Rock Beatle

A species that feeds through a symbiotic relationship

The rock beetle is a common, if dangerous sight in the dry, rocky lands of Acua. Nothing like the small, cute bugs somewhere in Tressuin or Vrofmas, the Rock Beatles of Acua are much larger in size, ranging from a dire wolf to a an elephant.

These beetles are prized kills for the daring hunter that will take it on. The rock-hard wings can be used as defenses around settlements, and the most skilled craftsmen can make desirable armor from it. Used by the Beetle itself, it's wing flap agressivly behind it, compacting dirt and rock above the beatle as it's burrowing, usually resulting in fairly safe, rudimentary tunnels in the earth

May find these tunnels of great value and lots of humanoids will attempt to domesticate the rock beatles as use them to create underground settlements. Homesteader beware though, as dwarves, orcs, and the like aren't the only ones who favor these caverns in the earth. Adamantine Dragons in Acua favor these tunnels over making their own, and anybody living in them when an adamantine dragon comes across a network of passages and favors it, are as good as dead

For the dragons end, they easily keep the rock beetles fed with the undesirable scraps of the dragon's own food. An adamantine dragons skin can be pierced by so few, including only the largest and most powerful of the rock beetle species, and the dragon will have killed any beetles off long before they got to a dangerous size.