Hello. I will be describing a cursed subrace of Bunnies the "Lapine"

Lapines are bunnies of unnatural cuteness. If ever one was to reach adulthood, it would mean the end of the world as everything would simply fawn over the Lapine. In order to forestall the end of the world, a witch cursed this race. Whenever a bunny of sufficient cuteness is born, it is given a random heart or breathing disorder at birth and die within the hour. They are also cursed to be forever infertile, ensuring even if someone were to keep one alive until maturity, they would never be able to reproduce and populate the planet in sufficient numbers to doom the world.

Close your eyes, and listen.
You are looking down upon a forest, the trees towering tall above the landscape. It is bustling with life, the various birdsongs merging into one loud chorus that can be heard even from this height.
Look to your left. There, far above any other bird that flies, hovers the almighty Eagle. Despite the strong wind, it seems almost perfectly still, making only slight movements with one wing or the other to maintain this perfect stance. Its intense gaze is directed at the river far below, scanning for any signs of movement below the water. Even from this height, its powerful eyesight can detect even the slightest disturbance.
Suddenly, it dives. From a standstill, it is almost immediately travelling at a speed you would not believe without seeing it with your own eyes. It has tucked in its wings, decreasing its surface area to the point which it carves through the air like a knife through butter. As it reaches the water, its wings spread once more, allowing it to quickly change its trajectory, its talons reaching down as it flies parallel to the water. The fish has little chance to react as they break the surface. Flapping its wings, it rises, its prey seemingly not particularly thankful for its sudden vertical voyage, but completely unable to escape.
Water droplets fall, as its waterproof feathers do their job. While it only barely breached the surface, this bird could descend into the water entirely, and still not find itself waterlogged when it emerged.
The bird lands in its nest, atop one of the tallest trees, at a height few can reach. The fish is quickly dealt with, and the bird looks around, to the left and to the right. It is almost as if it is making sure the coast is clear.

Keep watching. Ensure you do not blink. Did you see it? The Eagle is now gone from the nest, but were we to search for it, it would not be found. Let us step back in time, and watch again.

See the Eagle finish checking that the coast is clear. Do you see it lean down, its beak tapping an object almost invisible among the sticks? Listen closely, and you can briefly hear the mechanical grind of the bottom of its nest opening, revealing a hollow funnel through the tree itself. Watch the eagle, in one smooth movement, return to its diving stance, delving into a darkness one would need an Eagle’s eyes to view. I shall raise the lighting, for your benefit.

Look around as the Eagle emerges from the bottom of this funnel. See the huge cave, the groundwater, the lines and lines of nests along the walls. If you look closely upon them, you can make out the eyes of other Eagles tracking their compatriot’s progress. It flies on, revealing just how spacious this area truly is, coming to a rest in a large clearing surrounded by birds of another sort.

Over several generations, these hyperintelligent eagles trained a kind of bird you and I would think nothing of, and it was this that enabled them to build their civilization. These are city pigeons, and if you look to your left, you will see their treasures. Bottles, coins, a wedding ring… perhaps you are not impressed? But this is merely one day’s haul. Amongst the various items discarded by humanity, there is many an item that can be repurposed by an enterprising Eagle. The one which we are following removes a scrap of metal from the pile with its talons, and takes flight once more.

Look ahead. See the towering object in the distance, Eagles of various disciplines working on every side. Let us follow this Eagle as it brings us closer, landing in front of what appears to be a door, the handle on the floor allowing the eagle easy access using its talons. In this room, there are many wondrous objects adorning the walls, but the Eagle’s focus is on a box. With care, it applies the metal strap to connect two unassuming wires inside. A sudden chorus of squawking can be heard outside, as bright light suddenly fills the cave.

As the Eagle emerges, it looks up at the giant rocket, now clearly powered on. A solitary Eagle can fly far above any bird that flies, but it was only when they came together that Eagles could dream of flying above the furthest stars. This Eagle does not know when its species shall leave this planet, nor whether it will even be alive when that time comes, but for the good of Eaglekind it will continue its work to the very end.

The Giebankong Lizard


Cold-Blooded Reptile

Average Lifespan: 3 Years

Very pale skin, susceptible to burns in the sun

Average size 2cm long

Hunted by birds, large lizards and many small rodents

Their eggs are also highly prized food items to many creatures

Eggs are laid in the open, and most commonly around August

Clutches will usually consist of a single egg

Diet consists of insects, small fruit and nuts and eggs of other small lizards, including others of their own species

Hatchlings are forced to defend for themselves

Extremely Territorial, will fight to the death any other Giebankong Lizard (both genders) that approaches their personal space[/li
[li]Have been known to go after other animal species as well, regardless of size

Is attracted to the smell of burn rubber, and is commonly found hiding in skidmarks, and other the wheels of cars in carparks.

