"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]
"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.
"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]
↑ 4.04.1Description, Sunless Skies"A Cantankeri is a type of Sky-Beast found in all four regions. [...] If they collide, they will deal 4 Hull damage. Having only 25 Health and no ranged attacks [...]"
↑Sift through the pulverised rubble, Sunless Skies"When you dig the shards free, you find some of them gleam with veins of semi-precious stones. [...] you do find a few fragments of carapace, veined with what looks like gold."
↑CantankeriTale, Sunless Skies""They hate new things," [...] That's why they attack engines. [...] Everything's new, to them. Their world died before ours was even born." [...] I heard [...] that when their world was dying, they didn't fix it, or try to leave. They just burrowed into its crust, and slept until the end. It crumbled around them, and they woke amongst its fragments. [...]"
↑Prise precious stones from its carapace, Sunless Skies"Valuable stones glimmer amidst the whorls of uncanny fossils. The fossils' shapes are sinuous and predatory, preserved for unknown aeons in the Cantankeri's stony skin."
↑Use your cannery to extract its heart, Sunless Skies"After much boring you reach its heart, grey and brittle. [...] 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 [...]"
