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Description

Archonia is the name of a fairly large peninsula to the north-west of Martinia. Here, the climate is cooler and drier than further south, and it is also the location of more recent volcanic activity, particularly a flood basalt eruption that occurred in the area around 20 million years ago. This has allowed for the development of what is known as a basalt plain. A basalt plain is not like any habitat that exists on Earth currently, as it consists of two main layers. It consists of a relatively cool but very fertile plain and shrubby habitat, consisting of large roughly polygonal shaped columns intercepted with various cracks, canyons and chasms, which can stretch dozens of metres below the main plain depending on where, and some of the cracks are wide enough for an elephant-sized organism to pass through, though most are nowhere near this size. As a result, the fauna living here have adapted to both the plains existence, a more subterranean existence, and a gliding existence which allows them to travel effectively between the two halves. This allows for fauna that would not be seen anywhere else, as even other basalt plains are significantly different in their layout. We shall now explore the last major habitat of the Martinian subcontinent.

    1.       One of the first fauna that is noticeable on the plain is a form of saurodont adapted to move between the grassy plains. These plains are cooler and with shorter grasses than the savannah’s, but they are much greener and more fertile. They also have thriving plant communities of bushes, trees and other sorts which these creatures have adapted to feed off. These strange creatures are known as brocusts (epiphaganthropus communis), a creature adapted with great convergence to a particular type of insect that roamed the age of man and still remains on Ao-Oni. Brocusts, however, are considerably bigger creatures and are vertebrates, distantly descended from humans. While many saurodonts are insectivores, this is not by any means universal, and like the lizards and small mammals with whom they converge, they have also produced a number of herbivorous forms, especially in island habitats where there is no competition from the intracephaloids that are metropolitan otherwise. Brocust legs have developed to a sprawling inversion, making them like those of insects and allowing them to be the most efficient hopping vertebrates known to science. This allows them to transfer the cracks in the ground with ease and without resorting to gliding or flying, allowing their body design to be relatively free overall. The other legs allow a more sprawling position, while the arms can be used for gathering smaller food items. Of course, the creatures are much larger than their namesakes, measuring about 70cm in length excluding the legs and weighing in the region of 6kg or so, with new-borns being no more than 2cm in length, resembling jerboas. They have puffy hair around the tails like rabbits that can be used to signal to other members of their kind that a predator is coming. They are ruthless creatures that are highly territorial and so are not like locusts in their swarming nature. As well as their long incisors and molars for going through grasses and bushes and leaves, they have sharp canines which allow them to fend off other members of their kind. Some of the most common animals on the plains, they are fast breeding and agile, allowing them to effectively hold a niche without competition from martiniatheres, wyverns or other draconians.

    2.       Another one that is a common sight on these basalt plains is the basalt grassgut (draceogrameus archonicus), a member that has actually developed some interesting atavisms to adapt to the lifestyle of living in this habitat. The highly versatile creatures have redeveloped some of the membranes of their flying ancestors and increased the size of their wings for ease of jumping between the different plains, often doing so in large groups. The fertile soils of the area help the plants here of all kinds to grow, not just grasses or shrubs, but full on bushes, reaching up to 5m above the ground, and so the basalt grassgut takes advantage of these foods. It is able to rear up onto its hind legs in order to reach the bushes. Compared to the other species, it is somewhat like a giant gerenuk in its lifestyle, able to rear up quite high, though not by any means in the same league as the lanks of further south. They roam around in herds numbering in the hundreds, and this allows them to replenish their numbers quite easily, as it protects them from some of the more ruthless predators that may roam here. Strangely, their fur is a similar colour to the basalt soil beneath their feet, though they do not camouflage with the greenery they feed upon. Their nasal horn has two prongs to it rather than the one most other members of their kind have, with one facing upwards and the other downwards. The head is shorter and wider than in relatives to the more generalised diet that the creature has, with the teeth being similarly more adapted for browsing than with its relatives. An interesting adaption they have is a sword like thumb claw in both genders, used to do such things as cut grasses by the base, hold on to a particularly high branch during browsing and to defend from predators. The basalt grassgut is a sizeable creature, with a fully grown female being 2m long, standing 1.3m tall at the shoulder, 1.9m tall overall, and up to 340kg in weight. On its hind legs it can reach 3.6m above the ground, allowing to take quite a large sample of flora, including the taller bushes. Males tend to be about 80% of the height and 50% of the weight, being quite a considerable difference. The males also have a crest behind the nose which flashes with blood, creating a red colouring. They are almost exclusively surface animals and so don’t tend to go into the areas between the plains, due to the different flora and being unable to traverse the steep slopes.

