Rolvak

What is it?

The Rolvak is an armoured grazer from Ithera, the system’s temperate planet. It is one of the four creatures in the Aurin bestiary. It is the small, numerous variant of the Ombrask, the great canyon predator. It is some two and a half metres long, low, heavy-set and armoured.

It is the animal an Ithera colonist sees most. It moves in herds, eats for most of the day and doesn’t go looking for a fight. In the catalogues it is listed as Volutaurus gregarius. In the outer ring of La Cicatriz, where the oldest settlements stand, people call it the barrelback. Its shell closes like a barrel when it rolls.

La Cicatriz is the furrow the Arca Aurora tore open when it crashed on Ithera. The Arca was one of the great ships of the fleet that brought the settlers. Today it is the capital of the five Guilds, trade organisations that take no side.

Where and how does it live?

It lives on Ithera’s rocky ground and across its grasslands and plains. The Pathfinders, the explorers’ guild, have recorded its nests in the Vergel Pálido, the glowing spore forest east of La Cicatriz.

The herd does everything together: it eats together, regroups when it gets separated and flees together. What scares one scares them all.

The Guardabosques are the watch corps of the Nadir, one of the system’s two factions. At the Espejos de Rocío, a wetland west of La Cicatriz, they have watched whole herds running the same way. Whatever drives them is usually worse than they are.

Three things bring them close to people:

• Rain wipes out their routes and pushes them towards settlements.
• Blood: at dusk, the smell of fresh blood draws a herd in.
• The Vergel Pálido swarm: when it starts moving, the forest’s glow flickers and you hear a hum from many throats.

Is it dangerous?

Only if you attack it. It is neutral: it plants itself in front of you, growls and waits for you to step aside. As long as you don’t shoot it, it won’t attack.

Hurt one and everything changes:

• The herd hears about it within about 25 m.
• The wounded animal comes after you, not the spot you fired from.
• It bears a grudge that lets it see you from further away and lasts as long as its breath does.
• Lose it and, after a while, it gives up.

It fights three ways:

• It rams with its head, charging several metres in one go and shoving you aside.
• It bites.
• It curls into a ball and rolls into you, striking on contact.

Running, it is slower than you; rolling, it is twice as fast. It doesn’t jump. Its head and neck count double, as do the crest hanging from its nape and the tongue when its mouth is open.

At El Aguijón, the seat of Apex Syndicate, the hunters’ guild, they give this advice:

• Give the herd a wide berth: if you don’t shoot, it won’t attack.
• One shot warns them all. Pick the one grazing furthest out.
• You can’t outrun the roll: sidestep or put a rock between you.
• Don’t leave fresh meat in the open near your camp at dusk.

How do you recognise it?

• Shell: its back is a shell of plates that closes like a barrel when it rolls.
• Mouth: short tusks, and a dark red mouth and tongue.
• Nape: a row of peach-coloured spines and fins.
• Colour: it depends on where it lives. It is ochre brown in the canyons and moss green in the Vergel Pálido.

What do you get from it?

The Espina de Rolvak, its spine, is the most used hunting material. It is Grade III: materials run from Grade I to V, and III is for rare ones (the resource guide explains them).

What you get	What it is for
Espina de Rolvak	Hunters’ melee weapons, spine venom, the Estimulante de Corte Controlado (controlled cull stimulant), the Asado del Cazador (hunter’s roast) and alloys with vibrosteel; also the Suero de Adrenalina Quitinosa (chitinous adrenaline serum), from blueprint BP-CAZ-1, the first blueprint the Syndicate hands out
Fat	seals joints
Colmillo de Nido (nest fang)	asked for by the mission “El Nido Oculto”

Apex Syndicate pays by quota (a set number of animals), not by the head. Two of its missions show how:

• “Control de Plagas”: the guild wants the number of moss Rolvaks (the green-shelled ones) in the sector brought down.
• “El Nido Oculto”: a colony beside a rare nest must be thinned out, and the Colmillo de Nido brought back.

In the Vergel Pálido, an agent called Renn pays double for every extra head. Renn belongs to the Cátedra, the high command of the Zenith, the other faction. Kestrel Vasko, who runs Apex Syndicate, doesn’t forbid it. She only reminds people who will be hunting there next year.

Is it the same everywhere?

No. The Rolvak is the animal that has travelled furthest. There are herds all over Ithera and on Kaldrek, the system’s cold planet. In each place the shell is a different colour: these are its regional forms.