Creature:Trumpaht

Trumpahts live in a world of complete and utter darkness. On this planet, a thick, cloudy atmosphere prevents all but the faintest light from reaching the planet surface. This causes the planet to be both perpetually dark and freezing cold; most water is frozen and a permafrost layer limits food sources. Fortunately for life, nature always finds a way to make things work.

By some miracle of nature, there is an ocean. It is frozen, mind you, but occasionally there are huge breaks in the ice. From this, undersea geysers spout C02 and other various elements that provide nutrients for creatures on land. Instead of herbivores, this planet has a type of "filter-feeder" to replace it, which gathers compounds from the toic atmosphere and synthesises them without sunlight. The carnivores here have remained roughly the same.

Physical Description


Due to the darkness of this planet, all living creatures there use some form of biological lighting. For this reason, the species each use the epithet of "Neos", derived from the word Neon, due to their usual resemblance to a neon sign.

Trumpahts look like someone animated a Scottish bagpipe and splattered neon-colored paint all over it. They have a large tube for a mouth, and four legs that end in insectoid feet. The back is an overinflated sac with many tubes coming out of it. Two long, slender arms hang below the head, terminating in 3-pronged graspers.

The tubes that come out of the creatures behind emit a large, highly obnoxious noise that sounds, quote&quote, "like an elephant giving birth to a sperm whale". This is thought to aggrivate predators.

Feeding Habits
Trumpahts are 100% carnivorous. They prefer freshly ripped meat, using their graspers to tear chunks off the recently slain cadavar of their prey. They will gladly feed on anything that shows up in their sight, which is actually a dummied down version of infra-red.

Mating Rituals
Trumpaht mating can barely be called mating at all. Females and Males simply walk up to one another, engage a typically 5-second long courtship consisting of the touching of graspers, and then part. The touching passes the required sperm into the female, and impregnates her. She then quickly burrows underground to increase her chances of survival during pregnancy.

After 5 months, she gives birth to a litter of 5-6 individuals. She cares for them for no more than a week, then "mysteriously" vanishes without a trace, leaving the progeny all alone.