Shell-backed Natashun
I've been inside a Shell-backed Natashun, it's quite wondrous, all gears and mechanisms. But I don't recommend staying too long."I'd read these words often enough to commit them to heart, Joremi was my hero growing up. I've also had cause, to my sorrow, to discover just how write he was. I am Nondi, elect of Mondi, the world's perfect order. Oh, yeah, I am 'The cog of reality aligning dimensions of time to perfect order in endless harmony', if you must use the flowery title." "Inside a Shell-backed Natashun, one forgets the normal vicissistudes of life, it is all perfect order, every cog aligned with exquisite precision, but therein lies the danger. One can forget that some things inside the Natashun are for it to eat, or move, or do any of its thousand other assigned functions. I did." She rubbed her merchanical arm, which replaced the one she'd lost to that Natashun long ago. That's when I came into my calling, I admired so much the perfect order of law inside that Natashun, all gears and whistles, that I lost track of life. In return, or perhaps in thinking that I could be useful, Mondi Elected me to its powers. Oh, you've met one of my kind before? Which one? Angeveult? That's funny, he was the one that rescued me from that Natashun, showing up in the nick of time, like all elects of Rhiannon, then gone, just as quickly." "A Natashun is not a normal animal, it's not a hubris either. it's... more a manifestation of natural order, every scale on its back with a mathematical, numerological or geometrical significance. Every cog in its belly either part of its locomotion, or power generation, did you know it makes steam? And sometimes uses it to cook its food, usually one of those smaller shellwalkers that look like miniatures of itself?"
Basic Information
Anatomy
A huge(4m+ tall) part-mechanical crab made of ceramics, copper, bronze, amber and glass, clearly not totally of this world, since the bronze and copper combine to make a steam engine, propulsing the creature, but also allowing it to cook food.
Genetics and Reproduction
Once every thousand years, they will meet one of their kind, mate, and a new Natashun will be born, shell-less, and without a steam engine. A shell-less natashun.
Growth Rate & Stages
From 90 to 110 years old, a shell-less natashun will develop sentience, and its moral alignment, whether or not, it decides on order or chaos, will determine if it develops its outer shell, steam engine, or remain shell-less, but become a Greater Carxenos, with a whirlpool/tornado/vortex on its black in place of a shell and steam engine.
Ecology and Habitats
It's debated whether or not a Natashun is even a natural creature, as the shell is obviously manufactured, and of such complexity, there is doubt the Natashun can do it itself.
Dietary Needs and Habits
A natashun will only eat shelled prey: turtles, tortoises, crabs, lobsters, snails, but at its size, it keeps its feeding to creatures at least 20cm in any direction, just to keep from eating all the time.
The steam tank on its back has no obvious fuel source, and is used for cooking its food.
Behaviour
It's not obvious why(except that one is a creature of pure chaos, the other a manifestation of order), but when a Greater Carxenos and a shell-backed natashun meet, it always results in the death of one of the two.
Genetic Descendants
Scientific Name
Carcinus Mechanicus
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