    3.       Another organism that inherits this habitat is not so benign. One of the more radically developed martiniatheres is such a predator in this habitat. This is the ammut (Crococuta ferocis), one of the main predators around Archonia, and to a lesser extent in Martinia in general. It gets its name from having an uncanny resemblance to the creature from Egyptian mythology, in terms of having a proportionally large head and a body that lacks claws but instead has hooves. Indeed it somewhat resembles the mesoynchians and entelodonts that once roamed Earth, though it is not completely similar. Its fearsome appearance allows it to be a kleptoparasite that can intimidate other predators, flying or not, taking away their kills and eating there. They are also pursuit predators and will happily pursue grassguts or obolopes over large territories, being able to jump between the cracks with long legs and excellent pursuit, a helpful tactic as predators. It is hard to believe that just 45 million years ago, this creatures ancestors flew in the air rather than on the ground. But this is definitely true. The ammut’s body bears a convergent path to those ancient creatures, and their relatives the djwehos, though these are much more dangerous creatures themselves. An ammut possesses a bite similar in proportion to that of an Earth based hyena, capable of crunching bone and cutting through flesh. The incisors and canines are greatly enlarged, allowing it to tear a large chunk of flesh out of the prey, causing them to bleed to death-a brutal strategy. The molars are thick and crus the bones once it comes to consuming the animal, or crippling a living animal. This and its lifestyle make the animals very frightening creatures to deal with. The head is naked like that of a vulture, both keeping the fur from getting tainted, and making the creature more intimidating. The animal’s fur is a grey colour, except for a black mane around the neck and upper back. like the djweho, the arms have three fingers equipped with claws, though these ones are shorter, thicker and hooked, allowing it to grip into a prey item as its jaws deliver a killing blow. An adult ammut measures about 1.6m tall at the shoulder, though it slopes down the back, measures about 2.8m in length and weighs in the region of 360kg, being considerably leaner in build than its relatives, but powerful enough to defend itself against any predators that come in from further south. Creatures like grass-wyverns, braghans and prowlers often wander into this habitat for prey, but this usually makes them turn back. Even oni-dragons will watch themselves against such a ruthless predator, as its aggression is worthy of a deep reputation.

    4.       Alongside such megafauna, it is difficult to find comparable smaller creatures that roam this habitat. One such creature lives in the undergrowth of both the surface and beneath. It stalks small saurodonts, including young brocusts through the undergrowth, and uses its sharp jaws to cut through them effortlessly, before swallowing them whole. It lives as a gateway between the upper plains and the caver place below, able to master both habitats quite efficiently. It is known as the shadowstalker (serpanthropus amphibiacros), for its black fur and almost as dark skin, appearing seamlessly into the soil by which the plants grow. Instead of having teeth like normal members of its kind, its jaws have simply sharpened themselves, resembling predatory placoderms in this way, with the two jaws sharpening each other to produce excellent killing weapons. The fact that these organisms go after small rodent-esque prey makes them a lot less dangerous for the other organisms, but for their size range, these are the equivalent of tigers. However, when a larger predator does threaten them, they have crests along their sides, similar to the cobras of old Earth. They possess two eye like patches on these, and so this intimidates any larger creature by deluding them into thinking it is a much larger more dangerous creature than they are. Shadowstalkers are quite long, measuring about 1m long overall and about 4cm at the widest point, though up to 15cm when the crests are out. They are highly solitary animals and act aggressively towards members of their own kind. During the mating season, males flash their crests at one another to intimidate one another. The ones with the largest eye crests tend to win these contests, though sometimes the more recessive ones will outsmart their showier kin and mate with females while the more powerful types are busy bluffing. This ensures the group are quite successful.

