Sea Striders
Sea striders are large, gentle animals that reside in the shallow waters around the archipelago. They have lungs rather than gills, and while they can hold their breath for very long periods of time, they never seen to venture deeper than the sun's rays; once sunlight becomes dim, sea striders are less commonly seen.
Obviously, all this data is from a couple hundred years ago. Sea striders once were a common sighting around Staves Rest, spotting a strider floating along the surface of the water was something a staxie would see several times a week. Nowadays, a wild sea strider is an incredibly rare event that garners much attention.
Sea strider hunting started once the resources inside the creatures were made known to staxies. These creatures had everything; meat, sturdy bones, ambergris, plentiful oil, thick plates on the tail-- almost every part of the sea strider was valuable. This news caught on fast and staxies began ruthlessly hunting these animals. These docile creatures were originally only hunted by the occasional fogtrotter; they could not repopulate fast enough to compensate for the mass slaughter of their kind.
Being intelligent creatures, they quickly got the message and fled their homes. Where to is still unknown, no sailor has reported seeing a pod of striders in their travels. A younger generation of staxies was outraged and quickly petitioned for a ban on sea strider slaughter, but it was too late. The striders were gone, having either fled or been killed.
There was, however, a glimmer of hope recently. A pod of sea striders was spotted off the shores of Staves Rest. The public was quickly notified to not harm these creatures lest they face dire consequences. Islanders instead treated this pod with special care, offering them food and, surprisingly, pets. The pod responded very well to physical interaction and seemed to take a liking to staxies, one in particular. Milk spent a lot of time
interacting with the striders, learning about them, understanding them. He quickly realized that these creatures were incredibly intelligent and had the potential, and desire, to learn. The striders were easily tamed, and though they are free to leave the island as there is nothing keeping them trapped there, they choose to stay. The pod consists of six adults and one calf.
Sea striders are carnivores, and while their diet consists mostly of krill and the occasional fish, they love shellfish. They are frequently seen using their arms to dig in the sand in search of clams. Otherwise, they swim with their mouth wide open, eating whatever happens to go in.
Sea striders get their name from their odd form of locomotion when rooting for food-- they walk on the seabed. While they are fully capable of swimming with their powerful tails, they also just seem to enjoy walking like a toddler in the shallow end of the pool.
The sea strider has two massive concave horns on either side of their head located just above their earholes, these act as dishes to concentrate sound into their ears, allowing them to hear sea striders from up to 300 miles away! Sea striders communicate in a very low tone that is not detectable by the staxie ear, but it must be quite loud to travel that far.
Striders tend to move at a steady pace, this allows for other creatures to make homes on their backs! They are often seen with patches of coral, seaweed and kelp adoring their backs while schools of fish keep close.
They may have four eyes, but their vision isn't great. It's assumed that the rear eyes are for keeping an eye on their backs to make sure they aren't being followed, but this is just a guess.