Vision Snails
"Don't touch that snail!"
"But its shell is so pretty..."
"Yes, but what do you value the most? Pretty shells or your life?"
Basic Information
Anatomy
The vision snail has an exceptionally beautiful shell.
Ecology and Habitats
The vision snail lives on the sea floor, crawling slowly through the Bay's more shallow water looking for creatures to prey on and eat.
Dietary Needs and Habits
The vision snail is an obligate carnivore. It will eat anything it encounters up to twice its size - and sometimes it'll try to eat larger things as well. It hunts by slowly crawling upon a creature, or sitting still and waiting for an oblivious creature to get close enough. When someone is within reach, the snail will shoot out a harpoon-like stinger at remarkable speed.
Additional Information
Domestication
Sirens keep the vision snails in farms to harvest their venom. It might not seem especially hard to keep a herd of vision snails due to their slow speed, but it requires extreme care due to their venom. One sting might kill the farmer, which would be a kinder fate than not dying of it. In the doses you get by being stung by a decently sized vision snail will give you horrifying hallucinations for up to a week. Most of the survivors die of pure exhaustion from the horrors they see. The few who survive both the initial venom and the hallucinations are quite traumatized by it for the rest of their lives.
Feeding a vision snail isn't hard, however. They eat any sea creature up to twice their own size - which is most medium-size and smaller sea creatures in the Bay.
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Their venom is used as a hallucinogen in some spiritual rituals by the sirens. It's risky as a wrong dosage is lethal, but the rituals are done with very specific amounts of venom and one of the skills you need to use to finish the ritual is to dose the venom correctly.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
The vision snail lives in the more shallow parts of Vutara Bay, down to about 20 meters.
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