Welcome one and all to the first annual VAULT GAUNTLET! Monsters have arrived from all across the realm to battle it out for your approval, and only one may be crowned champion!
This update will be edited as new bouts are settled, and our single elimination tournament progresses to its final fight!
Guidelines for Voting
Now a short reminder before you enter our gauntlet stands to cheer for your favoured champion, there are some criteria for your voting.
We are voting on the coolest creature concept, not the coolest art!
Make sure to read the description of each contender before voting!
You get a single vote per battle, so choose wisely!
Community Favourite
Whilst the battles occur here, we have a community poll going on in the Vault Discord for people to pick a community favourite to receive the Community Favourite Award!
The Gauntlet Bracket
🔴 BATTLE ONE | DOR-CÙ vs BELLADOLLA
🔴 BATTLE TWO | SCÁHAR vs CAIDFETH 🔴 BATTLE THREE | SAOLREADH vs SCÉAL DAMHÁN 🟢 BATTLE THREE | SHELLAKYBOOKY vs FALSE DRYAD The bells have rung, and two competitors enter!
The Shellakybooky Name: Marko, Hana
Creature: Molluskus & Mossling.
Molluski are tremendously old creatures, so old they don't even remember their own creation. No one really knows how old they are or how old they can live, not even them. This particular molluskus is called Shellakybooky and lives underground caring for their subterranean grove. Laky, as Sagina likes to call them, could very well be the last of their kind. But who could say. Molluski tend to be very solitary creatures and Laky is no different. Fully grown molluski are giant creatures with slimy thick grey skin and a huge hard shell on their backs that doubles as their armour and house. They have big pointy noses for smelling danger or pleasure. Two big arms in the front make them formidable foes despite their sluggish movements, but they tend to use them for good. They secrete slime that sprouts multicoloured flowers that last around twelve hours and have healing qualities. The slime itself is sticky enough to cause trouble for the careless. A long time ago, all molluski went to live underground as they wanted to be untethered by the affairs of others. They were the ones always trying to fix things that others broke, until one day it was their patience that broke. They found underground holes, pits, caves, caverns, hollows, burrows, delves and dens and turned them into their habitats where they discovered their love for gardening. Molluski make their homes under the oldest of forest groves, where the tree roots run deep and strong. A dense magical canopy of blooming roots covers the roof of molluski lairs. They cover the roots with their latent magical slime which makes them sprout leaves and flowers and even fruit. Every molluski slime sprouts different coloured flowers. Shellakybookys canopy is full of blue and indigo flowers with a few white ones scattered here and there and an occasional pink lady apple. Molluski are not symbiotic creatures by nature, but Laky couldn't resist Saginas charms when he woke up one morning with her feasting on the magical fruits and flowers. Neither of them knows where she comes from nor how she got there. Maybe the magical slime sprouted the mossling into being or she materialised out of thin air. Whatever the reason for Saginas existence, Laky and her have been inseparable ever since. She keeps them company and they produce the food she needs and enjoys very much. Sagina lives on Shellakybookys shell, a house on a house in a house if you wish. They take care of the grove together, in peace, until someone stumbles in uninvited. Mosslings are completely covered in squishy soft moss. They can lie completely flush to the surface and be indistinguishable from their surroundings. They fill their lair with the same omnivorous moss they are made from. They devour their prey by encompassing them and slowly digesting them. Laky and Sagina are a symbiotic creature, inseparable in every way as they share their lifeline and lifestyle and should be treated as such.
The False Dryad Name: Rachel
Creature Name: False Dryad
Those who wander the woods know of the elusiveness of the dryad, to see one with your own eyes is an excitingly rare occasion but caution is always advised when dealing with them not just because of the dryad’s might but also because of chance that you might have attracted the attention of a false dryad. Much like its name implies the false dryad carries the same visage of a dryad but has a much more malevolent nature. This creature uses the dryad's reputation as a guardian of the woodlands to attract its prey, animal, beast and people alike. Its hunting technique consists of tracking down its prey before trying to catch its attention by partially hiding, if the prey doesn't investigate the false dryad will step out of hiding and try to beckon its prey towards itself, if the prey stays still or doesn't approach quickly enough the false dryad will take it upon itself to approach, once close enough the false dryad will reveal itself by lunging at the prey to devour it. The false dryad has many weapons in its arsenal to take out its prey, like most other monsters the most common one they use is their mouth. While one might mistake its mouth as the lips underneath where its nose appears to be that is actually just another feature of its fake face, the false dryad's actual mouth appears when it splits its fake face open and reveals spiked ridges, much like a venus fly trap the false dryad will clamp its mouth on its prey and use its digestive fluid to consume the ensnared prey. While the mouth is typically used for smaller prey or the heads of larger prey in order to digest large or multiple smaller prey it'll use its stomach. The stomach of the false dryad is hidden where one might assume the neck would be this of course is another trick from false dryad as it is a disguise for the gaping plant like maw that takes up the entirety of its torso, this maw can distend in order to fit much larger prey for digestion. Besides its claw-like finger tips the last weapon of the false dryad are its tongues. The false dryad has two tongues one in its mouth and one in its stomach, these tongues are both long and prehensile and covered in barbs and a saliva like acid. The smaller tongue is located in the mouth and can escape through the fake mouth to capture prey or alongside the real mouth to speed up the digestion process. Needless to say that these monsters are exceptionally dangerous, the best way to avoid becoming prey is to pay close attention to see the incongruencies present in the false dryad. The most prominent one is the use of its “hair” to cover up both its false and real necks and the presence of red coloration.
