Stone Turtle

All know that the turtles shall be no harm to them, for they are at peace with the world around them and with it are one with it, such a feat that few can ever achieve. - Devout Monk

Massively-sized turtles that live across many islands across the Davad Archipelago in relatively peaceful lives without dealing with any predators once they reach adulthood. They have often been revered by many cultures across the archipelago due to their peaceful nature and their ability to remain motionless for long periods, often being said to bring enlightenment and possibly immortality.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Quardrapeds with four legs and a tail. Their bodies are encompassed within a giant shell that protects their bodies from harm, with their legs and their head being able to recede into them to protect themselves.

Biological Traits

Hard Body: Their bodies are much stronger than most other creatures making it very difficult to get through their skin and other defenses. Often taking a strong force or something very sharp can break through it.
Gentle Nature: Creatures such as these have a nature that lacks any means of being aggressive and will never display it to any creature. Often go about their day unless they feel threatened and try to reach safety as soon as possible.
Slow Moving: These creatures are slow to move due to their bodies adding weight that slows down their speed. They cannot get far, unlike most other animals taking much longer because of this. It will often take days before they can reach their desired destination.

Genetics and Reproduction

Stone Turtles reproduce with a male and a female by laying eggs in nests and burying them, with the eggs looking like large rocks in clutches of twenty. Often taking about two months for them to fully hatch after being incubated by ground heat around them.

Growth Rate & Stages

Stone turtles will often take a century to grow fully; in that time, their skin will be much softer than it will be as an adult. Often taking around fifty years to harden finally.

Ecology and Habitats

These turtles live in warm tropical climates that allow them to remain warm and find enough food to eat often slowly moving around from place to place with little to no urgency about it.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Stone turtles are herbivores that can eat a variety of plant life on both land and sea. They will often eat what they feel like having and travel from place to place to find it or just remain in one place to eat the same thing again.

Biological Cycle

When a Stone turtle reaches the end of its life, it will slowly find a comfy place to rest and die peacefully in its sleep. Rather than slowly decaying, their bodies will, over time, become stone until no one can distinguish them from any other rock.

Behaviour

Stone Turtles show little to no interactions with other creatures besides their kind, often ignoring them. They do not even mind it when birds rest of them due to them being very still either eating bugs that crawl on them. However, they retract into their shells when they feel threatened, but that only happens when large predators are near them. They do make an exception when it comes to Humans and other sentient races, such as the Turtle Folk, that interact with them by offering them food or just enjoying their company to show interactions with them.

Additional Information

Social Structure

Like many other turtles, Stone Turtles are solitary creatures that live most of their lives alone. Only when it is mating season do they come together to reproduce, and once it is done, they leave once more until the time comes again.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

They are commonly found across many islands across the Davad Archipelago, living their lives peacefully.

Average Intelligence

Stone turtles are said to have long memories of remembering everything they see, even recognizing a person being separated from each other after decades.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Sight: Good
Sound: Decent
Smell: Excellent

Scientific Name

Class: Natural

Lifespan

1000 years - Unknown

Average Height

12 - 20 ft

Average Weight

8 - 15 tons

Average Length

14 - 18 ft

Average Physique

Widebodies with large muscles

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Brownish grey

Geographic Distribution

• Davad Archipelago

Eternal Watchers

As patient as a turtle. - Harmonist Proverb

For all known history, no one truly knows how long these creatures truly live, as many scholars have studied them and passed down their work to understand how such creatures live for so long when many remain in a single position for months or even years before moving again. Even after the death of these scholars, their successors continue to study them for centuries, often finding no answers. Instead, many began to realize that these turtles know true peace than most creatures would ever achieve in their lifetime. It was from them that idea of meditation was created to find peace within one's self to find meaning, just as the turtles have.

Creators of the World

Most would say that world was always here since the creation of the universe, but others would say it all started with a turtle. - Imperial Scholar

Many cultures across the archipelago believe that the world was created by a turtle named Gumai a wise old turle that lived in the heavens that was far wiser than the gods themselves until one day she decided that her time had come to leave and left the heavens where she become one with the universe. While her spirit left, her body remained and turned to stone with the gods creating life on it to honor her. It is said that the Stone Turtles are the children of Gumai and were grant wisdom due to their heritage, along with many also belive that the islands that they live on are also stone bodies of theses turtles when they passed on in order to create more life on them.