Stunray

Description

The Stunray is a type of ray fish, broad and flat, found mostly in waters of shallow and moderate depth. A sluggish, flabby creature, the stunray swims slowly along the ocean floor or buries itself in the sand to lie in wait for its prey, mostly smaller fish.

The stunray possesses an ability, similar to the Lightning Eel, to channel potent shocks through its body and the waters immediately around it. It uses this power both to stun prey (which it then swallows whole) and to defend itself against predators.

Some have mused that the stunray’s shock is the result of Wyld Mutation, but the responsible gods in Yu Shan have issued assurances that they are entirely ‘of Creation’, and the absence of records of them before the Primordial War is the unfortunate result of that war’s destructive fighting.

Uses

Stunrays have always been an annoyance or danger to fisherfolk and those who enjoy wading upon beaches, and during the Golden Age efforts were made to deter them from wandering into the area of various seaside communities and resorts, while individual fishing villages would often kill them whenever they were spotted to reduce their numbers.

Golden Age

During the Golden Age, rays were studied by Exalted artificers seeking to adapt their powers and aesthetic, which was considered amongst the most beautiful of sea creatures during several periods. While one of the best-known in the present day is the Manta skyship, inspired by the Manta Ray, the Stunray inspired two naval weapons which were popular into the Shogunate Era, the Skulking Stunray and the Swimming Stunray.

Shogunate

The Shogunate Era saw a grave threat to the Stunray. As the era wore on and stocks of Magitech components ran low, the Dragonblooded searched far and wide for substitute fuels to replace what had once been the imperishable engines of the Solar Exalted. Experimentation found that the shocking organs of the stunray contained small quantities of a substance in which the Essence of Air and Water had become interwoven… while not of sufficient power to be of use on its own, when distilled and concentrated stunray could be used to produce an oil, known as Ray Oil, useful in the maintenance of Essence Circuitry and Essence Battery systems. The distillation of ten thousand Stunrays would provide sufficient oil for one maintenance and repair cycle of complex magitechnology such as a suit of Dragon Armour.

The high demand for Ray Oil saw the Shogunate and coastal daimyo trawl the sea to gather the fish in large quantities, which precipitated a collapse in their numbers, and by the end of the era stunrays were essentially unknown in the waters of the Inner Sea and coastal Blessed Isle.

Age of Sorrows

The Great Contagion devastated all of Creation’s creatures, but in its wake the stunray found a path to recovery. With the magitechnology of the Shogunate largely lost, the demand for Ray Oil collapsed, and they were a poor food source for fisherfolk, allowing their numbers to rise slowly. In the large rivers and coastal areas of the River Province, Lookshy soon resumed massive harvesting to supply the needs of the Seventh Legion, but few states pursue similar programs, and the rays were further aided by a decree of the Scarlet Empress, declaring that the fisherfolk of the Blessed Isle ought not harm stunrays, and release those netted back into the sea.

This was not an act of altruism, but rather a decree issued at behest of the Benevolent Stewards of Health and Utility , whose physicians had found the stunrays extremely useful… while older stunrays were too large for such purposes, the shocks produced by young rays could be applied to numb the flesh of patients, easing childbirth and surgeries as well as relieving Gout and headaches. The Apricot Ministry catches stunrays and ships them in barrels to its various hospitals, where they can be fed and kept alive for a limited time and used in treatments before they die off and must be replaced.