Claws are very weak, and break off easily through fighting and digging for food, taking multiple days to grow back

Scales will also peal of easily and often before the the skin is ready to be shred.

Metabolism clears out roughly every 30 minutes

The Dragon Beetle

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Suborder: Polyphaga
Infraorder: Scarabaeiformia
Superfamily: Scarabaeoidea
Family:Draconidae
Genus: Draconidae
Species: D. ignus

Binomial name: Draconidae ignus

The modern dragon beetle is the sole extant member of its family and genus, but is related to more-familiar fellow scarab beetles such as the stag beetle (Lucanidae) and rhinoceros beetle (Dynastinae). The average adult dragon beetle is relatively unremarkable in size compared to these relatives, reaching a length of 30-60 centimeters. It is known for its distinctive carapace, with brilliant scarlet and azure sections, as well as iridescent combinations of the two on the abdomen. Dyes derived from its ground carapace were prized in antiquity for their resilience and remarkable hue, and were usually reserved for nobility given the difficulty encountered in harvesting specimens.

By far the most unusual feature of the dragon beetle, however, is what gives it its name - unique in the animal kingdom, the dragon beetle is capable of defending itself with fire. On either side of its impressive mandibles are glands which, when expressed, expel a stream of chemicals at an assailant. The exact composition of these chemicals is not known, as specimens are rarely obtained alive for study, but it is believed that they consist of alkaline liquids, notably sodium and potassium, mixed with water. These chemicals, when combined in volatility and exposed to atmospheric oxygen, combust spectacularly. The dragon beetle is known to defend itself fiercely, and even entomologists give it a wide berth.

Few animals are willing to contend with a dragon beetle, and several species of smaller insects and even a few diminutive mammals have learned to seek its protection in extremis. The beetle, for its part, appears not to consider these smaller animals to be threats, and readily faces down predators which enter its territory. This has produced a number of interesting symbiotic relationships, documented elsewhere.

Mature dragon beetles form what appear to large and complex eusocial communities which entomologists refer to as clans. Clans answer to a central matriarch and share a territory of up to a square kilometer in size and brook no outsider dragon beetle to enter. However, the larval form is known to travel to a new territory and is accepted into its new clan after pupating.

The resilience and versatility of the dragon beetle is such that fossils have been discovered alongside other scarab-form beetles as far back as the Jurassic era, when it is believed to diverged from its relatives. The dragon beetle is found throughout Eurasia wherever leafy plants may be found for it to eat, with only Arctic conditions beyond its reach. It has even been known to burn out and evict larger animals from their burrows in tundra conditions. The dragon beetle has no natural predators, though it does not coexist well with humans. As such, its principal threat is habitat loss. Despite this, populations thrive in forests, mountains, and wilderness across Eurasia, with some imported specimens reported to have established clans in the American wilderness.

My animal is the Knotty
Knotty has a structure that works very similarly to DNA - lots of coils and helixes. As it is only made up of lots and lots of small parts, it survives really well in the wild, because it can gather itself together and seperate when needed - this means that if a threat feels insurmountable, it can spread itself out very thinly, but if it believes it can win it can gather itself and form itself into a bigger, more intimidating shape - as long as it remains bonded to itself, it can create different shapes. It is also good for surviving in different environments, as it can consume more or less nutrients depending on its form.

The being able to formulate into smaller or bigger pieces also dictates how it interacts with other members of its species - it can swap parts of itself to bond with other members, or combine to see off big threats. It also makes breeding and passing on genes easier, as these frequent merges can create many different combinations and it is easy to see which offspring have the best traits - bad ones can be assimilated back and a new combination created.


It doesn't usually seek out humans, but if humans find them then it can usually charm and distract them by forming interesting shapes. It has been said that some humans have tried to make a Knotty formation communicate by showing it how to move into various letter forms, but results are inconclusive.

Hello Guys, Gals, and Nonbinary Pals, I present to you:

How to Tame a Tarasque

Now some of you may be asking, what is a tarasque? Others of you may know already! Tarasques are mythical monsters, commonly found in Dungeons & Dragons as an endgame level boss monster, but originates as a myth from medieval France as a way to describe the town of Tarascon got its name. And today, our goal is to take the tarasque and turn it into a creature that could functionally work in the modern day!

Firstly, it’s important to understand what a tarasque really is. In D&D, the tarasque is a monster of kaiju proportions, with a cohesive design that looks like a proper threat, and goes anywhere from hibernating from months or years on end to tearing a hole through your unsuspecting game. Unfortunately, the mythical version is what we’re using today, so we’re working with this:

[Credit: FoolishLittleMortal, Deviantart]

Yes that’s right, the tarrasque, while still maintaining its kaiju proportions, is a chimerical mash up of lion’s head, turtle’s shell, bear paws, ox body, and whatever kind of tail you want to give it. Which is both a massive shame and goes to show that medieval France truly had no idea of what an original character truly meant. But this is what we have, so it’s time to make it work.

