Great Lookouts Vytrimite

A vytrimite is a large crustacean broadly resembling a copepod, albeit one with two large, bulbous eyes and rock-crushing, adze-like pincers. Small examples rise to around three feet in length, but the carapaces of primordial 'keepgorger' variants the size of buildings have been observed tangled in the quartz clusters beneath the waters of the Crystal Eye.

Vytrimites are primarily aquatic, though large vestibules surrounding their gills can be closed and worked like bellows to allow extended sojourns beyond the waters' edge. Burrows found outside of the Crystal Eye are noted to take a downward turn shortly after the entrance, creating a place where rain and the disgorged contents of these vestibules could be pooled so that the creatures could rest there.

Vytrimites are primarily lithophages, consuming large quantities of stone to feed symbiotic chemosynthetic bacteria in their guts. The crustaceans use a combination of acidic mucous, their unique visual senses (see Perception & Sensory/Extrasensory Capabilities), and their powerful forelimbs to pulverize rocks as sturdy as granite, then shovel the remains into their maws for processing. Poweful acids in the creature's digestive system immedately start hydrolizing everything the vytrimite swallows, making the metal complexes therein available to their gut bacteria. Organic matter, including carrion and even small trees, is also consumed from time to time to provide trace nutrients otherwise not available in the creature's energy-poor diet. Former vytrimite feeding grounds may exhibit strange depressions where the soil is undermined and may feature openings into extensive networks of stone corridors hewn out by the creatures' powerful bashing forelimbs.

Like their non-magical copepod relatives, vytrimites reproduce sexually and go through larval, pupal, and adult stages. A female vytrimite is oviparous, laying large underwater clutches of eggs from which only a scant few hatchlings survive consumption by other aquatic predators. When an individual vytrimite has consumed enough food, it molts to allow for growth, leaving behind opalescent sheets of chitin which have sometimes been used as raw materials for the construction of lamellar armor.

Though physically powerful and possessed of some supernatural abilites due to exposure to fae magic in the Crystal Woods, vytrimites are, thankfully, none too bright. The vytrimite's energy-poor diet and robust physical stature come at the cost of reduced relative brain volume. Vytrimited don't 'hunt' so much as head towards the nearest weak spot in the rock they can see and keep boring until their sstomach fills. They may attack travellers from time to time because refined metals and the exposed surfaces of hewn stone seem like particularly juicy morsels to the primitive ganglia that animate these destructive beasts.

Though it isn't something the average (non-transmuter) citizen of High Hedgemont would understand, it is now believed that vytrimites are capable of seeing the polarization of light. This would allow the creature to observe stress points in physical objects - especially vitreous or crystalline structures - and exploit them to the benefit of their feeding techniques (see Dietary Needs & Habits). Likely much to the chagrin of those who hunted them in eras past, this unique perceptual quality meant that vytrimites of sufficient size needed not besiege a keep to consume its contents- they could simply pulverize the stone walls and eat them on their way to the juicy morsels beyond.