Avalugg are slow, lumbering beasts, and this fact has often seen them mistaken for harmless creatures; many who have accidentally roused them (or worse, seen nature do likewise) in the arctic or on mountains know better, if they survived to tell the tale. For although Avalugg are not ordinarily violent, they can be deadly even by accident; being smashed by an Avalugg during an avalanche, or for a ship to sink when ramming an unnoticed Avalugg in fog, are the most common sources of fatalities. But these incidents and others leave Avalugg understandably furious, and Avalugg are known to violently rampage when attacked, especially when their hibernation is interrupted, crushing, freezing, and often killing every living thing in the general vicinity.
Avalugg are known to sleep on their sides, and in this pose they are often mistaken for glaciers or other natural formations of ice. Although the two can be distinguished, especially by the neatness of the grooves or the presence of young Bergmite, people and even governments have often mistaken the two. Many settlements in cold climates attempted to make use of ice walls as a natural fortification, only to be evacuated out when their "walls" awoke and rampaged through the city – however, the fear of an army encountering an Avalugg did far more to protect these cities than any true fortification.
It is said that some Avalugg grew attached to the people around them, and learned to tolerate their presence and openly protected them from enemies. Yet what evidence exists of early Avalugg domestication is highly controversial, and some claim those cities which saw Avalugg as protectors were merely the lucky ones – those where the local Avalugg wall rampaged against foes more than friends entirely by coincidence.
