Lava Loogies

It took us a few days in our scouting to realize that the little crunchy globs of magma were actually living creatures. Found it out when one of them crawled its way into my bag, tore through my snack bars, and wrapped itself around my best hunk of Perdurite.

I was pissed at first, but when I gave it a solid boot across the tent it just slowly crawled its way right back, albeit with a big ol' chunk of its shell cracked off.

I am obligated to respect anything that can take my angry kick and come back as if nothing happened. I kept it with us as we continued our expedition, glad I did, or else we wouldn't have found out how good these little magma-slimes are at finding juicy chunks of Perdurite.

— Artosen Khandea II (Digger)

Lava Loogies are a echinoderm-like creature that adapted to the tectonic fields of Perduro. They are a very slow-moving species that wanders the obsidian-crusted surfaces, feeding off the expulsed minerals from volcanic eruptions and scavenging any corpses that have met their end in the dangerous lava fields.

Their consumption of minerals from local rocks helps them develop a protective shell that allows them to survive brief encounters with shallow magma and some heavy impacts from falling debris.

The consumption of minerals also makes them fantastic tells of recent magmatic activity, as they will gather on fresh deposits of igneous minerals which can lead to new veins of Perdurite. Their shells are also useful, having a pumice-like texture, they can be used as a regrowable cleaning brush.

While they are not imprintable onto Sophontic life, they are kept as pets by many Perdurites, as they are easy to care for and safe to handle.

Evolution

There is uncertainty about where the Lava Loogies evolved from, while they had to have come from either Jhoutai or Eden, there is no clear evolutionary predecessor for these creatures.

Ingestion Method

The Lava Loogie has a multi-segmented stomach that runs along the inside of each of its tentacles. When a Loogie finds something it wishes to ingest, it will wrap around and use gyrations of its shell to remove layer after layer of the substance and guide it to its stomach.

Reproduction

Lava Loogies reproduce through sexual pairings. Loogies will gather at a good source of food. Pairs will form and twist about each other, and will leg lines of eggs underneath a layer of finely ground sand to conceal them from any other predators.

They are left to fend for themselves from birth, but the finely ground material they are buried under serve as a boost of nutrition and first shell material for the newly born.

Care in Captivity

Captive Lava Loogies need to be cared for with a diet of local rocks and minerals preferably ground up to a loose gravel consistency. They also perfer a very warm location to spend the day time, mimicing the heat of the magma-fields they frequent.