Kraken

Sea Trees

Written by Endrise

I rarely have seen one attack a ship because it is hungry. If anything, I assume they do this crap because they like to tip entire crews overboard.

— Sailor after surviving a kraken attack

Krakens are a species of large squid-like monstrosities found across the oceans, known for their massive sizes and destructive behaviour. They are some of, if not the most feared creatures the seas have to offer, posing a threat to sealife and sailors alike.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Krakens are massive cephalopods, soft-bodied creatures able to grow up to the size of a whale. All of them have the same common similarities to squids, including a head, mantle and the arms.

What sets them apart, besides their sheer scale, is the way their tentacles develop. A Kraken has six main tentacles coming from their head, with a multitude of smaller ones branching off them that form from cuts and wounds as it ages. Older specimens can have dozens of them, creating an entire web of tendrils used for everything from grabbing to feeding.

To support their massive frame, each tentacle possesses its own blood flow and collection of sensors, replicating the functions of the main body's heart and brain. Even a severed tentacle can remain active for hours after being removed from the main body.

Reproduction

When a Kraken is ready to reproduce, a male seeks out the female to hold their mating ritual. This involves a dance of tentacles as the two swim around one another, pulling one another close to impregnate the other. An action done quick enough for the female to not even notice.

One female can lay a hundred thousands of eggs at once. They will protect those eggs until they hatch, though several end up eaten by smaller predators avoiding a Kraken's sight.

Out of an entire clutch, only a hundred manage to survive into adulthood.

Dietary Needs & Hunting Tactics

Krakens are ambush predators to the surprise of many. Most prefer lying down on the ocean floor and holding their tentacles out, giving them the resemblances of eery trees. Combined with their camouflage, they become downright invisible to sealife around them.

Anything caught in their web of tendrils gets carried towards their beak, where they eat almost everything they catch: fish, crustaceans, even some sapient species that make their home on the ocean floor. As long it can fit their mouth or can be broken into smaller bits.

One outlier to their diet are Sahuagin, who seem to be a delicacy for the apex predator. Something they secrete in the water makes them stir awake, moving towards any nomadic groups and attacking on sight, making many avoid Kraken territory.

Social Structure

Krakens hunt and migrate in groups, led by the eldest one present visible by the amount of branching tentacles they possess.

Such groups can consist out of partners, children, elderly and even other Krakens abandoned by their groups. Some other species may even migrate with them for protection.

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Fun Fact:
A group of Krakens gets referred
to as a "Forest" of Krakens.

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Females are also significant amongst Krakens, showing superiority against their male counterparts for food and mating. When hunting together, they easily take half the food for themselves regardless of group size, even fighting for it sometimes.

Should there be any young in the group, the adults help protect it until it can protect itself. Some even report older Krakens cause intentional wounds to allow tentacles to branch off to encourage early growth of additional limbs, often done by the mother itself.

Intelligence

The massive cephalopod is quite intelligent, if not one of the more intelligent creatures found at sea. They can remember faces, memorise locations, improvise tools and even have complex communication with others of their kind. To what extend remains unclear for now.

You can't call them animals anymore when you see one use a bowsprit to pry open the hull. They are both armed and dangerous!

— Crust Crew Member

This intelligence also makes them one of the few sea creatures to show curiosity to sea vessels, if not "play" with them. Many sailors report of Krakens stealing fish or even capsizing ships for fun, learning to attack from blind spots or take out vital areas first.

Lifespan

150 years

Average Height

80 ft.
24 meters

Always a bigger fish

A popular theory is that Krakens were not native to Fabulae, but either migrated or got displaced from the Plane of Water somewhere in the past. The environment stunted their growth, making most underdeveloped to survive the smaller oceans.

Those native to the other realm are capable of growing to monstrous sizes, where tentacle lengths can be measured in miles.

The one upside is that their size is so massive no known dimensional gateway can transport them in one piece. Only infants may even fit through one as far as people know.

Legend of the Kraken

Any sailor will tell you that the Kraken is the stuff of legends, the monster of all monsters. A beast that does not attack for food but for entertainment, making it a much more terrifying threat to anyone sailing the seas. Many ships fell to its might, with many more surviving by the skin of their teeth. Only a few manage to drive it away, if not kill one in an encounter.

Fighting back is difficult, as even even surviving can make it adapt to strategies. No two attacks are the same, where cannonfire may work with one another may know to take those out first. The only way one stays away is if they have no reason to stick around.

Beneath the Sea

Beneath the oceans, many sapient species both fear and worship the Kraken for their own reasons. Even though they are animals for many, few deny their intelligence and as such most treat them as threats not to be messed with.

Attempts to domesticate the massive beast show no improvement over centuries, proving them untameable by anything. Does not matter how young one raises them, all inevitably will turn on their owners and claim their freedom. Only those willing to enslave their mind are even capable of controlling the squids, though even that requires a great will to dominate them.

Worship

Several cults sprouted around the worship of the Kraken, seeing them as ancient avatars of the sea. They hope to acquire knowledge of the giant beasts, doing so through spells and Kraken whisperers, praying they somehow return an answer to their devoted.

Few cults prove succesful, with many failing to even get a word out of them. The only benefit their offerings may give is a Kraken near their settlement, deterring any Sahuagin raid parties from attacking.

Sahuagin Rivalry

Despite their fear for the Kraken, some Sahuagin do seek out to exterminate their natural predator once and for all. Hence why a few hunt their young and nests, hoping to limit their spread further.

Even entire groups are no match for a single Kraken as the beast smells them from a mile away, making stealth not an option. The only thing that proves capable of fending them off is the power of certain Sea Hags, who manage to enslave their will or pierce their defences.

Legendary Krakens

Driftwood

Driftwood was the name of a feared Kraken that attacked the coasts of Peripatia ages ago, massive even for others of its kind. It emerged one day and ripped apart fishing boats like it was nothing, clearly hungry for something to eat.

Only an united effort of the navy and mercenary vessel was able to drive it away, in the conflict severing one of its tentacles. It remains unsure if it even survived, considering its age and how long ago it was. Though some do report seeing it emerge sometimes in the Crescent Sea.