Biology
Riftclaws are large, reptile- or dinosaur-like beings, with two arms, two legs, a head on a longer neck, and a tail about the length of the body. All riftclaws have a pair of forward-pointing horns on the skull, and may have 2-3 fleshy spines growing on the back of the neck, and 3-5 spines growing along the dorsal side of the tail from base to the tip. They have extremely sharp, curved claws on their fingers, and crocodile-like teeth that are shed and regrown cyclically throughout their lives.
Riftclaws are largely quadrupedal, but can stand bipedally and walk a few steps when necessary. They walk on their knuckles to preserve the sharp edges of their claws, thumbs tucked in against their palms.
Individual riftclaws vary a lot in subtle ways, as well as more obvious ones. On average, egg-laying riftclaws tend to be heavier than those who don’t. Adult height ranges between 1.6m and 2.4m, and adult body weight ranges between 560kg and 840kg. Height and weight do not always correlate; individuals may be thinner or fatter in appearance depending on their size and weight distribution. Heavier individuals tend to carry fat in the upper arms, thighs, belly and tail.
In terms of facial structure, a riftclaw may have a face that is longer, shorter, wider, or narrower than average; their eyes can vary in shape from wide and rounded to narrow and triangular; their brows can arch high above the eye, or draw close to the top eyelid. The horns, which always point forward at the base, can vary from the common angular form to a more gradual upward slope to a sharp curve.
Some riftclaws may possess unusual scaling, like “feathers”-- elongated, contour feather-like scales-- or fuzzy skin caused by a scaleless mutation.
Trait inheritance occurs the same way as in many species, with baby riftclaws inheriting and remixing traits from both birth parents, and sometimes displaying “throwbacks” to ancestors who carried recessive genes. Certain groups of traits are more dominant in particular clans than others, such as the duller colours of the Ashen-Walkers, or the smaller size and camouflage patterning of the Ruin-Walkers.
Diet
Riftclaws are obligate carnivores with some limited ability to digest plants. Their diet largely consists of muscle and organ meat, raw bone, eggs, insects, milk and cheese (where it can be traded for). Vaskharr cuisine will also use voidwing honey to flavour dishes, and the clans grow a wide variety of herbs and spices to add to their food. They notably also grow a special modified strain of coffee with an almost lethally high caffeine content, which is better suitable for their larger average body weight.
Being large carnivores riftclaws have slower metabolisms on average; in clan territories, the average diet is usually one large meal a week, but individuals living in other societies will eat smaller meals more frequently as procuring that much food at once is often harder in settlements dominated by humans or anthropomorphic peoples.
As they’ve become adapted to desert conditions, riftclaws can survive a good 3-4 months without food, and almost a month without water, living off the fat stored in their spines in times of scarcity.
Reproduction
Riftclaws naturally have three sexes, with two producing eggs and two having the ability to fertilise them. The population has a 30/30/40 split between the sexes that can only do one or the other, and the sex that can do both.
Only one egg is produced at a time, with multiple embryos fusing if more than one begins to develop at the same time. Gestation lasts for eight months, after which an egg is laid that must be incubated for another two months before hatching.
Life Cycle
Riftclaw hatchlings are helpless at birth, and do almost nothing but eat and sleep for the first 4-5 years of their life. Unlike the babies of many other species, baby riftclaws are very quiet; they only call for help when greatly distressed, preferring to hide in silence for anything other than a lethal threat. The laying parent usually carries the baby on their backs, between their spines, in order to keep them safe.
A baby riftclaw seems to do very little growing during the first stage of their life, mostly putting on weight but not changing much in size or proportion. This changes drastically around the fifth year of age, when the young riftclaw undergoes primary metamorphosis, a massive, rapid growth spurt, which causes them to triple in height and develop into a more mobile child form overnight. They begin speaking with and interacting more with people who aren’t their immediate parents, and it’s at this stage most of them join a creche and begin learning a beginner skill to prepare for their later careers.
The children undergo secondary metamorphosis at some point between 14 and 16, at which point they reach their final adult proportions, although they remain quite slender and underweight. Over the next 40-60 years, they’ll continue to put on muscle and fat, but won’t grow any taller or longer-- adult riftclaws reach their full weight somewhere between 50 and 60.
Young adult riftclaws lose their baby claws anywhere between secondary metamorphosis and 20 years of age, finally gaining the razor sharp edge that allows them to claw through the fabric of reality. The loss of the baby claws is often considered a symbol of an individual reaching maturity, and it’s not uncommon for parents to save one of their children’s shed baby claws as a memento.
A riftclaw is considered officially an adult at 20 years of age. Most become independent from their parents at this point, taking up careers more seriously, seeking partners, or even setting out to travel the multiverse. The average lifespan is 300 years, with riftclaws being considered elderly once they reach 220. The oldest recorded riftclaw lived to 324.
Hybridisation
As a result of the riftclaws' origin as a species that evolved from a single isolated population, pure blooded riftclaws have very little genetic variation. Recessive genetic mutations are common, and while some are minor in effect, others can be lethal. Intense record-keeping became extremely important to prevent inbreeding and its associated birth defects, and having children with non-riftclaws is highly encouraged to help bolster the populations’ genetic diversity.
The offspring of a riftclaw mother and a father of any other species is a riftclaw, and the offspring of a riftclaw father and a mother of any other species has a 50% chance of spontaneously becoming a riftclaw at the ages of first or second metamorphosis. In most cases hybrid riftclaws are perfectly healthy, and can have healthy children with both other riftclaws and non-riftclaws.