#etes

The Children of Life and Death,

I’m going to start on one of the lesser-known and my personal favorite babies of the entire world: THE ETES. (pronounced Eh-Tehs)

They are a race of GIANT SCORPIONS. And I mean Giant. Draft Horse sized. With human heads.

They typically have silvery-blonde hair (though not always) and decidedly metallic-silvery eyes. Etes also have little clicky-clack mandibles framing their human-like mouths. Helps food to not fall out while they’re eating.

They are, understandably, the stuff of nightmares. Absolutely spoopy looking.

However, they are the sweetest race ever to grace this fictional world. 12/10 would protect from all the evils of the universe.

Because they don’t have hands, but big clunky claws or potentially harmful stingers to manipulate things with, this makes anything requiring manual dexterity a hecking chore.

So nearly everything is done in a communal/cooperative manor. Including personal decoration, eating, and grooming. This makes Etes extremely social. The most hyper social race there is.

Etes can’t speak at a ‘normal’ volume, barely at a whisper. If they need to communicate from any sort of distance, they click their claws in a version of morse-code. Except when they get really excited/agitated/happy. Then they just click their claws AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, like castanets. Which in their clickety-clack language is like going “ASJKFH:AJK:SLKHG:LKAJS:LDFAHGFL:KAJSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH”

They don’t come across members of the other races often, because they live in what is probably the most inhospitable area of the continent possible. Desert-like area that is infested with Death Worms (think “Tremors” but slightly smaller. And, if possible, more teeth).

Death Worms are the Etes’ main source of food, and thus the Etes are one of the ONLY reasons why Death Worms don’t expand outside the desert. Well, besides the ground conditions being sub-optimal for them. Etes are the only reason why there is not ONLY Death Worms in their particular habitat.

When Etes DO encounter a member of another race, they’re usually lost and alone. Etes think (and they’re not exactly wrong) that anything alone in the desert will die. So when they find a lost person (usually human), they’re like “Oh no. Can we help you? Cuz you’re going to die, otherwise.”

Great Grey Owl

One of the strangest owls I’ve ever seen.