[Summer/Beach/Water] Creature Suggestion: Shorus

sparklefox • 28 March 2024 at 1:06 PM

A dumb little idea I've had for a decent while, so I finally got the confidence to doodle it and make a thread. Please excuse the bad walrus anatomy on the image, and the crappy attempt at making them look sandy (just noting that I'm not an artist and I'm sorry).
Tried my best to convey the idea that the eyes are also just sand, but I'm not sure of how it ended up turning out.

"Shorus" is just simply shore + walrus.

Image: https://ibb.co/VMPx6rF

Egg Description:
Despite having a very dry appearance, they feel exactly like wet, cold sand to the touch. The smell of a salty breeze follows these eggs wherever they go. Seashells are collected by the parents and attached onto the sandy "shell" as a form of protection.
Shorus eggs "hatch" by suddenly collapsing into a heap of sand on the ground. From there, the newborn creature will dig itself out of the sand pile with its flippers - though it's also perfectly safe for the owner of a Shorus to lift the baby out themselves.

Creature Description:
A walking sand sculpture, or...? Rumour has it that the Shorus is a small piece of Ark's beaches given life by a magical spell, though others say a wandering spirit decided to use some beach sand to give itself a physical form. But whatever they truly are, they're a strange case indeed. With no internal organs in sight, their bodies are composed entirely of beach sand and salty seawater - with the water side gradually taking over the sandy side as they grow older.
Their heads appear to have facial features at first, but look closer and one will notice that they're nothing more than engravings within the sand. Are they perhaps created by the Shorus itself to appear more approachable? Some Shoruses can learn to move their "eyes" by magically shifting the sand around.
Shoruses seem to enjoy decorating their bodies by embedding seashells into them. The shells that once coated their eggs are sentimental to the Shorus, and are kept and protected for life.

noman15 • 28 March 2024 at 2:14 PM

I love the idea of a living sand sculpture creature for a summer theme.

jlya • 28 March 2024 at 3:13 PM

@sparklefox
What are you talking about, this is such art and the complete opposite of dumb?! I so love this beach/sand concept and I agree this would be perfect for the summer months. Look at that adorable baby stage ❤️ Please can we have this.

chihiro_sang • 30 March 2024 at 12:07 AM

I love how the baby stage looks like a baby turtle to morphing into a magical sculpture in its other stages,

sparklefox • 1 April 2024 at 3:12 AM

@chihiro_sang - I'll pretend that was intentional, haha. I like that idea.

Forgot to mention it in the first post, but a little worry I had was that it was a little too similar to the Valliz in that it's a summer water-themed walrus ("undersea" theme in Valliz' case) with seashell tusks. Admittedly I forgot the Valliz existed until it just came to me whilst making the thread, and it got me a little worried.
Though I suppose one could argue that some ideas are going to unintentionally get repeated on an adoptable site with 1,000+ creatures to collect (take a look at the amount of "winged cats", for instance).

(Thank you for the replies so far, everyone.)

murfijs • 1 April 2024 at 8:40 AM

@sparklefox
i love this creature idea!

chihiro_sang • 1 April 2024 at 9:09 AM

I think it's different enough from the valliz with its more shore theme, and it's not like eggcave doesn't have a few very similar creatures like the ralok and the other dogshark creature.

ashlinnhi • 1 April 2024 at 9:22 AM

it's absolutely adorable!! the shell gradually getting smaller in proportion to the creature (as it ends up an absolute unit, one could say) is so cute, and that doodle in the bottom corner has my heart ❤️ also love how they don't have any internal organs LOL