Bestiary for Author's Realm

[Necropolis]

From the original thread:
INTEREST CHECK - Author's Realm [Massive Group RP]

"Hi, I'm Necropolis, the best teenager of the year! This is the beginning of a Bestairy for my new group roleplay, Author's Realm, which takes place in a digital world called The Grid.
The Grid is a unique fantasy world that is mainly special because it can bring your characters... to life basically. You have a vampire that is resistant to sunlight and can brainwash it's victims, The Grid can make it. You have a character made entirely of slime that has the ability to turn others into slime as well, The Grid does too. You have a cyborg from the year 2150 that just got put into cryogenic sleep in deep space, well not anymore, because The Grid can bring them to you.
You can only get to The Grid through a special headset, kind of like the Nerve-Gear in Sword Art Online, but with only one game that is far ahead of it's time. I might also make a sort of preview of how the story is meant to play out, but I'm not sure yet... Enough rambling though, here we go!"

BESTIARY OF OUR WORLD
BY: ARGOUS MALREW

INTRODUCTION
As a young boy, I grew up on the countryside near the great city of Vael, and I had dreams of being an adventurer and travelling the wide world of Svijet as most young boys do. As I grew, unlike other children that I knew who came to reality and began looking for a more steady career, my sights remained watching the world outside the protective walls of Vael. Eventually, my parents ceased their efforts to sway me, and on my fifteenth birthday they informed me that they had found a mentor that would train me to survive in the unforgiving wilderness and pursue my dreams. He taught me for the next year and even a bit into my adulthood, where he gave me an official adventurer's token that would allow me to travel wherever I may please without consequence, as long as I respected the land. I traveled for around nine years before my heart began aching for home, so I obliged and returned to Vael where I lived with my parents until I was able to find a job. I became a soldier, as my years of adventuring had earned me the proper qualifications to be enlisted into service. It was in the kingdom's military that I discovered that I had a passion for writing that was able to match that of my passion for exploring. I began experimenting with what I could write, but I did not know very much about what to write about until my mother suggested that I write about my time in the wild. While the idea did seem good, it lit a flame in my heart that pushed me to begin writing this book. After nearly two years, my works have been completed, and you now hold a copy of my crowning achievement, or the original in the case that my child is old enough to read this. With that said, please enjoy, The Bestiary of Our World ~

Chapter 1 - Illusives
Illusives are the creatures that are generally able to find you before you find them. They prefer to remain away from prying eyes, whether they be humanoid or creature, and have evolved to remain hidden in plain sight. If you look carefully, you might see one or two of these creatures the next time you venture out of city limits. As an explorer, I will tell you some useful tips on how to avoid confrontation with these creatures, though you'll have to find some other adventurer if you ever feel like killing any of the following.

Creature #1 - Crystal Wyrm

A Crystal Wyrm is a very illusive creature and infinitely more intelligent than it's cousin that we are all so familiar with, a dragon. Crystal Wyrms vary in size depending on their situation; How much food are they eating, do they have a good atmosphere in which to grow, what threats do they face, and how fierce is the competition between males? The largest recorded Crystal Wyrm was measured to be roughly 137 feet long, with a wingspan of 93 feet long. It should also be noted before I continue that Crystal Wyrms are flightless despite their large wings, but are incredibly fast and can change the color or the crystals that adorn their hide, which is leathery and thick like that of a troll rather than scaly and hard like a dragon.

• Crystal Wyrms can be found living mainly in the harsh and mainly uninhabitable Crystal Fields, though they do travel in search of water or food before returning to the Crystal Fields if times are tough or competition of territory is fierce.
• Crystal Wyrms mainly feed on the crystals at the surface of Crystal Fields that aid in the digestion of other foods and can sustain themselves for at least 2 months before crystals will no longer sustain their needs.
• Crystal Wyrms cannot use their breath as a weapon as dragons and drakes do, but they are unbelievably deadly in close range due to the fact that the crystals lining their hide are pointed like daggers and shaped like blades. Contrary to common belief, the eyes of a Crystal Wyrm are not a "soft spot" as they have double layered eyelids, with the inside eyelid being able to cover the eye in an instant and deflect any thrown object.
• Crystal Wyrms cannot fly, as their wings are made of crystals despite their feather-like appearance. They can glide, however, and will jump across gaps that would normally be impassable. It is interesting to note that Crystal Wyrms can use their wings as shields, and will often do so to protect their bodies from rocks, explosions, and other things that their leathery hide would not protect against.
• If one can get close enough to a Crystal Wyrm, touching the base of the tail where the spine connects to the tail can completely incapacitate a Crystal Wyrm. This is the best way to handle a Crystal Wyrm at close range, as they remain paralyzed for half an hour. Using this knowledge, I was able to find that three out of four Crystal Wyrms were able to ba calmed before they regained movement. The fourth almost skinned me alive, but luckily it left me alone after I fell unconscious.
• Crystal Wyrms can become Inuictaque Wyrms after consuming Inuictaque crystals. This will send them into an unpredictable state, and there was one disturbing report that I received where a Inuictaque Wyrm tried to take a traveler as a mate, though luckily it came to it's senses before anything severe happened. On another, lighter note, there was yet another report where an Inuictaque Wyrm tried to take a farmer and his family to it's lair, presumably as a pet as it showed them incredibly tame traits like that of a parent or caretaker.
• Crystal Wyrms are found to prefer blue crystals, and will turn the crystals in their hide blue like Sapphire when not in a Crystal Field. Inuictaque Wyrms take on a cloudy black color with dull flashing colors every now and again. Their necks are undoubtedly quite long, though it is unapparent where their neck ends and their body begins, much like a snake. They have no limbs other than wings, which they use like a bat despite their bird-like appearance. It is quite difficult to tell the difference between males and females, though the main feature of males is that the crystals lining the head of a male are more horn-like while those of a female are more smooth and lie more flat against their hide. The illustration that I have used below was drawn by a fellow adventurer, who has obviously drawn an adult female Crystal Wyrm.

