The rare and elusive apothran moth was the adult stage of the Dreadwood Worm. It was a truly massive organism, with enormous fluttery butterfly-like wings that seemed to spread out across the entire sky.
Revered by the Tukumen as an avatar of Chal, the god of plants, sightings of the apothran moth were regarded as good fortune and blessing—a sign of prosperity.
History
Legends
Isutan Legends
First sighted flying over the Sangmyung Valley in 300 PBD, the Apothran Moth was a borderline mythical creature that shared a legendary status with the Klo Ming. However, it was a much, much rarer sight considering its native land was the Tuku Jungle and migrations of that distance were an inconsistent behaviour on the apothran’s part.
The Isutan people who lived in The Eastern Provinces would occasionally showcase butterfly-like designs on tapestries, pottery, and other surfaces worthy of embellishment as reference to this rare creature. To the Isutan, the apothran represented wisdom, often to the point of “ascendance”, leading into ideals of self-mastery or achieving a “higher state of being”.
Tuku Myth
The apothran, known to the Tukumen as the L’bo gal Chal, was the form of Chal himself given a body to move. The Tukumen commonly believed Chal to reside in only particular spots of his jungle at any time. Thus, the apothran was an avatar of Chal that he used to move about his various abodes.
Scientific Discovery
It was not until around 320 DHT where students of Doctor Ernest Celworth discovered that the apothran was imago of the Dreadwood Worm after extensive study of a chrysalis recovered from the rainforest. There was some debate amongst scholars at the time about renaming the apothran moth to the “dreadwood moth” to avoid confusion. However, many believed that the original namesake should be kept to protect the legacy of ancient Legerian tales. Others argued that the dreadwood worm be renamed to “apothran worm”, although this was rejected vehemently by Dr. Celworth’s closest pupils to honour the Tuku translation of its original name.
Despite officially retaining its name as the apothran, some adamant zoologists insisted upon calling it the dreadwood moth.
Biology
Similar to its immature form, the apothran moth had a part-animal, part-plant biology. Its massive wings were leaf-like in appearance, doubling as photosynthetic surfaces and flying appendages.
While the apothran’s appetite was less ravenous than its larval stage, it still required both a predator’s diet and photosynthesis in tandem to sustain itself.
Appearance
Although monstrous by nature, the apothran was a beautiful creature that moved with a certain measure of grace and elegance.
The apothran moth’s wings were massive and leaf-like, but sported patterned textures and subtle differences in pigmentation across its surface.
The body of the apothran was fully encased in dreadbark, offering its vital organs great protection. Long plantlike growths like grass protruded from the gaps of its thorax and abdomen, giving it a fuzzy appearance.
Similar to its larval form, the apothran had large, bulbous black eyes at the side of its head. The bottom of its head, where one might expect mandibles, was home to two dreadbark mandibles that served as protection for the apothran primary feeding apparatus—its long proboscis, which could extend up to two meters when fully erect.
To further elevate its appearance into the fantastic, the apothran was highly bioluminescent, glowing brightly particularly against the night sky. The capillaries along its wings, cracks in its carapace, and eyes would all glow. This glowing was actually an identifier for how hostile an apothran was: see more in Behaviour.
Behaviour
Despite its majestic butterfly-like appearance, the apothran is more like an oversized mosquito in nature.
— Lelle Weckswane, researcher from the Destrian Museum of Natural History and student of Dr. Ernest Celworth
Predator
The apothran was a predatory creature, swooping down upon prey to pierce it with its proboscis before slurping it dry of its blood.
It would use its massive wings to create gusts capable of knocking over and faltering potential prey. It would then descend upon a target, using its weight to pin prey down while extracting blood.
The apothran’s proboscis would extend from its head, tipped with a dreadbark “spearhead” that could penetrate prey in a gory fashion. It would then engage powerful muscles in its head to suction the blood out of its prey in mere seconds.
Apothran preferred to hunt livestock sized creatures, like cattle, Sluggdon, and even sapients like Humans. They were highly aggressive when hungry and dangrous to engage with.
While not hunting, apothrans would rest atop the rainforest canopy, soaking up sunlight.
Bioluminescent Mood Display
The apothran’s bioluminescence was typically a pale yellow. This darkened to a reddish-orange after gorging itself with blood from its prey.
While displaying a pale glow, the apothran was an aggressive and merciless creature, doing whatever it could to sate its thirst for blood. However, once full and glowing red, the apothran would become a docile, almost gentile creature, capable of being pet or even ridden (although not tamed).
Intermediary stages of colour reflected a similar gradient of temperament, with lighter hues meaning a less stable and safe creature to be around.
Pyrophobia
The apothran’s biology made it weak to fire. It often steered clear of civilization and settlements for fear of fire, although aggressive apothrans with enough thirst would ignore fire even to their own detriment.
Reproduction
Apothran eggs were laid mid-air during flight. They resembled large seeds about the size of a head of cabbage, complete with a flower-like protrusion at the top that slowed their descent and helped them to scatter across the environment.
Apothrans would also spew pollen into the air, stained with their bioluminescence, in a truly breathtaking display. When the pollen came into contact with an egg, the egg would be fertilized and hatch into a young Dreadwood Worm after a few weeks.