Otrayk

Classification and Statistics

• Size: Variable from 6 feet to 35 feet in length. Up to 70 feet in wingspan and 105 feet for ray glider version.
• Mass: Variable from 220 pounds to many tons
• Classification: Originally designated as monsters. Now classified as guardian spirits.
• Relationship with extant sentient species: symbiotic.
• Known specimens: Teal
  • Partner: Evelyn Victoria East

Description

Base form

Otrayk generally appear in an otter like form with characteristic color patches on their backs and tails. They range in color from blue to leaf green, and they stand between four and six feet tall. Their tails are very thick at the base being nearly as wide as their waist. Eyes can appear in a variety of colors though gold, brown, and teal are the only ones so far recorded.

The fur of an otrayk is fine, soft, and very water repellent Their bodies underneath their fur are warm and very solid, but there is little to no data on their anatomy. Their paws have four fingers and a thumb that makes them as dexterous as human.

Aquatic Form

The aquatic form requires a symbiote for maximum performance. In this form, the otrayk can increase in size to up to forty feet in length. From the colored patches on their back and along their sides, two massive manta ray like wings will grow to make them nearly as wide as they are long. This form has on occasion caused them to be mistaken for other monasters including the gooroo Smotele. In this form, otrayk have been clocked at nearly four hundred miles per hour owing to a form of water magic not yes understood by any means, and this makes them some of if not the fastest aquatic creature on the planet. Their thick tails sprout a vertical fin not unlike a shark's tail, and it is key to their mobility at high speed.

In this form, otrayk symbiotes have reported having enhanced electrical senses and the ability to feel out magnetic fields and other living creatures. It is also the form they are most likely to use when hunting other monsters, most of which have intense magical fields of their own. Because of this, it is believed that the dominant part of the otrayk diet is less physical and more magical in nature.

Aerial Form

Not until a single otrayk selected a symbiote and spent an extended time on land was there any understanding of how otrayk crossed land boundaries as their electrical signals could sometimes be detected over land instead of water. The otrayk can assume a glider form with the wings stretched out as incredibly long, thin wings like a glider rather than a powered craft. Able to fly silently at nearly seventy miles per hour, they can use this form cross over land and this making sense of the confusing observations regarding their movements.

Habitat

Otrayk have been sighted in the Pacific ocean particularly near deep sea trenches that suggest they may shelter on the ocean floor when they are not up at the surface to gather light. They have been sighted on rare occasion on the shores of Japan, and the current social specimen has been kept on the shore of Oregon although it was originally sighted on Hawaii before it followed a woman all the way back to Oregon.

Teal, the current name for the one known otrayk, took its host to the sea floor to what looked like a well hidden city of some form crushed under the wreckage of an aircraft carrier. This suggests an original at least as far back as world war II, and it also suggests they may be part of a civilization that is currently unknown.

Diet

Otrayk are at least in part capable of photosynthesis, and they will float at the water surface during the day to take on light. Their lethargic nature may be an adaption to allow them to conserve energy. However, they do possess sharp conical teeth suggesting they are also active hunters at least part of the time. The only records of them hunting come from one specimen as reported by its symbiote, and this involved a high speed chase after some form of deep sea will-o-the-wisp. It is worth noting that while the otrayk internalized its prey, it ejected the physical parts later and seemed only to consume the magic within it. This may be why most monsters avoid otrayk even when they appear docile because they could chance at any moment and hunt them down.

Symbiosis

Otrayk are extremely rare with only three confirmed and well documented sightings and only one recurrent interaction. In all cases, otrayk are docile and not at all threatening to humans unless provoked. When they choose a partner, they become exceptionally protective of that individual and will stand between them and any threat human, monster, or even environmental.

Otrayk are often lethargic beings, and it is not well understood how they survive around more active predators. Otrayk can, however, convert a symbiote into a form of energy and store it inside at which point they become active and share their sensory world with the one they internalize. Variations on this have included only the organics parts of a person being taken in to their entire body and belongings.

Once the bond is made, the otrayk will keep a person until they want out or need to be outside. They wait patiently if they can't be with their chosen partner, and the current specimen has been known to transfer protection towards its host and her family.

Because they are dependent on humans and other sentient species for their full functionality, there are hypotheses that they may be a remnant of the people of Atlantis before their world fell. Others argue that could have wandered out from Cheshire. Others hold that a second race was once their other half, and without it they have been forced to turn to humans.

True Origin

Long ago a people living upon the shores were beset by terrible monsters and equally dreadful natural disasters such that they exhausted all their options and turned instead to the old gods of the natural world for aid. A great spirit of air and water came in the form of a terrible storm, and in its wake it left behind a number of otrayk in their docile form. Those that welcomed these creatures into their villages and formed bonds with it were blessed with its ability to protect the village and even turn away deadly storms. Those who chased these beings back to the sea were soon left unprotected from these trials.

The otrayk are a gift given by the spirits of the natural world to those who would honor them and welcome their children into their homes and villages. AS the world turned to technology, these beings went into hiding and slept until they were stirred into wakefulness again. Even Teal appeared on the shores after a storm just as its ancestors once did, and now welcomed by at least one person, it persists on land and sea.