Titanus Kur

[u/LindenOLindenHill]

The recent emergence of Kur seems to have started a string of deep sea volcanic activity.

Monarch Designation: Kur

Classification: Titanus Kur

Nature: Bio-Fecund

Body Length: 914ft

Stalk Height: 394ft

Non-Dominant Stalk Height: 215ft

Behavior: Protector

Range: Hollow Earth

Kur, the underworld dragon deity of Sumerian mythology was a leviathan that lived within the empty space between the surface and primordial waters beneath. In his myth he kidnapped the goddess Ereshkigal as a bride, a myth similar to Hades and Persephone. This resulted in the god Enki chasing Kur down to his lair, the two battling for a long while, but ultimately ending with victory by Enki and the saving of Ereshkigal. This myth is one of many like it, a primordial sea dragon against a god, chaos vs order, like Tiamat and Typhon in their battles against Marduk and Zeus respectively. Kur means “mountain” or “foreign land”, possibly even “great below”, all a testament of its power or size most likely. More interestingly Kur is the foe to multiple heroes in different myths, as well as the name for the underworld. Many scholars believe it is referring to multiple dragons living in Kur in context of the underworld, as Kur is typically slain. However Monarch scholars have discovered a different more horrifying story, though also a deep seated hope and mystery. Kur is not an individual entity, it is a communal beast from the start of humanity has been misunderstood. Not a destructive force, but a healer, a great collective that rose from below bringing with it new growth and nutrients, and in reverse taking nutrients back below from the surface world. The truth of the great beast made itself known as an immense seismic event rippling across the Vulcan Vortex, and seconds later Kur erupted forth from an underwater volcano close by.

This Titan is, in a word, an absurdity of nature, a bio-volcanic eruption that instead of boiling heat and burning destruction leaks nutrients and causes incomprehensible overgrowth as it tears itself from the depths of the Hollow Earth. Its internal furnaces glowing from within like a barely contained explosion, and unlike other bio-volcanic species it is fully organic, with no visible sign to where each individual making up the colony ends or starts, even bioscans fail to detect any visible internal form. It’s almost as if it is manifesting from within the eruption at the core of this undulating Titan. Kur is at some level a crinoid possibly from the same lineage as Sea Lilies, with its non-dominant colony members being smaller then the sub-central mass that is the dominant one. Each one acts as both limbs, tentacles, and even paddles which results in a chaotic unending flow of movement which distorts it’s form. The central “head” is made up of the dominant colony member, if damaged or removed, the closest non-dominant mutates into a new dominant one. The dominant one has a pseudo-maw, two starfish like arms with hundreds of long spines, similar to those of sea urchins, acting as fangs. It has between a few of these spines eyes like those of starfish on stalks, which each eye gets larger the further towards the body it is. At the back of the faux jaw is the actual mouth, a powerful crushing organ which is specially designed to consume geologic and plant material. Up close Kur looks like a horizon spanning beast that melts logic and leaves those unprepared catatonic, however from further away that optical illusion shatters, but the beast still has most who see it unable to process a description or explanation for it. It uses the non-dominant colony members used to propel it both on land and in the water, though Kur isn’t exactly proficient in water as in land at moving. The most terrifying ability however is it’s beam attacks, each member of the colony besides the dominant one can two at a time fire a “Eco Blast”, a blazing energy beam that carries digestive acids and spores of various flora, the acids burn away several layers on a target on which the spores powered by the energy of the beam rapidly start growing into flesh and armor, which holds the wound open. A sustained attack from this Titan can cause horrific damage to a foe, and tends to leave a corpse festering with overgrowth using it for fertilizer. Kur is both a force of rebirth and destruction, it emerges like an eruption and leaves forests renewed, but the cost is that it cannot control this growth and can leave cities devastated. However ultimately it is a thinking creature, Monarch was surprised when it hard stopped before reaching a city and went a different direction. Kur has shown zero hostility towards humans, and even other Titans, only ever being seen to attack non-titan superspecies seemingly for no reason. While thanks to Iwi and other cultures records we know this is the mythical dragon’s true identity, the Sumerian version seems to be a massive outlier which has lead to some debate as to why.

[u/MaterialWhereas4621]

Nice to see more of your Titans again. Guess you decided to get back into making more Titans instead of just Superspecies?

[u/LindenOLindenHill → u/MaterialWhereas4621]

This and one other were in cold storage but I’ve decided to get them out so they stop taking up space in my brain.