World: Jotunheim
Diet: Benthic organisms, carrion
Height: 22’4″
Lifespan: 200 years
Habitat: Coast
Activity Cycle: Diurnal
Common along nearly every coast, only restricted from the most frigid of waters, oysteroids walk the seafloor, running their frilly feet through the sediment. The muscular fringes on the ends of each limb flex and contract, creating strong suction effects. On the legs, this is used to sift through the sand and rip up creatures hiding underneath the surface. All three legs have their own mouths, leading up into the same digestive system. A casual observer will usually focus on the oysteroid’s beak, the only part of its body besides its shell with hard parts. This feature is used entirely for feeding upon carrion too tough for their usual methods and the most desperate of self-defense.
An oysteroid’s body is soft and compressible enough that it can retract entirely into the shell that surrounds its shell. The ring of eyeballs around the shell provide 360 degree vision, albeit in low quality. Each individual eye is weak, responsive to light and motion primarily, but together, they make this paranoid creature difficult to sneak up upon. While large by human standards, an oysteroid is a puny, edible size to the mighty beasts of a jotunheim ocean. However, unfortunate smaller predators will find themselves faced by an oysteroid’s pearls. Formed from the impurities sucked up while digging up prey and layers upon layers of hardened mucus, these pearls are used as crushing caestus by defensive oysteroids, backing up killer punches to shatter bone and shell alike. The limbs of an oysteroid can stretch many times their usual length, striking at a reach. If that fails, in addition to withdrawing into their shell, they can also fire use the gasses this compresses to fire their pearl like a black powder cannon, with similar force. Very few predators of their size can withstand this force.
Oysteroids are gregarious, moving in great masses across the stones and sands of the shallow sea. Each individual is a hermaphrodite, releasing sperm and eggs into the water in a great swarm every breeding season. The resultant larvae settle down in reefs of more standard, if oversized, bivalves until they grow enough body to become mobile and take to wandering, always on the move to find enough soft-bodied creatures in the sand to sustain themselves.
Both an oysteroid’s pearls and shell are prized by the greatest armorers, as they can make armor that is both incredibly durable and beautiful to look at.
