World: Midgard, some in Alfheim
Diet: Plants
Height: 4’6″ at the top of the hump
Lifespan: 20 years
Habitat: Mangrove swamps
Activity Cycle: Nocturnal
Pained cries ring out in the night, soft sobbing mixed with splashing. Most hearing this would shudder in terror, but to the locals it is nothing to worry about. There are no ghosts and demons out in the mangroves, just the pitiful squonk. Covered in loose, warty skin that drapes in leathery folds across their forms, they are often considered the most hideous creatures in all of Alfheim, and in fact the embodiment of the very concept of ugliness. Because of this, they only emerge from their burrows under cover of night, weeping as they use their prehensile trunks to help pull up underwater plants.
A squonk is always sobbing, resenting its appearance. This also serves to remove excess salt from their bodies, an important factor in the mangrove swamps they call home. They are deeply solitary creatures, keeping to personal territories marked out by their loud cries. They do not even meet up to mate. Females leave clutches of aquatic eggs, much like a frog’s, at the edge of their territory. The males at the edges of the territory will fertilize the eggs they come across, and during the wet monsoon season, when the water is the highest, the aquatic children will be born. It takes roughly two years for them to transition into terrestrial animals, although most will not survive that long.
Despite being meaty and largely defenseless, very little hunts squonks. When captured, a squonk will simply dissolve entirely into tears and melt away in the swamp, making them useless to any predator. Their juveniles cannot perform this trick and so fall prey to many predators, and the local swamp undine can use their natural control over water to prevent this transformation, making them the only regular predators of adult squonks.
