gills internalised and became a pseudo-lung, body became accustomed to the levels of oxygen of the air, and their scales thickened from the constant drag of the sand.
Nowadays these animals swim through sand as if it were water, their magic allows the sand to act similar to a liquid around them and even prevent it from getting into their mouths by accident. They have acquired a semi-terrestrial status, they are still able to go back into the water, even open their slits but they seem to prefer the land since its offers them more choices of food and shelter.
In recent years some individuals have been spotted developing a sort of clawed fin that cloud end up becoming more like a paw in the future.
They live in thigh nit groups that follow one leader that it is often the eldest of the shiver, hunting small things like insects, small reptiles and mammals, or even sometimes catching bigger game like the giant golden birds of the desert. Their hunting consist on swimming in circles constantly till the sand all around becomes a death trap, swallowing anything that stands on it and giving them no chance to swim out to safety. The creatures trapped by this either die by the crushing pressure of the sand or by a school of frenzying sharks.
People travelling through the desert are advised to try and hide their mana levels to the best of their abilities or travel in big groups, since these creatures have both an acute mana sense and are still attuned to electromagnetic fields that lets them find possible food. It is not uncommon for people to lose a limb or two from a curious shiver of sharks that took a bite out of them as a means of checking if the person was food or not.
People usually die more from blood loss, infection or the sand breaking their bones than getting actually eaten by sharks.
Storm Goats
Lightning magic
These ungulates are easily found in some of the tallest mountains that the Diamond Kingdom has an abundance of. High enough that one would think they could scrape the sky, rocky and with very few plant ground around, these goats’ digestive system has changed through the years to be able to suck out everything they could need from the little food they get. Needing to ruminate multiple times the same cud before it even goes to through their intestine track where all the water gets taken out of it before it gets expelled.
More often then not, these animals can be found licking, and sometimes chewing, on rocks or clay for minerals. There are occasions where they end up munching on very unfortunate mice, lizards and small birds but that only happens on more dire situations.
Their coat is both long and thick on the outer layers with a texture that is close to wire, specially around their necks where it grows the longest and serves as an additional storage of static-like mana that attracts the clouds floating around their necks, furthermore, it works as an impermeable layer that doesn’t let the water reach the animals’ skin. There is second more short, thin layer of hair that hides beneath the longer one, it helps them keep warm in the high up altitudes and during warmer seasons its even thinner, helping trap cold air and prevent over heating.
Their magic is concentrated mainly on their horns and thickest part of their skulls and hooves. Their horns are constantly growing and never fall off, though they often curl and run the risk of perforating their faces, they could also sprout small tines at some angles, one way to control their growth is to scrape them against rocks.
During territory disputes or mating seasons, males can cause small fires on accident. Their magic and mana begins gathering in great quantities on their horns and heads, and it shoots out before or during headbutting each other, it ends up sparkling on the surroundings and sometimes hitting a patch of dry grass, thus starting a small fire. These matches can often attract storms and, for villagers living in the mountains, it is hard to tell if the lightning and crackling sound that follows is a common thunderstorm or a pair of goats fighting.
They can be extremely aggressive to humans and other creatures, and won’t hesitate in kicking them with a hove full of lightning or a good old fashioned headbutting off a cliff. Some people say that jumping out of their own will, would be a painless death compared to getting deep fried and headbutted by these caprines.
Mud Otter.
Mud magic
Clawless mustelids that inhabit swamp-like habitats in the Diamond Kingdom, can swim but spent most of their time on land, living in groups of fifteen up to twenty individuals composed by the parents and their many children or some elder members with no relation to the group that joined later on life.
Non weaved hands with only two clawed fingers but they are pretty dexterous with how they use them, managing to pick objects and having basics problem solving skills that helps them using rocks and sticks to aid in getting food or breaking hard shells or fishing small animals out of burrows.
Their knowledge of how to use tools is not the only way the hunt in their habitat, hunting is similar to when the play slide in their home. Using their magic to shift the terrain into quicksand, which they use as a trap they will lead small critters into it before making the kill. This same strategy also helps them deal with terrestrial predator, which they also will consume if they trap them.
These creatures are a territorial bunch, even more so when there young ones around, if their quicksand traps were to not work, they are more then capable of chasing intruders away. Using their magic not only to slide around but also in a similar fashion to sand sharks, swimming in it and jumping out of it so they can knock their target into the ground where they will maul them.
Aggressive towards intruders but playful with one another, the adults will encourage pups to chase them around, collect rocks for the young to start learning how to use them and keep them later, since is not unusual for an otter to have a preferred rock they use for cracking shells. This does not apply to stick which they break more often but some otters do keep them for as long as they can.
No one can recommend living nearby swamps. Not only it has the most unstable and changing terrain but the chances of stumbling into a mob of otters are extremely high and if someone starts hearing the clicks and other cries they make, it is already to late to start running.