Board Thread:Fan-made Monsters/@comment-35693391-20180526104946

'''- Family: Minotaur - Type: Beastman -  Habitat: Typically plains, caves, and dungeons like labyrinths. Growing trend towards populated communities. - Disposition: Rough & Tumble, Cheerful & Affable, Lusty, Ferocious (when angered) - Diet: Omnivorous, Mainly prefers meat''' Gugalanna are a very recently-appeared, and (thus-far) rare minotaur subspecies that, despite their small numbers, have swiftly established a notable place within mamono folklore due to possessing remarkably powerful natural abilities - abilities comparable in strength to such species as gazers, pharaoh, and ryu. Although exemplars of this particular mutation of minotaur-stock have only become recorded in relatively recent history, historical scholars note that the roots of their creation seem to lie in an incredibly ancient source. It seems that, at some point in the very earliest ages of humankind's history after they had just mastered agriculture and had begun to develop the very first of their great cities, an early human hero-king happened to provoke the ire of a certain goddess by snubbing her romantic interest in him. This goddess happened to be one of the daughters of the Chief God of the time, and she held sway over a large variety of portfolios due to her station and import. - Including love, beauty, sex, desire, fertility, war, combat,and immortality. The reasons as to just *why* the human king would reject the seemingly-obvious benefits of engaging the romantic interests of such a wildly-powerful potential ally are unknown, due to the specifics of the event being lost to the sands of ancient history, but what *is* known is that, with her heart and pride severely wounded at being rejected by a mere mortal, the goddess sought out a bull of already-peak mortal size, strength, and virility, and, infusing it with her divine power, transformed it into a sacred magical beast of immense power and ability. Bestowing the name of 'Gugalanna' upon the creature (one of the few names of the tale that survives in record to the current age), she then commanded it to lay the king's empire to waste as punishment for her humiliation. The tale goes on to state that the great bull ravaged across the lands for a number of years, spreading mass havoc and chaos as it went, before the human king and his closest allies were somehow able to subdue and defeat the creature, and, though other monsters would come and go, it seemed that the great bull's role in history was over. Yet, the workings of magic, both demonic and divine, are as strange as they are powerful. Though the divine bull of the tale was a singular entity unto itself, it nevertheless happened to liberate a astonishingly huge herd of mortal cattle from the human communities that it had dominated; denying them from the use of humanity and taking them for its own use and pleasures instead. As the alpha of this vast herd, it was only natural that it happened to father a large number of offspring among the female cattle of the group. These newborn calves lacked the overtly magical might of their sire, yet still eventually grew to be incredibly large, robust, and healthy examples of their breed, and after the great bull met its defeat, the human communities eagerly brought the bull's semi-divine young in order to help bolster their thinned herds and rebound from the beast's catastrophe. As the centuries turned he descendants of these recovered cattle would quietly become lost and forgotten among the ever-growing and spreading breeds of cattle herds as they followed their human caretakers, but it seems that with the rise of the  order of the new Demon King, the massive influx of demonic energies that have swept across the land have mixed with and galvanized the lingering strains of divine energy that had continued to rest, previously unseen, in the great bull's bloodlines, bringing rise to a newly-seen mutational breed among the currently-produced daughters of certain minotaurs, holstaurs, and hakutaku, of whom are birthing more of their numbers in turn upon the successful attainment of husbands upon maturing. These new 'gugalanna' are still currently rather rare in number, but slowly but surely growing more common, due in no small part to the great and formidable abilities they have inherited from their ancient ancestor.

In both appearance and personality, gugalanna tend to be regarded as something of a blend of minotaur, holstaur, and hakutaku traits, as well as boasting certain abilities and traits unique to them alone, such as the twinned-bosom that they possess (as easily seen in the illustration to the right), or the ability to influence the fertility of a large region of land. Most likely these unique traits - not seen in their parent breeds of minotaur - are a manifestation of the particular divine abilities of their bloodline's ancient sire. A gugalanna stands as tall and heavy as even the largest strains of minotaur, and possesses the same tough, muscular build (as well as potential for aggression and reaction to the color red) as they, befitting the legendary strength and destructive capacity of the original, male ‘Gugalanna’ of old legend. Born warriors, they naturally pick up mastery of brawling, weapon and armor use with great ease, and highly enjoy sparring and testing their strength against both each other, as well as other physically-powerful mamono, being in the same tier of physical power as dragons and baphomet. With such overwhelming physical might at their disposal, one could easily be forgiven for presuming that gugalanna might well have become counted amongst the most noted kidnappers and rapists of mamono-kind. Surprisingly, however, instead, upon noting the presence of a human, a gugalanna prefers a much more tempered and friendly approach than their minotaur-kin, instead engaging the human in affable conversation, asking them if they need any form of assistance, inviting them to join along in activities such as hunting, feasting, or drinking, and - if the human happens to be a male that they find attractive and seems to be available - flirting with them shamelessly. Though they do not possess the same, supernaturally-adept minds of hakutaku, they still possess much keener intellects and senses of wisdom than a typical minotaur, and are eager and adept conversationalists as well as possessing an excellent knack for retaining and recalling lore pertaining to their local environments, including animals, plants, herbal remedies, and utilitarian crafts of various stripes. Thus, it could be said that gugalanna tend to embody the adage of “work hard and play hard”, as, in contrast to minotaurs, they can temper their intense love of physical activity with equal passion towards socialization and recreation, either on their own or with others. That said, humans who accept offers to engage gugalanna in their recreative activities may well be taken by surprise by the fervor and passion that gugalanna put into their ‘play’, for they still possess the same intensely-powerful appetites for food, drink, and physical exertion (including sex) as their minotaur cousins.

