Bulette
A bulette, also known as a landshark, is a fearsome beast. Feared and hated by most living creatures, bulettes are extremely dangerous, burrowing unseen beneath the soil before erupting up at an unexpected moment to seize their prey. A bulette's coming is almost always heralded by shaking in the earth beneath its prey's feet.
Some sages believe the bulette is the result of a mad wizard’s experiments at crossbreeding snapping turtles and armadillos, with infusions of demon ichor. Bulettes have been thought to be extinct at different times, but after years without a sighting, the creatures inevitably reappear. Because their young are rarely seen, some sages suspect that bulettes maintain secret nesting grounds from which adults strike out into the world.
Basic Information
Anatomy
A bulette's body is covered in thick, layered plates. Its head is bullet-shaped, similar to that of a shark, with a massive mouth. It has stumpy but powerful legs, the front pair of which are topped with powerful claws for digging. It also has a powerful jaw used to crush its prey.
Bulettes are covered head to toe in armor. Around the head and rear, this armor is a blue-brown color, while in between the hue might range from gray-blue to blue-green. Areas around the eyes are slightly darkened, with the eyes themselves usually being a yellow color with blue-green pupils.
Genetics and Reproduction
A male bulette's mating ritual is fairly complicated, involving the killing of deer and boars, which are then placed in a wide circle. He then digs a shallow pit in the middle of the circle and lines it with the bones of the animals he had killed. Over the course of a week, the bulette slowly grinds the bones in the pit into a fine powder. He then digs underneath the pit to wait for a female.
The female usually comes along within a month after being attracted by the odor, at which point the bulettes mate. It takes only a day and a half for the female to lay around a dozen eggs, covered in spines, and by the next morning, they hatch. Once hatched, the newborn bulettes immediately attack their mother in an attempt to kill her. She is observed to fight back, and although she usually kills most of the young, she succumbs to their attacks more often than not. The survivors, usually no more than two or three, then devour their slain siblings and mother.
Ecology and Habitats
Bulettes usually live in areas with somewhat soft earth to make burrowing easier.
Dietary Needs and Habits
In many cases, a bulette can swallow its prey whole, also consuming its victim's clothing, weapons, and other equipment, which the bulette could, in fact, digest successfully through its powerful stomach acid.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
For the 48 hours immediately after the hatching of bulette eggs, the powder in the mating pit is saturated with fluid from the eggs, making it a very effective fertilizer. Bulette plates also make excellent armor, being lightweight yet protective. A full plate usually goes for around 100-750 gp depending on its condition.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
On a bulette's forehead is a sensory nerve able to detect slight vibrations in the earth. The landshark uses this tremorsense to find prey while it burrows beneath the earth, ambushing them in a sudden yet brutal leap. This nerve is a tiny weak point, pressing up against the bulette's head plate, and hitting the spot in the armor that covers it may cause the creature to go into shock and pass out.
Geographic Distribution
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