Cloud-Whales

Cloud-Whales are gargantuan flying creatures that graze on clouds. These gentle giants sail endlessly across the sky of Quentriandal in small herds.

Description

Cloud-Whales look similar to their aquatic kin, save for the multiple sets of wings along their body that have replaced their flippers. While the young only have a single set of wings, as the whale grows older they sprout additional wings to support their increased bulk. The eldest among them can have as many as eight, but four is the norm. These wings lack feathers and their span is enough to blot out the sun. The cloud-whale's rough skin insulates from the cold with a layer of blubber, making them highly sought-after by hunters. They range in color from deep blue to almost white.

The whales grow to great proportion with even the smallest adult spanning at least 15 meters and the greatest among them exceeding 50. Such are their bulk that the cloud-whales become home to other, smaller creatures. From barnacle and sky-corral that grow along their bodies and wings to small orchards of bushes and even trees on their massive backs. Flocks of birds and other flying creature make their homes there, picking off parasites and other annoyances in exchange for sanctuary.

Behavior

The Cloud-Whales are peaceful creatures, content to roam across the sky of the dreaming-world. They feast on clouds and great swarms of locust-like creatures that inhabit them with their great sieve-like maw. Nomadic by nature, the cloud-whales will roam great distances to eat and meet others of their kind. They will do their best to avoid thunderclouds, finding those to be particularly unpalatable.

Look out below!
Cloud-Whales excrete their waste without much concern for the land underneath them. For this reason alone, it is not considered wise to gawk at these creatures from directly under them.

While not particularly fast, Cloud-Whales never grow tired and can continue their steady flight without rest for their entire lives should they need to. In desperate circumstance, they are capable of short bursts of movement and a swing of their tails is enough to batter castles into rubble. At most times, they stay at an altitude that make them little more than spectacle to Sleepers and Awakened alike, but on occasion they stray low enough for ambitious hunters to ready their harpoons.
Cloud-Whales travel in small packs, with a few adults followed by several children. It is rare for such a herd to exceed ten members.

Life Cycle

When it is time to mate, the Cloud-Whales disappear beyond the clouds and high into the sky.
Once every few decades, the Cloud-Whales settle on the highest plateaus and mountains that can hold their bulk to birth their young. Cloud-Whales give birth to live young and after only a few days, they are able to fly. It can take a cloud-whale a century or more to reach its full size, though no one really knows.

Some cloud-whales grow stranger than others.

Story and Narratives

Normally kind and shy beasts, Cloud-Whales embody the concept of a gentle giant, both wise and protective. It has on occasion featured in tales as a great protector, descending from the skies with a mighty bellow to crash and batter into marauding monsters of equal proportions. The cloud-whale usually survive these encounters, though sometimes theirs is a tale of a tragic end after these battles.
Other times, the narrative reverse. These whales, sometimes called Thunderkin, have gorged themselves on thunder and lightning to become vicious and mad. Others are driven mad by the injury suffered by hunters and whalers, becoming a force of reckoning.
Cloud-Whales are normally rare. They feature in few tales and in some they are little more than distant spectacles, reminders of the wonders still found in the world and the insignificant size of mankind.

Whale-Hunting

Cloud-Whales are too large and powerful for most animals to make a meal of, but there are some. Packs of cloud-hunting reptiles like wyverns occasionally try to separate and devour one of the young, while the old and weary sometimes fall prey to determined and hungry predators.
The most common predator of Cloud-Whales are humans. Using ballistas and similar artillery originally used to bring down walls of castles, cloud-whales who stray too close to the ground or to pre-arranged and elevated locations can find themselves under a barrage of fire. Such hunts are dangerous and often unsuccessful, but make for powerful stories.