The Thirsty Ones

They starve, but do not die; they hunger, but never cease to eat. The Thirsty Ones are great pulpy, tentacled terrors from the depths. Beaks. Grinding parts. Soul Teeth.They are the fundament of every ocean in Wingspan. And they are spreading to other worlds.

Brian Farm, Totem 1 (2005)
http://marine.alaskapacific.edu/octopus/expedition%20artists%20b%20farm.php

The oldest Elders among the Thirsty Ones are sessile, fixed to the ocean floors. They congregate to form a mile-deep mountain of writhing muscle and flesh at the bottom of the world. Indeed, the Thirsty Ones form their own interstitial zones.

The Thirsty Ones relieve the crushing depth pressure on their enormous mother-mass by fractioning their mass into the overlapping elemental interstitial zones that connect the waters of Wingspan to the oceans of the worlds beyond it. Just one of their tentacles can fill a Tidal Pool. The Thirsty Ones are Spherewalkers of a sort, threading their bodies across deep Water Gates in unbroken, fleshy threads. Thus they contaminate the oceans of other spheres.

The Elders in the mother-mass don't ascend to feed; they simply uncoil and extend their tentacles upward for a mile or more, until they find something interesting. The Thirsty Ones breed unusually; small Thirsty One males mate with sessile females. Eggs are laid right on the mother mass. Even the smallest of their children are a match for primordial megasharks or deep-hulled trade ships.

Image Reference at End of Post

As the young ones grow, they become ship killers - a constant threat to trade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_octopus_attacks_ship.jpg  

A few of the very bravest sailors in the Sitting Dog Archipelago dive in and swim among the Thirsty Ones to gain their impressive Valor Scars. But they can only swim among the smallest of the Thirsty Ones, and even the smallest of the small can be deadly. Their tentacles have rings of sucker mouths with barbs that attach to flesh and rend it. Frequently, the tentacles also have poisonous stinging cells.

Sharks are easy prey for even for the smallest of these horrors. Attract sharks, and Thirsty Ones will appear. Don't try to fight the Thirsty Ones unless you have elemental magic, Whale Swords, or friends in the Dragon Trade with Dragon-toothed swords to sell you. Any of these weapons might work against a small Thirsty One.


We will present creature stats for small Thirsty Ones next week.

Megashark vs. Giant Squid image reference