When taking their holstaur relatives into account, although equally as friendly to humankind, gugalanna are nevertheless much more boisterous, animated in their daily behavior and personality. That said, they still possess the same markedly large bust-size and milk-production capacity of their Holstaur kin, being equally as capable of lactating and producing prodigious quantities of sweet, highly-magic-imbued milk on a daily basis just after attaining puberty, even without having become pregnant and birthing first. However, as briefly noted above, although their breasts are akin in size to their holstaur relatives, gugalanna actually manage to outdo even their legendarily-endowed relatives by way of an incredible feature - They actually possess a second, fully-developed set of mammaries right below their first one, set across the midsection of their torso, and leaving them with four, enormous breasts. This peculiar feature is presumed to be a result of the fertility-related-energies of both their divine progenitor ancestor and the Demon King mingling and combining in unison, and actually enhancing each other in synergy within their monstrous bodies, effectively (and amazingly) leaving gugalanna with twice the milk-producing potential as their holstaur-kin. Just like holstaurs, however, gugalanna love it when human men either compliment or come into contact with their breasts, and thus share the habits of holstaur in finding excuses whenever feasibly possible to press their four breasts firmly up against men that they are flirting with, as well as having them fondled and played with during intercourse. Furthermore, as yet another, incredible example of symbiotic coaction between their mixture of both demonic and divine power, their milk actually seems to contain a few the same energies that can inspire youth and life-extension in mortal creatures, in a rather similar (albeit independently-developed) manner to the blood of the mermaid family of mamono. Unlike mermaid blood, their breastmilk only manifests this particular property in the midst of sexual intercourse, as well as for several minutes post-coitus, drastically limiting the window of opportunity available that this miraculous resource can be harvested - limited even further by the fact that the substance returns to the same quality of ‘mundane’ holstaur milk within an hour after being expressed, regardless of attempts to collect and preserve it. Nevertheless, this window is still more than wide enough to provide for their chosen husband, whom, of course, is right there on hand to imbibe the substance straight from the source by way of breastfeeding from their eager wife’s four teats. ...The fact that gugalanna experience spikes of extreme pleasure as their husbands nurse from them, as well as bolstering the youth and vitality of their beloveds, is a happy coincidence. While it lasts, this change in quality detectable by a sudden change in the taste of their expressed breast milk, taking on a heady, intoxicating quality, almost as though their milk had been mixed with honey mead. Because of this quality, gugalanna are one of the few mamono species that have little need to trade with mermaid-kind for their blood in order to preserve the youth of their husbands. On a rather related note, as sacred beasts, gugalanna themselves enjoy divinely-inspired vitality, and thus do not show any signs of aging past achieving maturity. Thus, though still a relatively newly-appeared race, it is presumed that gugalanna (and, by extension, their chosen husbands) can theoretically live eternally youthfully, barring encountering accident or misadventure.

The intermixing of demonic and divine power within them also bestows gugalanna with one final, yet markedly powerful ability unique to their own strain, distinguishing themselves even further from their bovine kin-species among mamono. When a gugalanna has properly settled within a region for a few weeks, she begins to form a bond with the land itself. She begins to receive impressions of significant events that affect either the area around her or its inhabitants - Be they upcoming changes in weather, animal migrations (including the movement of larger groups of humanoids), the use and fluctuations of powerful magics (both spiritual and demonic) within the area of the land, the spreading of illnesses (both mundane and curses) amongst animals or plants, and the like. These impressions are rooted much more in vague subconscious intuition than any concrete divination - Typically manifesting to the gugalanna as imagery in dreams or persistent ‘gut-feelings’.Furthermore, once this bond with their chosen home is established, they can - with the sexual assistance of a human mate - bestow a blessing of fecundity upon the region about her, leading to a greatly boosted spike in the health and fertility of local plants, animals, or both, utilizing the concentrated spiritual energy provided by their husband’s sperm to fuel the effect of the ritual, very much akin to the manner that Ryu may summon rain by copulating with their own husbands. This boost to fecundity is significant, typically pushing affected beings to the natural peak of their natural fertility and vigor, although nowhere markedly beyond what they might achieve naturally through simple good health or bereft of the assistance of magic. The gugalanna cannot directly cure sickness, toxins, or curses with this blessing, but the boost to vitality and vigor that an affected creature recieves makes them all the more likely to find the strength to shake such ailments off. This boost is naturally in balance with the land’s own flow of spirit energy, and will not push the land or its inhabitants what the local ecosystem can safely maintain. Thus, affected soil does not run the risk of nutrient depletion, nor are dangerous and unbalancing swarms of hazardous pests or vermin produced. This ability is presumed to be derived from a blend of their ancient ancestor’s own extraordinary fertility, as well as the manner in which he would ardently claim and assert his authority over his chosen territory. Because of this combination of physical, psychological, and mystical factors, gugalanna have made a habit of boisterously ingratiating themselves upon varied human, elven, and dwarven communities, utilizing their spectacular strength and inborn sense of the land and its lore to assist the inhabitants of such communities with activities such as farming, gathering, hunting, poultice-making, and crafting, eventually obtain a husband  from among one of the local eligible bachelors via their charismatic demeanors, and natural, extremely-buxom beauty, and then, ultimately, assist in the stewardship and defense of their newly-claimed territory by way of their blessings of fecundity and natural combat skill. As a final note, speaking of combat, gugalanna do not treat it as a mere idle exercise merely of use to stay active. Although gugalanna prove to be very friendly and amicable when approached peacefully by others, those holding hostile intent towards either the gugalanna themselves or their loved ones will swiftly find themselves rebuked with harsh, unforgiving rage and retribution as the gugalanna’s divinely-inspired sense of outrage surges to the fore. Wherupon they take up their arms and fiercely leap in punish those who would dare rouse the ire of a sacred beast.  