Creature #2 - Sand Box

Sand Boxes are, as the title of this chapter implies, also incredibly illusive. Sand Boxes are unique in the way they hide, as they often don't purposely do so, and one would have to have a trained eye to find a Sand Box. Much like Mirroars in the mythic Mirror Jungles, Sand Boxes can copy the appearance of any individual it so chooses, though it is quite imperfect, as it is visibly made of sand and it does not have any of the abilities or intelligence of the original person or creature. This is a double-edged sword for the Sand Box, as it can challenge the dominance of creatures and reveal their presence to humanoids.

• Sand Boxes have a magical heart that acts as the core of their being, and is truly the only reason they are able to function. The size of a Sand Box is entirely dependant upon the amount of magic stored in it's core, with the largest being at 6 feet tall and 5 1/2 feet wide.
• These creatures are named Sand Boxes due to their first sighting; an elf was travelling through the desert on his way to another forest and set down his box of belongings to drink from a small puddle. After the elf had drank as much as was necessary, he turned to find two boxes, one that was his and one that was made entirely of sand. He touched the Sand Box and it fell into a pile of sand, where it started sliding across the desert's surface like a liquid. Since then, their names are Sand Boxes.
• Sand Box cores look to be hard and crystalline, but are actually soft and gooey, and will leave a harmless thin sheen on the hands or gloves of the holder. Their cores are used for cleansing purposes mainly, due to this liquid property as well as their unique ability to defy dirt and sand of any kind, though they are also used as a coolant and to keep metal protected from rust and corrosion. As a unit of measurement, the average sized Sand Box core weighs about 45 grams, or 0.1 pound, and can generally coat 3 or 4 blades measuring 6 feet if used sparingly.
• No matter how many Sand Boxes you kill, there will always be more. If you're into the mood of creating rather than destroying, however, than you can make your very own Sand Box. The process is easy, and even a human child with no magical abilities can manage it if done properly. The ingredients are simple:
  • • Water
    • Sand
    • Oil
    • A small gem of any kind
    • Stomach Acid or another acid
  • The process is simple, mix the water with the oil and acid, which will create a foul smell like that of burning rotting wood, and cover the crystal in it with gloves to avoid burns. After about a day, the mixture will have broken down the crystal and became a semi-solid jello-like substance that can be touched, able to absorb any stray magical energy from nearby. Put this core in your container of sand and it will cover itself in time and begin moving freely.
• Though Sand Boxes have no brain or organs of any kind, they are able recognize emotions and form thoughts of their own, must likely due to the magic in their system. Sand Boxes can experience basic emotions, like happiness, sadness, and anger, but complex emotions like love or depression are alien to them.
• Sand boxes make useful pets, and are often a go-to for beginners in any career. If given detailed instructions and the necessary materials, Sand Boxes can also become more complex things, like a spyglass or a pulley.
• Sand Boxes do not take any specific shape, but this is an illistation of the core of a Sand Box. This Sand Box's core was clearly made from a white crystal of some kind.

Creature #3 - Aqualine

An Aqualine is a mammal that can blend into the water to almost completely disappear. They have a body very similar to that of a feline, thus the name, aqua feline. The only truly solid bones in their body are that of their head and spine, while the rest are slightly flexible cartilage to allow Aqualines to move fluidly through water and enter more confined spaces. Aqualines are generally larger than the land-dwelling domestic cat, averaging at around the size of a medium sized dog like a golden retriever or a bulldog, but are often just as stubborn and defiant as a cat.

• Due to their cellular make-up, Aqualines do not just blend in with the water, but can become altogether see-through if they so choose. This also includes their bones to some degree, though they do make a slight cloudy white discoloration in the water.
• Aqualines can move through the water at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour, or 24 kilometers per hour, allowing them to catch most fish and sea-faring food they come across. They can make short bursts of speed up to 27 mph, or 43 kph, to escape threats or rapidly close distances, though they can only do this for about 10 seconds before becoming exhausted.
• Aqualines are... complicated, to tame. They are naturally curious of any humanoid other than furries that are part water creature, but they shirk away any attention or any attempt to coax them. In order to tame them, you must ignore them until they actively try to get you to notice them, then you can give them attention and feed them and whatnot. If they accept your presence, all I can say is that you'll know, and the same goes for if they have not.
• On the subject of taming, Aqualines love to eat hot food strangely enough. This includes temperature-wise, as well as spicy foods like peppers. After many experiments, I have found that an Aqualine's favorite food is a meal that is quite popular in the city of Balnor, called Svytwren (S-veeT-Reh-n sounds like sweet Ren.) If given this, Aqualines are almost guaranteed to accept you.
• Svytwren is incredibly spicy at first with a salty taste and a thick pasty texture, and the aftertaste is slightly tangy and salty, while only getting hotter. It can actually burn the mouth of the consumer if they haven't first underwent eating other spicy foods to work themselves up to Svytwren, as the concentration of pungency in Svytwren averages to about 700,000, just a bit below the real world's Ghost Pepper, and the heat rises to about 950,000 within a 5 minute span of time before finally beginning to fade away.
• Aqualines, despite being mammals, do not have a need to come to the surface of the water and breathe. Also, unlike most mammals on land, they have scales rather than fur or hide.
• Sadly, I could not find a suitable picture for an Aqualine, though I'm sure that you have seen one or two in your life