World: Jotunheim
Diet: Trees
Height: 85’5″
Lifespan: 40 years
Habitat: Rainforest
Activity Cycle: Diurnal
When the mating season of the dynastis comes about, nothing is safe. Their battles uproot trees, shake the earth, and often leave both winner and loser with severe injuries. They fight with their horns and claws, trying to gain a grip on one another and violently throwing their foes. With their great weight, a single throw is often enough to incapacitate or even kill the loser. Both males and females war for dominance, with the victors claiming special trees in which to lay their eggs. The larvae hatch to spend years living inside the trees, emerging with wooden armor that grows with them for the rest of their lives. Even if damaged, the plant matter regrows, although it often scars with odd whorls and lumps, and horns always grow back strangely.
When not battling for access to prime nesting grounds, dynastis are mostly peaceful but wary creatures. Their claws tear entire branches off of trees, shoveling them into jaws hidden beneath the mask. Fruit-laden trees are their favorite, but when unavailable, they just as easily eat leaves and even shave bark from the trees. Predators are presented with clacking claws and an aggressive “dance”, and those who don’t retreat are attacked. Dynastis are too slow to flee, so even small juveniles resort to violence when threatened. Few predators will risk confrontation with an alert dynastis, so actual fights are rare.
While aggressive towards beings nearly their size, dynastis are tolerant of and even curious towards smaller beings. Some of the smaller races of giants will encourage dynastis to live near them as a deterrent to giant-eating predators. The local dynastis will often stop by to observe the strange behavior of the small things, and show a surprising amount of delicacy when moving around to avoid destroying settlements. However, during the mating season, this all goes out the window, and collateral damage has destroyed entire cities of fire giants who let too many dynastis live nearby, only to have them war for the city itself as their territory.
