Creature Creation Challenge #3

[Malkuthe Highwind]

Creature Creation Challenge
This challenge explores one facet of worldbuilding: creature creation, as the title says. Whether or not you're a worldbuilder, at one point or another, you're bound to create different kinds of flora and fauna for your world. This challenge brings two new things to the table: first, all the submissions for this challenge will be put into a "bestiary" of sorts in the Worldbuilder's Guild which will be a resource for yourself and anyone who needs creatures for their worlds; second, every week, there will be a different difficulty for the challenge. ​

The Difficulty Levels

Difficulty 1

- build a creature around a specific theme

Difficulty 2

- build a creature with a specific body part around a specific theme

Difficulty 3

- build a creature to fit a specific role in an ecosystem with a specific body part around a specific theme

Difficulty 4

- build a creature based upon an animal on earth to fit a specific role in an ecosystem with a specific body part around a specific theme

Difficulty 5

- build a creature that will survive in a specific environment based upon an animal on earth and fit a specific role in an ecosystem with a specific body part around a specific theme.

This Week's Difficulty:

- build a creature to fit a specific role in an ecosystem with a specific body part around a specific theme

This Week's Criteria:
Theme: Halo (More of an aura of luminescence than the classical angelic halo. Also, not the game.)

Feel free to use this following template for your creatures. You can add on to it or remove things from it as you wish or not use it at all.

Creature Template

Name:
Appearance:
Role: Predator/prey/producer
Habitat:
Life-span:
Sentient: Yes/No
Sapient: Yes/No
Means of Sustenance:
Favourite Food Source:
Major Competition:
Mating Rituals: Courtship rituals, mating grounds, mating season, et cetera
Reproduction: you can include period of gestation
Organization: does this creature travel in packs or herds, or is it a solitary creature that only meets with members of its species for the mating season?
Other:

---

The Bestiary​

 

[Elflady]

Name: Phuentu [The Deceiver]
Appearance: Small with a long body and short legs, their added tail makes them far longer than they are high, almost 3 feet long tail included, their tail makes up more than half of that length. Covered in silky fur in a variety of colours including brown, grey, beige and dull grey green, they generally have a darker back and head with a paler belly and their eyes are large and mostly comes in hazel and brown. Their large eyes gives them perfect vision at night but their great vision makes them very sensitive to the strong light of the sun. Their ears are large and oval shaped with a dark rim around the edge, the phuentu rely just as much on hearing as sight and smell, all to aid them in hunting at night. Their claws are sharp and can be retracted to keep their length from hindering their movements, they have small, sharp teeth and short horns on their forehead, used mostly for impressing others. All phuentu also have an antenna growing from their brow, in between the horns, at the end there is a small ball giving off light that have been absorbed during the day. At night when a phuentu lies in wait for an innocent animal to come by their orb sways slightly on the antenna and looks like a floating ball of light, and in areas where they live close to each other it's common to see an area dotted with lights. The light is used in their mating and when hunting to trick unsuspecting prey to come close enough to kill.
Role: Predator
Habitat: Grasslands and near mountains.
Life-span: 5-8 years
Sentient: No
Means of Sustenance: Rodents, small birds and insects mostly but also fruit or berries if food is scarce.
Favourite Food Source: Lhuren, a small grazer with a sturdy body and horns.
Major Competition: Wolves, foxes.
Major Threat: Humans, eagles.
Mating Rituals: The males tries their best to show the females how strong and able they are, mostly their tactics are to fake fights and show off their looks but at times two or more males fight for real using teeth and claws, generally it all ends without any real injuries. The females choose their preferred mate and the female highest in rank gets the first pick, they prove their rank in the same way as the males. When a pair is formed the two play with each other, climbing running and wrestle, this is used as the last stage before the pair mates, in this the female might ditch the male if she finds him lacking in some aspect. After this the pair stays together for almost a year until their young are raised, during which they are affectionate and sweet to each other and their young.
Reproduction: After the mating the female gives birth after five months to three to five tiny babies that are naked, blind and deaf and must be cared for and protected. The male and female takes turns in protecting the lair and hunting for food and during the four months that it takes for the young to learn to survive the parents work in tandem and are very affectionate. But when the young are prepared to leave the parents split as well to live alone until the next mating season. The young are taught how to hunt, how to survive and how to find hiding spots by both parents but have to perfect their skills alone.
Organization: The phuentu live alone except when they mate and do not separate again until the young are raised and ready to leave. Phuentu doesn't go well together with others most of the time and live alone inside their territories, the only exception are juvenile females and males that can form small gangs until they feel confident to survive on their own and then they too separate.
Behaviour: Alone they are quite peaceful and mind their own business and they are only aggressive to their own race as many phuentu have been observed being close with other species, although in larger habitats it is common to see many phuentu living close to each other while still in their own territories. They are playful, intelligent, curious and active during the night and when the sun is up they sleep or take naps in the sun to charge up their antenna. They protect their territory from intruders with a very violent attacks for such a small animal, using their long, retractable claws, sharp teeth and agile movements the fight off even larger predators. When a mated pair raise their young only truly desperate animals risk the wrath of two phuentu to still their hunger. They communicated with a wide array of sounds and body language, growls and sharp screeches are used in fights or to scare off intruders, soft mewing and a purring like sound is used between mates and to babies, a sharp short gruff signals danger.
Other: Their name is given to them because of the way they hunt, by deceiving their prey.

 

[Juneberry]

Name: The Blombåge (Rainbow Flowers)
Appearance: Humanoid in appearance and never growing higher than two feet tall, they have slightly bigger heads than fit their necks, however are otherwise fairly human-like in their proportions. They tend to have big foreheads, which are often covered by their hair (which tends to be very thick and with the consistency of horsehair). Their skin tends to be a cross between cafe-au-lait and a mild cherry blossom, usually with vine-like markings of the opposing color scattered around their extremities. Their ears are small and point outwards, reaching a triangular tip to help them hear certain frequencies normally hard to catch (though they tend to have trouble with deeper tones). Their eyes are somewhat small and beady, and vary in color, the most common being either gray or magenta. Hair tends to be pastel in color, often multiple colors taking presidence in a single body. Unlike humans, they have only three fingers, each of which has a small luminescence surrounding it (halo). Each finger's halo is a different color, matching a rainbow. They have no mouths.
Role: Producer
Habitat: They tend to live in high altitudes.
Life-span: 1 Week
Sentient: Yes
Sapient: No
Means of Sustenance: Photosynthesis, taken in from the red halo. They drink water with the purple halo'd finger, which has very absorbent pores.
Favourite Food Source: The sun?
Major Competition: None
Mating Rituals: They mate after their third day of life. Mating is done by joining the yellow and green halos in opposites (one green to one yellow). When this is done, each coughs up a seed and let it get blown into the wind. The seed has an incubation period of a week, and grows during that week into a new life.
Reproduction: you can include period of gestation
Organization: They tend to live solitary lives except when mating.
Other: Their name is a mixture of Norwegian "blomst" (flower) and Swedish "regnbåge" (rainbow). They are named this because of their rainbow halos and their plant and childlike qualities.