Shell-backed Beast
A creature from the Eastsong Cycle
A shell-backed beast, known colloquially as a shell-back, was a giant, naturally armored creature indigenous to the southern latitudes of the Fledgling World. The folk of the Lost Kingdom employed shell-backs as beasts of burden and of war.
Shell-backs loosely resembled aurochs-sized ground squirrels with carapaces extending from their furred heads to their stubby tails. They walked, slow yet steady, on four short legs. Though undistinguished in speed, intelligence, docility, or agreeableness, shell-backs were exceptionally strong and nigh impervious to prowlers. Most of their time was spent grazing in meadows and on floodplains, their preferred habitats.
Human-folk of the Lost Kingdom—and, later, the westernmost settlements of the Southern Redeemed kingdoms—captured and trained shell-backs for such purposes as plowing, heavy transport, and constructing or battering fortifications. In the fourth epoch, the armies of the Prophet-King mounted lesser war-machines, chiefly stingers, upon the creatures’ shelled backs to serve as roving artillery emplacements. Lore had it that shell-backs also inspired the leather-scale armor popular among lost-folk houses of greater means.
