#trunko

Ugly Dolls!! <3

In 1924, a bunch of people on a beach in south Africa supposedly saw a titanic creature covered in white fur engaged in a battle with two orcas. Some time later, the creature washed ashore. It had no head, a lobster-like tail, and most interestingly, perhaps, a trunk. This is Trunko.

Trunko is my personal favorite cryptid, and one of the few cryptids that there is actual photographic evidence for, since the beached corpse was photographed extensively. Just look at this Lil guy. You just gotta love 'em.

Trunko was originally known as the Margate Sea Serpent when it was discovered washed ashore on October 25th, 1924, in Margate, South Africa. In newspapers at the time, it was even called a “Fish like a Polar Bear”.

According to eyewitnesses, the creature was seen battling two killer whales in the ocean for a length of 3 hours. It could, reportedly, lift its body out of the ocean by 20 feet and it fought the killer whales with its tail. Even though Trunko was washed up on the beach for a total of 10 days, no scientists ever went to investigate it. Photos of the carcass were discovered in 2010. Before that, no one knew photos were ever published.

The hunt for leviathans is no quick trip, as one must sail out into the vast sea to find them. There are indeed species that hang near coastal waters, but often they are not found there year round. The sea beasts move and migrate with the seasons, leading whalers on a chase across the ocean. Some content themselves with living in the emptiness of the open sea, requiring one to venture out into the blue void after them. The comfort of nearby dry land must be abandoned to claim such prize, and the seafolk have long gotten used to saying these goodbyes. For some, that is the wonder of sailing and whaling, going out into a completely different world of fluid and sky, seeking leviathans where man and Church hold no power.

But the seas are strange and the world is filled with many incredible places. The open ocean does seem endless, but sail in the right direction, and you will stumble upon new biomes and conditions where the rules of the fluids has changed. In some cases, it is simply a change of temperature and weather conditions, where icy winds create arctic biomes. Those who sail in the northern waters speak of the mighty icebergs and freezing storms. Of the insidious Tear glaciers and the ancient frozen giants that once wept them. Conditions like these make for a wildly different voyage, with a whole new set of dangers. Sailing here is risky, but whalers have signed up for such deadly possibilities. Besides, compared to other seas, a little chill and floating ice chunks is easy to deal with. Any whaler would happily deal with the cold than be upon the emerald fluids of a Sluggish Sea, where one must wear protective masks at all times, lest the potent fumes send you into a stupor.

But with any new ecosystem comes its fair share of different fauna, and this applies to the leviathans. Weather and fluids determine what lies beneath the waves. While there are many hardy leviathans that can be found in many different conditions, there are some specialized to specific locales. Look to the Blubbersnout leviathan, who dwells entirely where the waters are good and cold. They prefer chillier climates, with their range reaching all the way to the frozen seas of the north. It is all thanks to their super blubbery bodies, where fat seems to be more prevalent than muscle. Their whole form is bloated with the stuff, creating a furry look that is actually blubbery filaments. Such a body makes them perfect for surviving the coldest of waters and iciest of storms. But of course, it also means that they do terrible in warmer climates. Such insulation would make them melt in the heat. And if you plopped one into the yellow depths of a Burning Sea, that would become quite literal.

Blubbersnouts are filter feeders, using the many fatty strands to collect and absorb tiny food particles. The long trunk they possess is used to locate where the waters are richest with nutrients and sniff out potential threats. The long blunt tusks are used to direct water through their fatty filters, as well as spar in mating rituals or fight against predators. Though bloated with blubber, the Blubbersnout is on the smaller side of leviathans and a bit leaner too. This gives them more speed and agility when in the water, which is good since they tend to be targeted by a lot by hungry jaws. Their soft fatty bodies have no thick hide or sturdy scales to protect them, so they choose flight over fight. Blubbersnouts can move with impressive speed and their squishy flesh allows them to slip into areas that larger leviathans or whaling ships cannot reach. While others would be worried about getting crushed between two drifting icebergs, the Blubbersnout is easily able to absorb such an impact.

It should be no surprise that Blubbersnouts are harvested for their incredible supply of blubber and oil. Their tusks provide ivory, but it is the rich fats people want. The Skeggrs, with lack of steady Yellow Bile supplies, typically use the oil of these and other leviathans to fuel flames and forges. Seafolk prize them for the same qualities, though catching the slippery buggers is a bit difficult. They are faster than the usual prey and are able to cram themselves into shallows and ice cracks. Special harpoons must be crafted to get a good grip on this leviathan when it spears through, as the soft blubber can easily slip free of its simple barb. The trick is to bind them with these heavily barbed harpoons, then finish them off with long lances and spears. Due to thick layers of fat, they can take a whole lot of punishment without perishing. The key is to get a long spike and jam it right through the blubber and skull, bringing the hunt to an end. Until that happens, be ready for a lot of thrashing, tail slams and the jabbing of blunt tusks into the ship's hull. Yellow Bile can easily melt through the fat, but for obvious reasons, whalers don't use this. Fry one with yellowflame and the furious crew might toss you overboard to join the flaming leviathan.

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Cryptid of the Day: Trunko

“New Trunko Design” © deviantArt user Kryptid, accessed at his gallery here

[The appearance of a sea monster on the shore of Margate, South Africa, attracted some press attention at the time. The Daily Mail covered it, and from there the story appeared in Charles Fort’s Lo! , where he dismissed it as a hoax. When Charles Fort thinks your paranormal phenomenon is a hoax, you know it’s built on flimsy evidence. The Margate Monster gained popularity, and its current name, in the writings of Karl Shuker, who resurfaced the story and put it into several popular books (like 1996′s The UneXplained, which is where I first heard of it). To his credit, Shuker continued to do research and follow up on the story, and when photographs appeared (as opposed to just reprints of the article), he was savvy enough to recognize the actual Trunko as a globster, the catchall category of mutilated carcasses interpreted as sea monsters.

Pathfinder already has globsters, but I wanted to make a Trunko that represented the fantastical creature alive, if it were actually some sort of hairy white sea elephant. My concept draws on Opabinia (my favorite Cambrian weirdo) and the orangutan crab]

Trunko CR 5 N Vermin This creature looks something like a furry whale, except that it has rippling fins running along its sides instead of separate limbs. It has a paddle-like tail at one end, and at the other, a short but very flexible trunk ending in a clasper.

A trunko is a large aquatic invertebrate found in cold seas. They are related to anomalocarids and opabinias, with a trunk like structure used to pull food into an underslung mouth. They eat primarily zooplankton, which they gather by literally swimming through their masses. The hairs covering a trunko’s body are sticky, and the trunko can groom itself at its leisure to remove and consume the various marine invertebrates glued to it. These hairs also act as a defensive mechanism, gumming the jaws of sharks and orcas.

Trunkos are social creatures who live in mixed-sex pods. They are ovoviparous, carrying eggs internally that hatch to release free-living young. The young are born sticky, and can feed themselves almost immediately, but remain in their own pods until full grown. The undulating fins of a trunko allow it remarkable dexterity in the water, and they often live in areas with strong winds and currents, too choppy for ships to sail through easily. As such, they are rarely seen by landlubbers and have something of a mythical air.