Group Limits

• Troop
  • Up to 8 sub-adults/adults. Unlimited offspring.

Nest Limits

• Blooming Season: 4 eggs, 6-hour Interval
• Scorching Season: 4 eggs, 6-hour Interval
• Wilting Season: 6 eggs, 4-hour Interval
• Frosting Season: 6 eggs, 3-hour Interval

Sexual Dimorphism

• Sexual Dimorphism is Mandatory.
• Males
  • have a comparably bulky body.
  • Suitable subspecies: gadoufaios & palaios
• Females
  • have a slimmer body.
  • Suitable subspecies: elrhaios
• Mutations
  • Kryptops accept both melanistic and albino individuals, though they may face teasing or exclusion from hunts and struggle to find a mate.

Habitat

• Sedentary / Nomadic
  • Kryptops typically remain in one location for several days up to an entire season, before moving on to a new POI for the following season. They are mostly indifferent about their biome, but tend to prefer rather warm and rocky spots for their nests.
• Preferred habitats: Mesa, Beach, Desert, Mountainous
• Neutral habitats: Dense Woodland, Sparse Woodland, Hills, Valleys
• Disliked habitats: Marshlands

Activity

• Nocturnal
  • Kryptops rest during the day, often either sleeping under overhanging rocks in the shadows or dozing and sunbathing on top of them. The only time they become active during the day is for courting, as they can show off their colours best in the light.
  • When it turns night, Kryptops become active. The night is their ally - hunting is done only then when the darkness hides them from their prey and their senses are at full utility.

Diet

• General Carnivore/Scavenger: Aggressive
  • Kryptops are scavengers. In their dry and sunny habitat, they can’t afford to be picky about their meals and therefore eat everything they can digest.
  • Solo Kryptops as well as hatchling & juvenile Kryptops may scavenge from others when they see a chance.

Growing Behaviours

Hatchling

• Freshly hatched, Kryptops need only a short moment to sort themselves. They gather their strength and get up on their feet quickly.
  At first, the hatchlings might struggle to recognize their parents among the troop, as they only visit the nest occasionally.
  They leave the nest early on to take shelter in the surrounding shrubbery, only returning to the nest for food and water.
  If they notice that the troop leaves, they’ll follow their parents closely (if they have found out their parents by then).
  As long as the offspring is still in the hatching or juvenile stage, the adults don’t give them much attention. They won’t defend them and care little if they fall prey to other carnivores or don’t manage to find food by themselves.
  Offspring that struggle to keep up with the troop or show signs of weakness during hatching or juvenile stage are even at risk of being cannibalized by their parents, as they want to prevent it wasting resources for the rest of the offspring. This often affects albinistic Kryptops, as they are generally weaker and smaller than their unmutated peers.
  The young heavily depend on their siblings rather than their parents and always will stick closely together.
  

Juvenile

• Juveniles start to hunt smaller critters and often initiate playfights with their siblings. They train their tearing bite early on so that they are ready for bigger hunts in their later life.
  A lot of their time growing up they are dependent on their siblings. They hunt, play and socialise together. It’s during this time that strong sibling bonds are forged.
  If a parent tries to cannibalize a weaker sibling that has already bonded with another, the other sibling may attempt to defend it - often in vain. If the target of the attempted cannibalism manages to escape the parents, it will fall behind and stay out of sight from the troop, following them at a distance instead. The parents will not put much effort into chasing it, assuming it will not survive alone anyways. While other troop members mostly ignore the Kryptops youngling trailing behind, their bonded sibling(s) may decide to join them in the back.

Adolescent

• During the late adolescent stage, Kryptops younglings learn how to adjust their skin to their surroundings and often seek approval of their parents by circling their parents to get their attention and showing off their skin.
  As the Kryptops offspring shed into their first adult colours, the parents start to show more interest in their offspring. They let the best camouflaged adolescents join them on hunts if they approve of their offspring's camouflage skills and generally give these kids the most attention of the entire offspring.
  In case the offspring is attacked, the troop now decides to defend it.
  Weaker offspring that were targets of attempted cannibalism may slowly merge back into the group, having proven that they are strong enough to survive on their own.

Sub/Adult

• Subadults count as adults and are seen as full members of the troop.
  If the troop is full, the young adults decide to leave the troop, often founding their own together with their bonded siblings.

Orphan Behaviours

• Orphaned Kryptops have a harsh childhood if they don’t have at least their siblings or other Kryptops of similar age as company. They struggle to keep themselves fed, and will be less social later on.
  • As adults, they have a harder time integrating into troops and tend to stay on the outskirts and watch the other troop members interacting with each other. While distanced to the troop at the start, they inch closer every time the troop settles down for rest if the orphan has found another member of the troop they feel safe to be around. Orphans often become attached to this individual if it turns out to be friendly, often sleeping next to them or following them around.

