Caeligo

Tentacles in the Depths

At first I thought I had simply too little sleep. That the shadow beneath us was nothing more than a trick of my beleaguered mind. I know now that I should have trusted my instincts.

— What Lies Beneath, by Caesonia Glaucia

The caeligo, also known as the Deep Squid or Sky Squid, is one of the least well researched creatures of the Blue. Its nickname comes from the fact that it shares a certain resemblance to small squid creatures found in rainstorms and the ponds they fill. The caeligo is not aquatic, however, and does not seem to be related to these harmless pests. Most notably, it is massive, and it mainly lives in the Depths. Its name comes from the name of the ship captained by Caesonia Glaucia, the Caeligus. Captain Glaucia wrote about an encounter with a member of this species, though the tentacled beast described in her work is only given the name "Caeligus' Doom", which was eventually shortened to caeligo.

Anatomy and Morphology

The caeligo posseses somewhere between 8 and 20 tentacles that make up the majority of its legnth. It is assumed, though has never been observed, that the more tentacles any one specimen possesses, the older they are. The caeligo has a very leathery skin that shields its flesh from the poisons of the Depths. Its body proper, which is only slightly larger than the average adult male, is coated in a shell several inches thick. This shell has several markings that appear as eyes, but it actually sees through its thin 'feeler' tentacles. It possesses a mouth, a five-sided beak located between its tentacles. The beak opens in a similar manner to a rotating aperture, which is thought to help cut its prey into digestible pieces without exposing sharp edges to possibly cut its sails.

Types of Tentacles

Graspers
Each caeligo has at least one, but up to four pairs of grasping tentacles, which they wrap around their prey. Each of their graspers is coated in a sticky slime that often absorbs the corrosive acids of the Depths.

Sails
Half of all of any caeligo's tentacles, each sail is made up of two separate, thick tentacles connected via a leathery skin. It uses these to propel itself through the air, with a somewhat mesmerising pulsing motion.

Feelers
Slightly inappropriately named, these thin tentacles are a large part of how the Cealifo senses its surroundings. However, they more closely resemble ears, as they sense tiny vibrations in the air around them.

Sensory Capabilities

The Caeligus's bouyancy pods faltered, and we dropped towards the Depths. Artem managed to fix them in time, but we scraped the toxic gasses. That must have been when it picked up our scent.

— What Lies Beneath

Very little concrete evidence exists for a range at which the caeligo can sense vibrations, but stories abound of ships being chased through mile after mile of open sky. Close study of one recovered feeler showed that it was covered in thin hairs that shifted in response to any sort of sound. At first, it was thought that they simply moved constantly, even once removed from the deceased body, but it was later discovered that the hairs were simply responding to the sounds of the town nearest the lab, some 3000 feet away.

Reproduction

Until very recently caeligo reproduction was a complete unknown. A recent expedition sponsored by House Volignis changed that when it returned from a two-week round trip down into the depths carrying, among other specimens, the remains of a Caligo nest. The nest was covered in deflated sacs, which the expedition logs say were keeping it afloat. It is still unknown how the caeligo creates these sacs. Inside the nest were bundles of what appear to be eggs, but all deteriorated within a week of being above the Depths.

Hunting

All at once it was upon us. Beneath our feet, the ship began to groan. Boards were ripped from her hull, and splinters filled the air. I, along with one of the bouyancy pods, was thrown free and scattered to the wind. I could only watch as the Caeligus, and my crew, was consumed by her Doom.

— What Lies Beneath

Tactics

The only observed occasions of the caeligo's hunting tactics are when it has attacked ships. It is possible that it acts entirely differently when facing down its preferred prey.

Phase 1: Stalking

The caeligo starts by chosing a target, and then follows it for some distance. The longest example of this was when an Imperial scout discovered it had attracted a caeligo near abouts Boreana, and recorded it following them all the way to Olympus.

Phase 2: Lunge

Next, the caeligo rapidly closes the distance between itself and its prey. The highest speed ever recorded during one such lunge was 120 feet per second, nearly twice the speed of a passenger airship, maintained over a minute-long period. During this phase, the caeligo can be easily avoided by using loud noises to disorient it.

Phase 3: Grab

Once the caeligo has gotten close enough to its prey to grab it, it lashes out in every direction with its graspers. Once one of them hits something, and usually sticks thanks to the slime that coats them, it directs all its attention to wrapping all of its graspers around whatever it has hit.

Hunting Grounds

Though the caeligo has been observed stalking and even attacking airships that never go near the Depths, these are rare occasions. More commonly, when a caeligo is observed attacking an airship, it is one that passed down into the Depths not too long ago. As such, it is assumed that the caeligo prefers to hunt inside the toxic gases that sit below the Blue.

Prey

The recent expedition into the Depths brought back several promising possibilities for the preferred prey of the caeligo, but there are some concerns. For one, none of them even begin to approach the size of airships that have been attacked by caeligo. For another, the expedition was not able to adequately record a live caeligo doing anything other than harrassing their vessel.

Biological Traits

Average Lifespan: Unknown. None have been found that died of old age.
Average Length: 100 feet (including tentacle length), 8 feet (excluding)
Average Weight: 400 lbs

Locations Encountered

Encounters since 12 RA:

Each red dot is a reported sighting.
Each green dot is confirmed damage to ships done by caeligo attacks.

Discovery

Discovery is credited to the captain Caesonia Glaucia, who wrote about her encounter with a 'great, tentacled, beast' in the early colonial age. Her writings were initially thought to be fiction, and were quite popular for their time, until a caeligo specimen was brought to Ilysium nearly 150 years later.

Harvesting and Uses

Whenever a caeligo is killed, its body is often carved up and pieces of it are sold to the highest bidder. Mainly, what is sold is the skin, which can be used to seal airships against the poisons of the Depths. The process of removing the skin is very dangerous, as the flesh within is usually compressed by the high pressure of their usual prowling grounds. Up above the depths, when the skin is peirced, the body or tentacles can rupture violently, spraying razor-sharp bone fragments everywhere. Another hurdle is the shell, which shatters instead of cutting or splitting. Some attempts have been made to repurpose the caeligo's natural armor into protective plating, but due to the rarity of encounters and the inability to shape it, these attempts remain little more than curiosities for museums.

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