Cantankeri: Difference between revisions
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<blockquote>''"After much boring you reach its heart, grey and brittle. Cracking it open, you find a cluster of gritty hours inside: the preserved moments of an old bitterness upon which a common cantankeri dwelled, bloating into a bull as it accreted new layers of plating and spite like a pearl around a grain of sand, or a gallstone around its first fleck of crystal."''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/Bull_Cantankeri|Use your cannery to extract its heart|Sunless Skies|}}</ref></blockquote> | <blockquote>''"After much boring you reach its heart, grey and brittle. Cracking it open, you find a cluster of gritty hours inside: the preserved moments of an old bitterness upon which a common cantankeri dwelled, bloating into a bull as it accreted new layers of plating and spite like a pearl around a grain of sand, or a gallstone around its first fleck of crystal."''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/Bull_Cantankeri|Use your cannery to extract its heart|Sunless Skies|}}</ref></blockquote> | ||
[[File:BarrelofUnseasonedHours.webp|alt=Geodes containing gemstones.|thumb|[[Hours]]]] | [[File:BarrelofUnseasonedHours.webp|alt=Geodes containing gemstones.|thumb|130x130px|[[Hours]]]] | ||
Cantankeri are infamous for hibernating on and within rocks containing [[hours]],<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/Discoveries#Sky-Rocks|Sky-Rocks|Sunless Skies|}} ''"Cantankeri cleave to rocks like these. They rarely appreciate visitors."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/The_War_of_Fossils|Mine for unclaimed Hours|Sunless Skies|}} ''"[...] you crawl into the fossil deep. To you dismay, you discover cantankeri sleep over the geodes of hours [...]"''</ref> sometimes in large numbers.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/A_Boil_of_Cantankeri|Flee!|Sunless Skies|}} ''"Your crew hurry forwards, spurred by the encroaching wall of livid cantankeri at their backs."''</ref> Miners looking for riches may stumble upon these creatures, with deadly consequences.<ref name = "miners"/> Interestingly, cantankeri have been observed guarding hours "as though incubating eggs" during their slumber.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/The_War_of_Fossils|Mine for unclaimed Hours|Sunless Skies|}} ''"To you dismay, you discover cantankeri sleep over the geodes of hours, as though incubating eggs."''</ref> It is not clear whether this behavior occurs because cantankeri are drawn to rest near hours, or because they spawn hours themselves. | Cantankeri are infamous for hibernating on and within rocks containing [[hours]],<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/Discoveries#Sky-Rocks|Sky-Rocks|Sunless Skies|}} ''"Cantankeri cleave to rocks like these. They rarely appreciate visitors."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/The_War_of_Fossils|Mine for unclaimed Hours|Sunless Skies|}} ''"[...] you crawl into the fossil deep. To you dismay, you discover cantankeri sleep over the geodes of hours [...]"''</ref> sometimes in large numbers.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/A_Boil_of_Cantankeri|Flee!|Sunless Skies|}} ''"Your crew hurry forwards, spurred by the encroaching wall of livid cantankeri at their backs."''</ref> Miners looking for riches may stumble upon these creatures, with deadly consequences.<ref name = "miners"/> Interestingly, cantankeri have been observed guarding hours "as though incubating eggs" during their slumber.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.fandom.com/wiki/The_War_of_Fossils|Mine for unclaimed Hours|Sunless Skies|}} ''"To you dismay, you discover cantankeri sleep over the geodes of hours, as though incubating eggs."''</ref> It is not clear whether this behavior occurs because cantankeri are drawn to rest near hours, or because they spawn hours themselves. | ||
Revision as of 01:03, 31 May 2024
"The Cantankeri are lumbering, half-fossilised isopods that will attack anything they disapprove of. Given that they are very ancient and murderously grumpy, that means almost everything."[1]
Cantankeri are sky-beasts that menace the High Wilderness.
Get Off My Space-Lawn
"They only have one story, and it's about how everything's terrible now."[2]
Cantankeri are large isopods found all over the High Wilderness.[3][4] They are semi-fossilized and encased in rock-solid shells,[3][5] which they use to attack locomotives by ramming them.[4] Cantankeri are slow to die, perhaps due to their "calcified nerves,"[6] and debris from their corpses may still threaten passing skyfarers.[7] Their meat is edible, but generally tasteless;[8] however, their shells are often studded with gems and precious metals.[9]

A group of cantankeri is called a disgruntlement.[10] The fungi near Hybras sometimes engulf entire disgruntlements of cantankeri, forming revolting horrors called Colonised Cantankeri.[11][12]
According to skyfarers' tales, cantankeri once had a planet of their own long before the Earth was formed. As their planet crumbled, they refused to take any action besides burrowing in its crust, and eventually they woke up in their former home's rubble. Now they roam the Wilderness aiming to destroy anything new they disapprove of; given their age, this is most things they encounter.[13] The veracity of this tale is surprisingly plausible, as ancient fossils of predatory creatures have been observed embedded within cantankeri shells.[14] It is not known if any cantankeri exist that were not part of their homeworld's original population.
Cantankeri and Hours
"I served on the Nibelung, a mining engine out of Lustrum. We were cracking sky-rocks, digging out hours. But the seventh rock didn't hold hours, it held one of those. Devil battered halfway through the hull before we got away."[2]
"After much boring you reach its heart, grey and brittle. Cracking it open, you find a cluster of gritty hours inside: the preserved moments of an old bitterness upon which a common cantankeri dwelled, bloating into a bull as it accreted new layers of plating and spite like a pearl around a grain of sand, or a gallstone around its first fleck of crystal."[15]

Cantankeri are infamous for hibernating on and within rocks containing hours,[16][17] sometimes in large numbers.[18] Miners looking for riches may stumble upon these creatures, with deadly consequences.[10] Interestingly, cantankeri have been observed guarding hours "as though incubating eggs" during their slumber.[19] It is not clear whether this behavior occurs because cantankeri are drawn to rest near hours, or because they spawn hours themselves.
Bull Cantankeri are elephant-sized cantankeri considered royalty among their kind.[20] They are aggressive and studded with the remains of past foes,[21] and carry younger cantankeri on their underbellies.[22] Bull cantankeri are formed when common cantankeri dwell upon old moments of bitterness; eventually, their bodies accumulate more and more layers of plating, and the moment itself calcifies into solid hours deep within their bodies.[23]
References
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