#Turns out 'scares the locals' doesn't mean 'is unnaturally and irrevocably evil' when it comes to random rare critters at all

[spidermilkshake]

Ancardia's Unusual Animals--the Tarasque

Classification: Beast (xenarthan)

Habitat: Forested and grassy valleys among Tvearban and the Northern Drakalors.

            While widely reviled as a destructive and hideous monster in many old texts of the Hruunding, in modern times it is understood that the Tarasque is a relatively docile herbivorous relative of the anteaters and sloths of the Southern hemisphere which is only dangerous for its great size compared to other animals. The tarasque usually measures from 2.5 to 2.9 meters from head to tailtip and it usually weighs around 1,400 pounds due to its heavy armoring and thick bone structure. It spends much of its time browsing on legumes, tall grasses, and sometimes rearing higher to reach the branches of low maple and poplar trees. It is for most of the year a solitary beast, only migrating many miles at its own slow pace in the late autumn to find a suitable mate before entering a torpor state for about four weeks in a burrowed den or snow drift to wake to either a heavily-pregnant mate or a mate with a group of 3 to 6 newborn pups. The mother cares for the pups for the first four weeks or until they are successfully weaned, at which point the pups will all follow the father and rely upon him entirely for care. The father gathers new shoots and edible flowers for them in the spring as well as teaching the pups to socialize properly with other tarasque, and while the young tarasque grow more independent once they reach six months, the still return at various times to socialize and learn additional food sources from the parents.

            The tarasque is now understood to be a seclusive and skittish herbivore (and not the rampaging monstrous carnivore it was once believed to be), mostly feeding on long grasses, heather, clover species and wild cranberry and dewberry fruits. It is also noted to enjoy vetches and the kudzu plant which, introduced from the Sivdoth Islands as an ornamental, threatens at some times to take over entire Akimmian towns in the southern areas. Tarasque are, in fact, not so difficult to tame as legends would suggest, and there is a booming business among the river hurthlings of Akimmia to trade tame Tarasque into the Buldar region to be a kudzu control animal in exchange for viable pack beasts like donkeys, desert ponies, and the odd camel. Wild tarasque are largely found mostly just south of Tvearban, where they feed mostly on Ice Age grasses and shrubs in between lands claimed mostly by mammoth and other arctic megafauna.

#ancardia #ancardian homebrew #bestiary #mixed media #creatures #animals #Ancient Domains of Mystery #ADOM #Dnd-like #Tarasque #glyptodont #xenarthan #French mythology #Turns out 'scares the locals' doesn't mean 'is unnaturally and irrevocably evil' when it comes to random rare critters at all