Before we start answering the questions, we have to settle on a few other points as well. Firstly, it’s kaiju-esque proportions and solitary nature make it very difficult for a tarasque to survive past it's incredibly long lifespan, so we have to both shrink it down to size and give it enough smarts to understand the concept of friendship. Let’s say male tarasque are about 2 meters and 190kg, while female tarasque are slightly shorter and weigh about 130kg. Now we need to place the tarasque in the world - I’m thinking Africa, specifically in the Sahara. Tarasque are incredibly dangerous, mythically they can shrug off catapult fire faster than I can say “Procrastination Master”, so it’s best to keep these as far away from civilization proper as possible.

Now that we’ve addressed the tarasque in the room, its time to get down to business. How does a tarasque survive in the wild? Well, mythically the tarrasque is rampaging through southern France faster than Donald Trump’s ability to go out of business, so obviously it's a carnivore. A tarasque is as close to the top of the food chain any non-human can get, and due to its wildly incongruous character design filled with some of the most wildly overpowered pieces of animal it could ever wish for, would easily be able to take down whatever it wanted with pack tactics. If it did, however, run into a problem, don’t worry, it’s got a turtle shell the size of a smart car to fall back on! So you’d really have to hurt this thing good to be able to fight it!

You may also be asking “how does a tarasque interact with members of its species?” Well then, friend of indeterminate gender, do I have an answer for you! I mentioned this before, but tarasque would be powerful pack hunters, so clearly they should be working together for both efficient kill time and, more importantly, efficient intimidation power. Because who needs to kill stuff when you could just scare everything to death, right? There would be only a couple of males in a pack, outnumbered often 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 by the number of adult females, who would take care of the young tarasque and run the pack so the males can focus on finding food. Young tarasque would spend their time either being catered to by the adult females or spend their time play fighting each other more often than little kids getting into the cupboards, so they can grow up to be strong fighters! A tarasque should grow up into an adult by the age of 5 years. However, male tarasque would often be shunned by their pack in order to avoid inbreeding, which means they would need to either go solo or find a new pack that would let them in, often by brutal gladiatorial combat with the current adult males in front of throngs of screaming tarasque fans!

Social interactions with other animals would likely be left to a minimum, due mostly to its lack of cohesive design giving it the appeal of a 5 year old that pooped their pants while eating a bucket of glue. Social interactions with other animals would be limited, and probably center around watering holes within the Sahara, and would be notably muted at best most of the time. Most of the remaining interaction would go towards getting their paws up in other animals for faster takedowns than a new player walking into a Fortnite match against a bunch of pro players.
Unfortunately for our dear tarasque friends, no amount of plot armor or intimidation power is a match for an AK-47. Due to their nature as carnivores, I imagine that tarasques and humans would struggle to get along. And since tarasques don’t have opposable thumbs, they don’t stand much chance against the kind of heat that humans can pack. While a tarasque may be able to shrug of catapult fire, several dozen clips of simultaneous rifle fire would bring down just about anything. And don’t even get me started on nuclear power! These are tarasques, not tardigrades!

As for tarasque reproduction, I’m not saying they’d do it like they do it on the discovery channel…but I'm also not saying I'm not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzHzc1zMPlA&feature=youtu.be

Wait, I thought we already dealt with the tarasque in the room! How is it back‽ Okay, fine. I have something to admit. As it stands, the tarasque would sink into the sand of the sahara and would never be able to make it back out due to its weight distribution. Bear paws don’t work on sand, the ox body/turtle shell combo is just way too heavy, while its ambiguous tail isn’t going to do it any favours either. We need to streamline. We can start by removing the bear paws and giving it something thats better for walking on sand. Replacing the ox body and turtle shell with a sleeker furred body and more fitting design that sacrifices its incredible defense. We can make its fur roughly the same colour as the sand in order to give it some stealth. And finally, we can give it a smaller and less functional tail. This means it doesn’t have to drag something half its body size across the desert, wasting precious time and energy,

This gives us something that looks like this…

[Credit: Wikipedia]

Any resemblance to a real animal is a masterpiece of design ;).

Ok so you know the Tardigrades right?  They are called water bears and are microscopic organisms that can survive most any conditions as long as water is still present.  They look like this.

Now they aren't perfect, they supposedly struggle in hot water and only have a life span of about 4 to 6 months unless frozen.  Now to clarify, they can survive being boiled but they will eventually die in hot water of 100 degrees if maintained.  Yeah this critters can come back to life after being frozen or ejected into the vacuum of space.  