Description

Archonia is the name of a fairly large peninsula to the north-west of Martinia. Here, the climate is cooler and drier than further south, and it is also the location of more recent volcanic activity, particularly a flood basalt eruption that occurred in the area around 20 million years ago. This has allowed for the development of what is known as a basalt plain. A basalt plain is not like any habitat that exists on Earth currently, as it consists of two main layers. It consists of a relatively cool but very fertile plain and shrubby habitat, consisting of large roughly polygonal shaped columns intercepted with various cracks, canyons and chasms, which can stretch dozens of metres below the main plain depending on where, and some of the cracks are wide enough for an elephant-sized organism to pass through, though most are nowhere near this size. As a result, the fauna living here have adapted to both the plains existence, a more subterranean existence, and a gliding existence which allows them to travel effectively between the two halves. This allows for fauna that would not be seen anywhere else, as even other basalt plains are significantly different in their layout. We shall now explore the last major habitat of the Martinian subcontinent.

    1.       One of the first fauna that is noticeable on the plain is a form of saurodont adapted to move between the grassy plains. These plains are cooler and with shorter grasses than the savannah’s, but they are much greener and more fertile. They also have thriving plant communities of bushes, trees and other sorts which these creatures have adapted to feed off. These strange creatures are known as brocusts (epiphaganthropus communis), a creature adapted with great convergence to a particular type of insect that roamed the age of man and still remains on Ao-Oni. Brocusts, however, are considerably bigger creatures and are vertebrates, distantly descended from humans. While many saurodonts are insectivores, this is not by any means universal, and like the lizards and small mammals with whom they converge, they have also produced a number of herbivorous forms, especially in island habitats where there is no competition from the intracephaloids that are metropolitan otherwise. Brocust legs have developed to a sprawling inversion, making them like those of insects and allowing them to be the most efficient hopping vertebrates known to science. This allows them to transfer the cracks in the ground with ease and without resorting to gliding or flying, allowing their body design to be relatively free overall. The other legs allow a more sprawling position, while the arms can be used for gathering smaller food items. Of course, the creatures are much larger than their namesakes, measuring about 70cm in length excluding the legs and weighing in the region of 6kg or so, with new-borns being no more than 2cm in length, resembling jerboas. They have puffy hair around the tails like rabbits that can be used to signal to other members of their kind that a predator is coming. They are ruthless creatures that are highly territorial and so are not like locusts in their swarming nature. As well as their long incisors and molars for going through grasses and bushes and leaves, they have sharp canines which allow them to fend off other members of their kind. Some of the most common animals on the plains, they are fast breeding and agile, allowing them to effectively hold a niche without competition from martiniatheres, wyverns or other draconians.

    2.       Another one that is a common sight on these basalt plains is the basalt grassgut (draceogrameus archonicus), a member that has actually developed some interesting atavisms to adapt to the lifestyle of living in this habitat. The highly versatile creatures have redeveloped some of the membranes of their flying ancestors and increased the size of their wings for ease of jumping between the different plains, often doing so in large groups. The fertile soils of the area help the plants here of all kinds to grow, not just grasses or shrubs, but full on bushes, reaching up to 5m above the ground, and so the basalt grassgut takes advantage of these foods. It is able to rear up onto its hind legs in order to reach the bushes. Compared to the other species, it is somewhat like a giant gerenuk in its lifestyle, able to rear up quite high, though not by any means in the same league as the lanks of further south. They roam around in herds numbering in the hundreds, and this allows them to replenish their numbers quite easily, as it protects them from some of the more ruthless predators that may roam here. Strangely, their fur is a similar colour to the basalt soil beneath their feet, though they do not camouflage with the greenery they feed upon. Their nasal horn has two prongs to it rather than the one most other members of their kind have, with one facing upwards and the other downwards. The head is shorter and wider than in relatives to the more generalised diet that the creature has, with the teeth being similarly more adapted for browsing than with its relatives. An interesting adaption they have is a sword like thumb claw in both genders, used to do such things as cut grasses by the base, hold on to a particularly high branch during browsing and to defend from predators. The basalt grassgut is a sizeable creature, with a fully grown female being 2m long, standing 1.3m tall at the shoulder, 1.9m tall overall, and up to 340kg in weight. On its hind legs it can reach 3.6m above the ground, allowing to take quite a large sample of flora, including the taller bushes. Males tend to be about 80% of the height and 50% of the weight, being quite a considerable difference. The males also have a crest behind the nose which flashes with blood, creating a red colouring. They are almost exclusively surface animals and so don’t tend to go into the areas between the plains, due to the different flora and being unable to traverse the steep slopes.

