Cataconda

The cataconda is a widely feared but seldom-sighted beast. With excellent dark vision but extreme aversion to light and heat, it rarely ventures beyond the dark southern reaches of the realm, where it lives among the humid caverns, slinking through the crevices of one landmass after another.
Although the local legends depict it as an enormous snake, it is an amphibian by classification. Surprisingly, it oscillates with ease through open air in a wave form. More of its time though it spends wriggling its way through tight cracks between rock and clay, with the help of its burrowing abilities, considerably strong for a creature with no limbs. Its two glowing beet-red eyes are positioned on either side of its head, making it unable to see straight forward when inert, but giving it a near-360 range of vision when it moves its head slightly from side to side. Its curved snout bestows a permanent snarl on its oblong head. The skin is rocky both in texture and in rigidity, seemingly impenetrable to any sword or would-be predator. Though this skin is naturally a very dark brown, it adopts a reddish-brown hue as the clay from its habitat rubs off onto it.
Individual catacondae average around half a meter in circumference and 10 meters long. A local mining expedition scouted the region centuries ago and returned to their home village in terror, with tales of a snake the size of a whale. Since then, zoologists from the wider region have determined this to be a probable exaggeration, but have nevertheless observed a wide range in length of the adults. In any case, few humans have dared to return to the caves since.
Its loathsome reputation, bolstered by centuries of local legends along with a few fatal expeditions to slay it and exploit its habitat for mining, is undeserved. Although the humans are unaware, this monster is docile by nature, feasting only on tiny chemosynthetic cave plankton. In fact, the beast lacks even a set of teeth, and its few run-ins with humans to date escalated only as it instinctively defended itself from these aggressive strangers, crushing them nearly instantaneously by concussion with its solid body.

Additional Information

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Southern red clay caverns

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Its sense of taste is extremely acute; by tasting the clay in which it burrows it can monitor the local concentration of sulfur-containing compounds. This naturally enables it to identify locations with high levels of sulfur-consuming bacteria and plankton, which form its main source of food.

Average Length

10 meters

Geographic Distribution

• Southern Caves of Red Clay

Discovered by

The Ill-fated Mining Expedition