Suppose I took these guys that lived primarily off algae or anything smaller then them, and gave them a symbiotic nature to feed off decayed skin similar to a Garra rufa.  This is a type of fish that is used in spa treatments to eat dead skin off peoples feet.  Now we add in the fertility of a rabbit to compensate for the short life span and with the Tardigrades having no issue with seasonal requirements, they would breed year round.  

What makes this particularly appeals is that these creatures would multiply in the billions but due to their microscopic nature, their presence wouldn't really even be felt.  Yet, having them around would help cleanse the world of dead cells and potential diseases.  These Tardigrade rip offs are also able to survive in space as they use very little energy and are capable of storing food/oxygen in their body.  Their transparent bubble like body forms a seal allowing them to live in the depths of the ocean or simply survive for decades where no life exists.  These animals are capable of shutting down their system if in danger, living off their reservoir until new life is found around them to rejuvenate.

When Earth is dead and gone, these new creatures would hibernate, possibly even drifting off the surface of the Earth to bigger and better things.

But we aren't done yet, we still have the hot water issue!  That's were the friendly cockroach comes in.  Nothing adapts to temperatures quite like a roach does and their spry nature allows them to find food/mates much quicker.  The concept of this animal is frightening but luckily, we would never know about them.

I call them...

Garra Rabidgrades and they will live forever.

The Atoz (IPA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet): /ˈei.tuˌzi/) is a rare creature with reptilian characteristics. It is known for its unusual combination of autotomy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autotomy), parasitism, and mind-affecting toxins.

In many ways the Atoz resembles the more common Monitor Lizards, having the same basic body shape and general size; an adult typically reaches a length of about one foot from the nose to the beginning of their tail. Their tail is disproportionately long and thick in comparison to their body, due to its unique role (see later). Scales cover their body, but are quite weak and offer little protection. Their claws are not especially long or sharp, but their toes have the ability to strongly grip, allowing them to cling to other animals for safety. Their senses are generally poorly developed with the exception of hearing, which is very acute. Unlike true non-avian reptiles, the Atoz are warm-blooded, therefore allowing them to both survive in cooler climates or hide in dark areas when threatened.

What makes the adult Atoz unique is their method of feeding. Unlike their young, the adults do not hunt for their own food. Instead, they seek out a larger, stronger predator. What this predator is depends on the habitat of the Atoz; it may be a tiger in one area, or a bird of prey in another. Once a suitable predator has been located, the Atoz reveals itself to them and snaps off its tail. Some lizards do this to distract predators, but the Atoz has weaponized this. The Atoz naturally produces a strong mind-affecting poison, which is most powerfully concentrated in their tail. Once the unsuspecting predator eats it, the poison enters their bloodstream nearly immediately. The effect of the poison are similar to a more dramatic version of Oxytocin(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin) in humans: the animal begins to feel a strong bond of affection with the first creature it sees, which in almost all cases is the still-present Atoz. From that point on, the predator serves as the protector and provider for the Atoz. Larger animals are clung to, and when a kill is made the Atoz takes a portion of the meat. For smaller predators, the Atoz plays the role of their host's young, staying in a safe location while the host brings back food. Atoz poison does not affect the system forever, but the creatures are blessed with remarkable regenerative ability - given an adequate supply of food, their tails can be regrown within a week.

Adult Atoz are generally solitary creatures aside from their contacts with hosts. Mating occurs at a given time each year. To compensate for their rare meetings, Atoz are hermaphroditic. They abandon their current hosts to go towards a nearby Atoz giving off a mating cry. Once two Atoz meet, they wrestle for a while to test each others' strength. If their strengths are comparable, they proceed to mate, fertilizing each other. If one Atoz is much stronger than the other, the weaker one is rejected and excluded from the gene pool. Once mating is completed, the Atoz return to their old hosts or seek new ones if their previous one cannot be found.

Gestation takes only a couple months. Unlike true reptiles, Atoz give live birth to a small number of young, typically three or four. Because they rely on powerful predators, which are fewer in number than weaker animals, these small litters help prevent overpopulation. The baby Atoz are independent and typically scatter within hours of their birth. Before reaching maturity, they behave much like a typical small lizard, eating small insects that can't fight back and fleeing from predators, taking advantage of their warm-bloodedness to hide in the dark as needed.

Human contact to date with Atoz has been limited. There has been much interest in the function of their poison, with research being done about the possibility of its use treating anxiety and feelings of alienation. Ethical concerns have been raised concerning the idea of using Atoz poison as a 'love potion,' but no country or organization has specifically outlawed its use. No humans are known to have been parasitized by an Atoz, but it remains to be proven that this could not happen. The fact that an Atoz host cares for and protects the creature means that it is likely that a human host would take great lengths to conceal its existence. Some suspect that this may be a reason for their discovery only having been very recent. The WHO advises that Atoz tails should not be eaten.