Archived: Aquatic Creatures

Ingo (Mugroba, Anaxas)

The ingo is an aquatic relative of the hingle. They live in small colonies consisting of paired individuals that each live in a separate burrow. The ingo only inhabits islands with rocky coastlines that protect them from hunters and storms. They mainly eat kelp but will also supplement their diet with snails, fish or any other available food source.

Ingo are known for their playful nature and relative intelligence. Fishermen will occasionally raid burrows for ingo pups and train them to search for pearl oysters. Ingo's make quite dedicated pets and as a result pirates and fishermen consider it taboo to kill one and generally don't reveal the location of their islands to fur traders.

Ingo are dorso-ventrally quite flat and swim in a manner similar to dolphins and whales. They are roughly 50cm in length and around half as wide. Their hind legs are vestigal and only used in a mating clasp. Their front limbs are comparatively very strong and can be used to drag themselves about land, although they prefer to remain in the water. Their front limbs are also used for fine motor control, although they look ridiculous when used for this purpose. They have a thick subcutaneous layer of fat that protects them from the cold and makes them look chubby and cute.

There used to be a mainland species of ingo with a brown coat, but they were hunted to extinction over a century ago.

Prayer Fish (Mugroba, Hox, Hesse, Bastia)

Also known as the armoured fish, siege fish and death fish. The prayer fish is a largely benthic, heavily armoured fish species that preys primarily upon other large fish, seals, whales, sharks and anything else that is readily available. They're primarily solitary and possess an unusually high intelligence for a bony fish. Occasionally, for no known reason, the prayer fish will amalgamate and form raiding parties. These raiding schools have been known to attack ships, to the point of capsizing them or breaching their hulls. Even the bravest sailor lives in fear of them and their erratice behaviour. The only known means of dissuading them is to pour large amounts of chili powder or other irritants into the water. This is a desperation act that tends to make it difficult to fish for days after and is considered insulting to the god Hulali.

The prayer fish is fairly inflexible where plating is present on its body but has a very mobile tail. It's maneuverability comes at the expense of long distance speed but it is capable of a disastrously fast sprint. This sprint and their tendency to hide near the ocean bed makes them difficult to spot. They're oviviparous and bear live, fully functional young. The young tend to spend about month around their mother, allowing protection while their bone plates fully form. An average adult is 5m in length. Since the species is mildly sexually dimorphic, females usually grow beyond this range as they age.