Introduction:
Welcome to the world of the Exterminator, a dark and dreary place where animals grow into monsters. Humans tend to feel alarmed when packs of beasts are knocking on their doors, so it's up to pest control to cull their numbers when they grow too high.
This is a companion story to Garden of Gravel, a dark fantasy thriller about one competent man attempting to solve the brewing war between man and beast. It is best read in between chapters.
The following entries, excerpts, and titbits will give you a fresh look into subjects such as monster biology, the history of Garden and mining, publications of the Ranger Union and much more.
In this first chapter, a look into the behaviors, diet and intelligence of the lumbering stone hulks, the Graveler.
[Excerpt from Dr. Lazarus' Compendium of Species] The Graveler (Paganus terrae) is a middling-sized mineroid of the Lunkus subgenus. They are native to the central highland wilderness of the continent, which includes the Lapis range. Usually found in solitary groups, hordes have been documented but are as yet unverified. The northerners refer to them simply as Lunks.
They seem to go out of their way to avoid humans, making them difficult to track down in person, even when their flagrant tracks and markings can be easily spotted by the average hiker. They are rated 0.6 out of 3 by the Ranger Union on the Potential Danger list.
The Graveler bodies are most well-known by their solid carapace composed of mixed minerals, depending on the individual's diet. Officially, the creatures are bipedal, but they possess two pairs of arms, which they use to climb, as well as squeeze large chunks of rock into pieces for consumption. Interestingly, Graveler rarely perish from either age, accident, or falling prey. Instead, they continually gain excess weight until not even all six of their appendages are sufficient to uphold them. They die a slow, painful death literally crushed by their own weight. Their inside anatomy beneath the carapace, or "rock skin" matches the general mineroid anatomy (see: mineroid).
Overall, the Graveler's intelligence is unimpressive. Occasionally, groups of Graveler carcasses are discovered next to an exhausted food source. Even when an alternative source of food is within range, the Graveler will sometimes idle indecisively until death of starvation. Under Fasslachen's Canon, the Graveler's cognition quotient is rated as size-substandard. Despite this, Graveler may be found to act in a surprisingly intelligent manner in larger groups, suggesting an ant-like organizational scheme built into their DNA that their segmented habitat has supressed (citation needed).
Their diet consist of minerals like granite, mica, limestone, basalt to maintain their demanding carapace. Their insides, however, demand a monthly carnivorous meal, therefore the Graveler are scavengers as well as opportunistic carnivores.
The young, pup Graveler are known as Geodude, a modern nominal addition emerging from recent colloquialisms. The mature forms of Graveler are known as Golem, an etymology with roots in folklore. All three are generalized into Graveler, or Lunks. The Golem achieved a near-mythical status in history due to their extreme rarity in the wild. Recent breeding and taming technology has provided relatively stable taming and breeding methods to produce Golem. Golem are smaller, possess one less pair of (excess) arms, but sport a much more advanced carapace, motor system as well as higher intelligence (see: Golem).
The Graveler are neither nocturnal, nor diurnal, instead operating on a 4-hour circadian rhythm.
Their origin is as yet unexplored, however they have been linked to the fossils of a mysterious race of cave-dwelling giants (see citation).