Frothling
The Frothling is a broad, lumpen coldland crawler clad in pebbled hide that stays partly buried in the snow even when active. It sleeps beneath the crusted drifts of the Frozen Highlands and Maanamodilia Place Maanamodilia A major offshore landmass in the far south of Elshore, off the southern continent of Khaldaara across the Divider Sea of the Maans, reaching toward the polar south., waiting for the brief thaws to stagger forth and nose through the softening slush for whatever small creature dared to outlast the winter. To see one surface is to know that the cold is far from done; Highland Erg shamans say it carries the world's last cold dream.
Key traits
- Pebbled, leather-layered hide insulates the Frothling against subzero cold and keeps it sheltered beneath the snow it inhabits.
- A sunblooded metabolism slows almost to dormancy through the deepest months, then wakes only with the brief seasonal thaws.
- It surfaces around the melt-zones where the snow softens enough to let a buried crawler push through.
- A patient scavenger and opportunistic predator, it takes any small creature it can catch but will not pursue larger prey across the open snowfields.
- Highland Erg trappers hunt it occasionally in late winter, when Frothlings stir at the edges of southern settlements.
- Its layered hide is worked into southern winter cloaks.