WORLD SHOWCASE Dunia: Beastiary and Husbandry

Moose

Spider-Buddy
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Writing Levels
  1. Adept
  2. Advanced
  3. Prestige
  4. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Primarily Prefer Male
Spotted Sail-Hyena:
Man has always taken what is useful and easy to them and domesticated it. This difficult process was made easier and easier through generations as more and more were born with magical ability. This is a result of a species coming about from the desired traits of both animals. This allowed approaches by land and sea and allowed warriors to be carried upstreams and across oceans.

It is a blue monstrosity like the name suggests, with a large sail-like fin that begins at the back of the hyena's head and extends down the back. Its tail is long and like that of the swordfish, on land it is used for balance, in the sea it is used for swimming. It's long legs and large paws allow it to run a speed even surpassing that of even a lion, outrunning the former king of the savannah. It is larger than the former king of the savannah, almost twice his size. Its slender form allows it to have an unsurpassed endurance as well, allowing it to hunt and run down ostriches. It uses its bill to injure its prey, and its bill is often broken as the large prey they often hunt tend to snap it off.

Their strong pack mentality allows them to pull off extravagent hunts, able to hunt, of all things, orcas. Their paws allow them to latch onto their prey in the water as it struggles, and the whole pack often takes part to take down a whole orca pod at once. They prefer dry land however, hunting with the pack of their name-sakes, spotted hyenas. They developed a kinship with them, becoming the alphas of their pack, and only leaving their pack to find others of their kind for mating.

They guide their packs to hunt down other predators, and once the predators numbers lessen and the numbers of prey swell, they begin hunting the herbivores. Going back and forth between other predators and prey allows them to have their chosen diverse diet, and much of it.

Husbandry:
There are more domesticated Spotted sail-hyena than there are wild, primarily because they were created in captivity. The sail is trimmed to allow a rider to sit astride its back. A saddle must be constructed, which at minimum must have a layer in contact with the skin of the animal made of either African bullfrog, or goliath frog (preferredly) leather to prevent chafing. The majority of saddles have an upper layer of hippo leather. Riders of these beasts often hunt hippos for their leather, happening to use their meat to prevent waste.

The bill is also trimmed and filed down to prevent it from getting caught on obstacles and the very prey they go after. It is very difficult to catch and train these animals from the wild, and it is necessary to catch them at birth if one were wish to start their own breeding of their kind.

Other information:
They are most often used by the Zulu who were the ones who created them, Shaka made the first one, and taught his followers who could also use magic how to make others. His soldiers, mounted on their Hyenas allowed him to dominate much of the plains of Africa.