World: Jotunheim
Diet: Meat
Height: 10’0″
Lifespan: 30 years
Habitat: Grasslands
Activity Cycle: Nocturnal
Living among some of the largest giants Jotunheim has to offer on the great tropical plains, gambesaurus thrives as a predator of small animals and scavenger of larger ones. An average of only ten feet tall and covered in speckles, gambesaurs blend in with the large stones scattered across the plains during the day, hiding amidst their crevices to avoid larger predators. At night, they emerge to feed.
Like the lizards of Midgard, gambesaurs grow whole new layers of skin, shedding the outer layers in order to grow. Unlike lizards, their skins actually stay upon their body, building up over them layer by layer, each stretching to contain the layers beneath. With these many layers of skin, it is incredibly difficult to actually injure a gambesaur. Even much larger predators can find their fangs and claws stopped after a few layers, and by withdrawing their head and hands, they can wait out nearly any non-magical attack.
These layers of skin also make them extremely slow as well. Gambesaurs shuffle slowly and silently through the tall grass and great stone formations of the plains, hunting prey by stealth. As soon as they are within reach, their extremely long, blade-tipped tails lash out to slice at prey. For the most part they feed on smaller creatures, and while they will take advantage of carrion when they can get it, they are easily driven away from larger meals by bigger predators.
While they hunt separately, they live in communal groups. Members communicate using complex but stiff body language, and those who threaten a nest will find themselves beset upon by at least a dozen of the beasts. The oldest members, and therefore those with the most layers to their armor, are dominant and spend most of their time in their lairs, laying and raising eggs. These dominant members bully others into regurgitating some of their meals to supplement their diets, allowing them to raise vastly more eggs than them.