Social Behaviours

• Kryptops live together in packs called “troops”.
  • They don’t maintain any family bonds except for sibling-relations and are rather unbiased when it comes to what troop they join or who joins their own troop. Their pack composition is in constant change and members leave and join as they please.
  • Despite their loose view on family, Kryptops develop close friendships with other Kryptops besides their sibling-bonds - usually individuals they had successful hunts with and have been in their troop for a while.
• Kryptops are known for their ability to change their skin colour. In most cases they adapt the colours of their surrounding environment, which helps them camouflage during hunts and hide themselves from predators. Only for courting they shed into their brightest and most flashy colours.
  • Some Kryptops can adjust to their current biome better than others. Being able to assume their surroundings shades well is seen as a mark of good health and hunting prowess.
  • Kryptops admire other Kryptops that adjust their colours well to new surroundings. They show their admiration by using the 🩷-call after closely circling them and assessing their skin patterns and colours. The most adaptive individual with the most attention due to its camouflage skills is usually automatically the elected troop leader.
  • To increase the troop's success at hunting, it’s usually the best-camouflaged individuals that are chosen for a hunt. When a troop prepares for a hunt, Kryptops that wish to join the hunting party typically rise and sniff the air. The hunting party members are then settled through snaps and nudges. If a troop member is deemed to have too poor camouflage for the hunt, they are nudged aside and snapped towards by the rest of the hunting party, until the four chosen hunters have emerged.
  • Kryptops individuals that repeatedly fail to adjust to new biomes and therefore cannot contribute in the troops hunting efforts, sometimes face heckling from the others. In some cases, the hunters may even deny them access to food until the rest of the troop has eaten their fill. They also have a harder time finding a mate, if they are unable to impress the opposite sex with their camouflage skills and vibrant courting colours.
  • While less bonded Kryptops peck at other members without any guilt, closely bonded siblings may rise up for their picked on brother or sister and fight back or bring them meat pieces over in case they are denied food. This often leads to squabbles within the troop, though they do not turn serious in most cases.
• Kryptops parents do not care much about their offspring. They don’t defend them until they have reached adolescence.
• Kryptops change their home biome once in a while. Once settled in their new POI, they take time to adapt their skin colours to the new environment. As a consequence, the troop leader might change as well, depending on how well the current leader adapts their skin.
• Despite not being the fastest of the abelisaurids, Kryptops love running and chasing each other for fun and bonding. They often snap or push others before charging away as an invitation to a game of tag.
  • Among female Kryptops it is common for these types of games to turn a little rougher, with the pursuer trying to pull the other female around (Tearing Bite).

Interspecies Behaviours

• Kryptops love to test their running speed even outside of hunts or within the pack. They chase herds of Struthiomimus and low flying Rhamphorhynchus for fun sometimes, without the intent of catching or hurting them.

Territorial Behaviours

• Kryptops are not territorial.

Hunting/Hunted Behaviours

• The Kryptops preferred prey is anything reaching from tiny to sub-apex sized. They may try solo apexes if they have a full adult hunting group.
  • Bonapartenykus is an exception that will not be hunted except in cases of desperate hunger, as they don’t provide much meat and the feathers are rather hard to stomach.
• If no prey is in sight before a hunt, the hunters will split into pairings of 2, which then will go out and patrol around the POI. Once one of the pairings has found potential prey, one of them returns to the rest and guides them to the prey, while the left-behind Kryptops keeps an eye on the prey.
• Krytops follow a “Rip’n’Tear”-style hunting technique, which relies on the troop having optimally 4 hunters. They are persistent hunters. They patiently stalk their prey, positioning themselves carefully before striking. They may pursue their target until it exhausts itself, or circle it with relentless patience, taking turns charging at it.
• When cliffs or slopes are near that don’t face a body of water, especially the females try to drive it towards the cliff and push the prey off.
• Males and females serve different tasks in this tactic.
  • With their slim bodies, females are built to be agile, fast and enduring. Their job is to quietly sneak up on the prey and surprise it with a first, well placed ram. If a second female is available for the hunt, she will wait on the other side of the prey, to deliver another charged ram when the time is right. Once the fight has fully started and the males have joined in, their main priority is to tire the prey, push it around and not let it out of sight.
  • Males are sturdier and while they are slightly slower and have less stamina than their female equivalents, they are excellent at delivering strong bites on the prey and in the end, taking it down with their collective force.

Engagement Limits

• 4 adolescent or older Kryptops are allowed in an engagement.
• Offspring of juvenile or younger age are not defended.

Courtship

• Kryptops form monogamous nest-bound pairs.
• Courting is initiated by males. They shed into their most vibrant and eye-catching colours and broadcast their readiness for courting.
  • Interested females will shed and try to match the colour of the male as closely as possible and present themselves in front of him.
  • The male will pick the female mostly by how well she is matching his colours. If he is pleased with the colours, he will walk up to her and 🩷-call.
• Although Kryptops base their choice for a partner mostly on how well they manage to fit each others colours, they also consider their potential mate’s general ability to adapt to the surrounding environment and how close their bond is.
• The pair will then start to build a nest together and fill it with resources as much as they are willing to. After this, they will not care much more than necessary for their offspring.

Notes

• A Kryptops keeps the same skin all his life, but adjusts its colour to its surrounding environment as much as it is possible within the given colour palette of the chosen skin.
• Hatchlings and juveniles in a troop may scavenge as long as their adult troop members don't have an own body they can eat from.

Terms

• Troop = pack of Kryptops

Stat Changes

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