Giant Landsnail

The Giant Landsnail is native to The Lamas Plains, and has been adopted by the Plainsfolk who live there for various domestic purposes.

Although the snail is slow, it is also stubborn and resistant to damage. This has led to some Plainsfolk adopting smaller ones as implacable battle mounts.

Larger specimens are incredibly strong, capable of carrying homes or even small settlements anchored to their shells.

The snails are incredibly long lived, and so they are usually passed between multiple generations of Plainsfolk.

Basic Information

Growth Rate & Stages

The landsnail emerges from eggs buried in the sands of the plains approximately one foot in length. They initially grow quite quickly, roughly doubling in size in the first two years, but this slows until at ten years and approximately five feet in length, they grow perhaps as little as an inch a year.
No upper limit is known for their size or age, instead the limitation on the growth of the landsnail seems to be linked to their diet. Eventually they will reach a point where their diet does not provide for the size of their shell, and it will collapse under its own weight.

Dietary Needs and Habits

The giant landsnail leaves a trail of digestive juices as it travels. If left to its own devices it will often travel circuitously, doubling back to feed on areas it has already passed over. However even without this behaviour it feeds on surfaces as it passes over them, absorbing nutrients from the ground it passes over through its membranous lower body.

The landsnail appears to be able to digest any material known to the Plainsfolk, from the sands of its birthplace in the desert to wood, stone, even metals. It is equally capable of digesting organic matter such as plants or even the bodies of people or animals.

The landsnail requires an increasingly complex and mineral-rich diet as it grows. As it does, the makup of its shell changes, becoming reinforced with the stronger materials. As the snail grows larger, it requires more and more of these stronger materials to reinforce its shell against its own weight.

Additional Information

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Landsnail Shell can be a very valuable material. It can be very hardy, particularly in the cases of larger specimens which have consumed tougher materials to maintain their size, and sees use in all manner of crafts, from shields, armour and the limbs of bows to construction. In fact, an intact snail shell can be the basis for an excellent shelter, home or even larger settlements built entirely within the spiral of the shell.
It can also be quite beautiful, and some snails are reared specifically to encourage this, leading to shells striated with precious gems or metals which can be cut and polished to form the basis of jewellery in a similar manner to mother of pearl.

Snailspit is another valuable resource which can be gathered from the Giant Landsnail. The corrosive saliva of the snail, it is left in glistening trails everywhere they pass. Strong enough to be used to cut through stone or steel, it is particularly valuable to artisans such as blacksmiths for resist-etching. A notable exception to snailspit's ability to melt through seemingly any material is snail shell.
Additionally, when poured into boiling water* the saliva can be rendered down to leave an extremely adhesive substance behind, another favourite of artisans, particularly used by the Plainsfolk in their laminated armour. Items treated with a hardened layer of this substance are also unable to be melted by the corrosive snailspit.

* This process is quite dangerous, as the steam released by the rendering process is highly corrosive, and a single lungful is certain death.

Scientific Name

Lissachatina Gigantis

Geographic Distribution

• The Lamas Plains