Heyya,
As everyone knows, the Wasteland is full of dangerous critters, the type that can tear your balls off if you don’t know what you are doing. Usually folks go fucking around like true jackasses, without any second thought to what kind of beasts they might go across, and then it’s time for regretting and bleeding. That’s why I have decided to consecrate my life to be a boffin about all this, a respected Official Bugger and Mutardologist from the Scrapbridge Methane and Meat Electro-proteic Guild (in which I am founding member, as well as president, secretary, treasurer and field specialist). I am doctor Sarious, and I will try in this Guide to the animals, critters and mutations of the Wasteland to make a cool study about the animals that populate our world.
When you think of creatures lurking in the ruins of the cities of the World of Before, ready to waste you down, you usually come up with huge predating beasts capable of killing you in a single blow. But truth is that usually the smaller critters are the ones that can turn out being really nasty. And no doubt the Scaly vixums fit that role pretty well. There are those kinds of creatures you can say “Aw, that’s cute” if you find only one of ’em, but then a rabid herd is chasing you things get really messy really fast.
Description
Scaly vixums are the size of an average doggo. Their main feature are those longo, longo ears, which can vary in shape from one animal to another from almost round to pointy as fuck. They have really good hearing with those antennae, of course, capable of noticing a small stone falling a hundred of yards away. More or less the same as my cousin Benancio when tax collectors come along. But they also use these appex… apendix… big-ass ears to balance themselves while running, and they can make pretty fast turns at full speed thanks to ’ems.
Contrary to their siblings, the Common vixum and the Anphibiotic vixum, which are quite hairy (and far less dangerous, by the way) the Scaly variant have their bodies covered in… yes, scales, you guessed it, you fuckin’ genius. A long snout full of small teeth gives ’em the ability of piercing the toughest skin if given enough time to chew their way through.
Habitat
The usual place to find these critters are the ruins of the cities of the World of Before. Their small bodies are perfect to hide among the rubble and reach places where other bigger beasts cannot enter, so they can rest safely without the worry of being swallowed whole while snoring.
They live in big herds of 15 to 50 individuals, as they survival relies heavily on numbers. Although they spend most of the day sleeping, there is always at least one Scaly vixum on guard duty near their nests, eyes peeled to any predator or prey than can be nearby (or not so close, remember they can hear fuckingly well).
Behavior
Scaly vixums are carnivorous creatures, capable of eating anything from small insects to animals bigger than their own size, depending on how hungry these fuckers are. Their main tactic is sheer numbers. The bigger the prey, the bigger the pack of vixums that go chasing them. They will pursue the target relentlessly and will jump on ’em, fuckin’ the crap outta the sad bastards with hundreds of small biting bites. If their prey is aggresive or quite big, the Scaly vixums will most probably lose quite a number off their ranks, but the solution for that is the old “the more, the ferret” (haw, did you get that?). Their prey will eventually get tired and wear down by the minute, leaving the table ready for these nasty critters. They are capable of scrapping the bones white clean in a few minutes thanks to their sharp teeth. And hurry they need to, because a bunch of vixums out in the open is easy picking for other bigger, nastier creatures living in the ruins of the old world, so they need to be able to stuff their bellies fast and get the hell outta there.
For this hunting tactic to work, of course, Scaly vixums packs need to assume a shitload of casualties, so there is the thing that these animals need to breed like fuckin’ mad. Males and females mate randomly, no fixed pairs or anything stupid like that. When they feel horny, bam, first in, first out, see ya! Just like younglings nowadays… those lucky bastards.
These animals breed in an awkward fashion, as the females lay eggs, but when they hatch, baby vixums suck on their titties to feed. That means they are eggers and suckers at the same time. Oh, wonder times.
Uses
It’s not unusual to see folks with a Scaly vixum as a pet. If they are isolated from their packs their not very aggresive or dangerous, as they have learned through generations only to attcak on greater numbers. When alone, they just eat small insects and are not hostile to critters bigger than a mouse. They are not much fun to look at, either, as they sleep a lot of hours each day and they don’t give a fuck about humans… Just like cats, now that I think about it, but without that superior looks in their faces for knowing who the real owner is. Thanks to their great hearing you can train them to detect threats at a distance, but in general if you feed ’em they get used to the good life and just sit there doin’ nothing. If you don’t feed ’em, they run away just like that.
Their skin can be used for belts, wallets and things like that, but as they are covered in scales, only the stupid new rich will like thet shit.