World: Black Wastes, Midgard
Diet: Meat
Height: Varies, can’t stretch more than about 5 feet tall or long
Lifespan: 10 years
Habitat: Cities
Activity Cycle: Nocturnal
In their natural state, a tublar is a totally amorphous creature, easily mistakable for one of the carcinoforms or giant cells of the White Void. The only hard parts of their body are their legs, encased in a leathery exoskeleton, and their teeth. Even their mouth is totally flexible, with no jaws holding the teeth. As such, they can squeeze through extremely small spaces, moving with a combination of their legs and a slithering motion.
However, a tublar is rarely seen in their natural state. In their native Black Wastes, they must shield themselves against the deadly magic in the air, and do so by hiding within whatever shell of metal they can find. Tublar can be found inhabiting trash cans, vehicles, and a particular favorite, gas cannisters. All of these provide protection from the elements and in addition, provide a structure for the tublar’s body, allowing it its most effective trick.
A tublar is an ambush predator, luring in prey by using its glowing green eye, resembling some of the resilient fruits of the Black Wastes. When prey gets close enough, they use a combination of their powerful tail and their limbs to leap at it, striking and devouring it with their sharp teeth. Some will even attack larger prey, taking a bite out of them before retreating to hide again. In the factories of Harthel, they are usually beneficial, eating pests that enter work spaces.
The saliva of a tublar is highly acidic, although it has little effect on organic materials. It is mostly used to eat holes in metal objects, allowing entry. Tublars, surprisingly, have a distinct male and female sex, with elaborate mating rituals where males with shinier, less rusted homes are preferred over others. After mating, a female keeps her eggs inside her home with her until they hatch, upon which the children are quickly expelled into the wild.
Elementals with metallic bodies often have fears about tublars trying to infest them as parasites, but this is unfounded. There is no confirmed case of any tublar entering the body of a living elemental on the record, and certainly none of hyper-intelligent tublars that can puppet the body and use it to infiltrate elemental society.
