The Grand OC! [CONTEST XXX: HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEN]

Username: Though his own is long forgotten;
Name: the name heard only as warning, never as greeting, be Katuali
Species: Silent bane of the Gulespoor, serpentine seakin
Color: See those bands of black and white, you're already good as dead


Biography: Long ago - though not as long ago as you'd think - when the second wave of gods arrived to Middle-Ocean and the Praeterwater, it was the Age of Heroes. The gods beget men, backs against Middle-Ocean, an endless world befouled by monsters spreading out before them. It was an age of pioneers, of Solbruin's children slain or tamed or exterminated one by one, to the goddess' great satisfaction.

Some way into the Age of Heroes, when those young races carved out their civilisations, the Seakin emerged from the depths, returning to the shallows and the shores. Some, like Sirocco and Levantine, came conquering. Some, like the striking Tricot Rayé, had never felt right living below the waves in the first place, and treated the new cities of the Finless much like home.

Rayé was a brash and violent creature, never starting a fight he couldn't win, and never turning down a chance to fight. He fell in love with the first one to best him - chosen of the weapons-god Wootz, the hero-to-be, Trevalli. The legend-aspirant had no interest in the advances of an unventuresome thug, so Rayé left the town (to much relief) and set off with Trevalli.

Trevalli's quest - with Wootz' blessing, but Trevalli's brainchild through and through - was to singlehandedly exterminate the Chitea, titanic telekinetic insectoids who shifted mountains with a gesture, blind to the mortals living on their slopes. While he'd already cleared the Disuncharted Lands of them, Trevalli resolved to venture out beyond and rid the world of the Chitea once and for all. Rayé and Trevalli's adventures were, for a while, joyous and bloody and victorious. Their relationship, constantly strained on those stretches where they were seeking a fresh trail, was always diffused in the thrill of the hunt and the throes of battle with their foe.

They were, perhaps, too successful. The time between hunts grew and grew as the Chitea's numbers dwindled, and the couple drew closer to blows without a shared enemy. It was one fine day, under a sun which Rayé had complained of non-stop for no fewer than thirteen nights, that Trevalli found signs of a juvenile deeper in the desert. Rayé, seakin as he was and already sorely tested by the heat, warned his lover that he would not follow, and would not wait for Trevalli if he left without him.

Trevalli took off, chasing the trail without looking back. Rayé leapt for his throat with a shriek, and was pinned to the ground with nary a flash of Trevalli's blessed blade. With only a curt farewell, the hero sheathed his sword and sprinted away, leaving Tricot Rayé sprawled and broken in the sand.


Description+Weapons+Abilities (from Solbruinnal - A Guide to the Beasts of the Disuncharted Lands, by Beaural Priestess Sonja): The Katuali is the vicious apex predator of the deeper Gulespoor, whose merciless defence of its territory makes exploration of much of the shoalgal a surefire way to die painfully. None who seek it out survive the encounter, but rumours have spread from the villages deepest in the gule-forest of a snake-tailed seakin. It ranks six metres long with muscular forelimbs, a white upper body and alternating black-and-white bands down the length of its tail, more commonly glimpsed in the canopy than amongst the submerged roots of the trees. It demarks its expansive territory with strands of Nefflim hair, presumably used as tripwires to detect intruders. It does not distinguish between those who seek it out and those who stumble into its territory, slaughtering any and all trespassers without warning.

Its vicious efficiency when killing makes much of its behaviour unknown, beyond the visible signs on the fringes of its territory. [The Katuali does not strike immediately; it will usually study its quarry for some time to determine the easiest way to kill it before launching a surprise attack. It will crush or otherwise incapacitate foes with its muscular, prehensile tail, stabbing particularly large opponents with its thumb-claws, which have been painted in hemotoxic venom. Possessing a weak jaw and comparatively delicate teeth, it rips its kills apart with its tail and bare hands. The Katuali is too busy patrolling its territory to rest while digesting large meals, and will cache much of its kill in the anoxic mud. Oddly, it does not drink from the waters below like other seakin; it instead gathers rainwater and dew in all manner of containers it arranges up in the canopy.] The victim's personal effects are rarely looted; the Katuali normally leaves them scattered about to rust or rot but seems to retrieve useful tools (armor, especially oddly, dish- or bowl-shaped pieces like helmets and shields, seem to be favoured) later if it requires them.

The Katuali's lair, ostensibly in the centre of its territory (the boundaries of which have not been properly mapped, and are assumed to be "wherever people aren't already living"), must hold something very important to the monster. The most credible theory is a relic from pre-Fall civilisation, though Seakin records (however sketchy in non-Ocean matters) detail a mating battle between two adult Chitea in the region, which would be expected to have destroyed any such buildings. Any other artefacts of note would now be buried under metres of silt, or cloaked in gule-forest. More research into the terrible creature's motives is necessary but impractical to gather.