    3.       Another organism that inherits this habitat is not so benign. One of the more radically developed martiniatheres is such a predator in this habitat. This is the ammut (Crococuta ferocis), one of the main predators around Archonia, and to a lesser extent in Martinia in general. It gets its name from having an uncanny resemblance to the creature from Egyptian mythology, in terms of having a proportionally large head and a body that lacks claws but instead has hooves. Indeed it somewhat resembles the mesoynchians and entelodonts that once roamed Earth, though it is not completely similar. Its fearsome appearance allows it to be a kleptoparasite that can intimidate other predators, flying or not, taking away their kills and eating there. They are also pursuit predators and will happily pursue grassguts or obolopes over large territories, being able to jump between the cracks with long legs and excellent pursuit, a helpful tactic as predators. It is hard to believe that just 45 million years ago, this creatures ancestors flew in the air rather than on the ground. But this is definitely true. The ammut’s body bears a convergent path to those ancient creatures, and their relatives the djwehos, though these are much more dangerous creatures themselves. An ammut possesses a bite similar in proportion to that of an Earth based hyena, capable of crunching bone and cutting through flesh. The incisors and canines are greatly enlarged, allowing it to tear a large chunk of flesh out of the prey, causing them to bleed to death-a brutal strategy. The molars are thick and crus the bones once it comes to consuming the animal, or crippling a living animal. This and its lifestyle make the animals very frightening creatures to deal with. The head is naked like that of a vulture, both keeping the fur from getting tainted, and making the creature more intimidating. The animal’s fur is a grey colour, except for a black mane around the neck and upper back. like the djweho, the arms have three fingers equipped with claws, though these ones are shorter, thicker and hooked, allowing it to grip into a prey item as its jaws deliver a killing blow. An adult ammut measures about 1.6m tall at the shoulder, though it slopes down the back, measures about 2.8m in length and weighs in the region of 360kg, being considerably leaner in build than its relatives, but powerful enough to defend itself against any predators that come in from further south. Creatures like grass-wyverns, braghans and prowlers often wander into this habitat for prey, but this usually makes them turn back. Even oni-dragons will watch themselves against such a ruthless predator, as its aggression is worthy of a deep reputation.

    4.       Alongside such megafauna, it is difficult to find comparable smaller creatures that roam this habitat. One such creature lives in the undergrowth of both the surface and beneath. It stalks small saurodonts, including young brocusts through the undergrowth, and uses its sharp jaws to cut through them effortlessly, before swallowing them whole. It lives as a gateway between the upper plains and the caver place below, able to master both habitats quite efficiently. It is known as the shadowstalker (serpanthropus amphibiacros), for its black fur and almost as dark skin, appearing seamlessly into the soil by which the plants grow. Instead of having teeth like normal members of its kind, its jaws have simply sharpened themselves, resembling predatory placoderms in this way, with the two jaws sharpening each other to produce excellent killing weapons. The fact that these organisms go after small rodent-esque prey makes them a lot less dangerous for the other organisms, but for their size range, these are the equivalent of tigers. However, when a larger predator does threaten them, they have crests along their sides, similar to the cobras of old Earth. They possess two eye like patches on these, and so this intimidates any larger creature by deluding them into thinking it is a much larger more dangerous creature than they are. Shadowstalkers are quite long, measuring about 1m long overall and about 4cm at the widest point, though up to 15cm when the crests are out. They are highly solitary animals and act aggressively towards members of their own kind. During the mating season, males flash their crests at one another to intimidate one another. The ones with the largest eye crests tend to win these contests, though sometimes the more recessive ones will outsmart their showier kin and mate with females while the more powerful types are busy bluffing. This ensures the group are quite successful.