Appearance:
Grand reapers are one of the planet’s largest marine inhabitants. Males having a dark red top side with a dark grey underside while females have a muted purple top side. They have scythe-like forelimbs along with a row of flippers and a wide, flat tail.
Behavior:
Grand reapers are a rather peaceful creature when not hunting, as they’ll just lazily swim around when not hungry. They’re not territorial, often migrating from one hunting spot to another though sometimes they’ll stick around in their favorite hunting spots for up to half a year. When they hunt, they hide themselves amongst any sort of terrain like rocks and once prey swims by, they’ll burst from their hiding spot and snag them. Once they have prey in their grip, it will start feasting on animal as it squirms and wiggles. Mating pairs will hunt together and rarely, pairs that are exceptionally successful in hunting will stick together and mate for life. Females lay clutches of 15-30 eggs and only about 1 in every 10 hatchlings make it to adulthood.
Abilities / Traits:
Despite their size, they can be very agile in the water. Their carapaces are very resilient with only other, more powerful reapers being able to crack through.
Ecology / Role:
As one of the ocean’s apex predators, they eat about anything including other reapers. They are also messy eaters as they leave lots of bits and pieces, wherever they go, scavengers follow suit. When one dies, it becomes a feeding frenzy, spreading its nutrients throughout the ecosystem. When many individuals perish and molt within the same area, it creates a haunting site of empty shells and husk, and these mass graves often become the bases of coral reefs.
Lore / Notes:
It is believed some of the largest reefs were formed on either a mass grave of dozens if not hundreds of reapers or exceptionally large individuals that had died due to their sheer size.