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Description
M.T.O. VISHNU
Codename: Talaghan
Scientific Name: Rakshasa oppenheimeri* (Oppenheimer's Demon)
Length: +340 m / ~1,115.5 ft
Height: ~50 m / ~164 ft
Weight: +120,000 tonnes / +132,300 short tons
Category: 6
Aggression Level: 5

History: Deep in the remote Himalayan Mountain range, local legend speaks of a certain section of this great geological feature deemed taboo to traverse. This area is known as Mt. Vishnu, named so after the Hindu God of preservation, but it is anything but welcoming. The harsh slopes and frequent avalanches make this mountain range particularly dangerous. But it isn't just the terrain and weather that has spurred the notion of death onto this peak. Over thousands of years, several attempts were made to settle along the mountain's base, but all resulted in the sudden disappearance of those involved. It is said in the local legends that this stretch of mountains is the home of monsters that rose from the hellish depths to claim the surface as their own. Such myths may have some credence to them, for the area is known for its unusual seismic phenomenon, the emission of odd acoustic signals from time to time, and the occasional sinkhole that would form without warning. Sometimes, the mountain itself would appear to shudder, as if a massive object was moving beneath the earth. From these unusual phenomenons and legends of mountain beasts were born from a name only spoken in hushed tones: "Talaghan", A Vessel of Death, the Demon Lord of Mt. Vishnu...

At roughly the time Apex was struggling financially due to their blunder that was the failed Antarctica Expedition, their Soviet counterpart was making great strides in their research. After several years of study and with permission from the Chinese government, the Soviet Union's kaiju hunting group has located many underground tunnels lacerating the bedrock across various regions in Central Asia. These surveys were being done in order to locate a supposedly mythical realm in the heart of the continent. Not too long ago, an ancient text from an archaeological dig in Mongolia was translated and dated to be almost eight thousand years old and spoke of a strange and wondrous place. It mentions a mighty mountain abode surrounded by snow, wind, cold, and lightning and inhabited by great numbers of strange creatures completely unlike anything known. The rulers of this summit were three beings, known as the "The One of Thunder", "The One of Stone" and finally "The One of Light". Such an account would likely have been considered nothing more than fabricated mythology, albeit notable for being the oldest written record in the history of mankind. But after the discovery of strange and monolithic creatures such as Godzilla and Anguirus, it might actually have a good chance of being true. If this was the case, the organization conjectured, then this leads to the possibility of an as-yet-undiscovered kaiju hotspot somewhere in Asia, a find more expansive than the discovery of even a single species of these ancient goliaths. If this ecosystem can be proven true, then it would not only be a breakthrough in daikaiju/kaiju research but also as one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science...

So for the last few years, Adversary has been drilling away and uncovering mysterious cavern after cavern in the remote regions of mountainous Asia to find this strange and unusual land. Recently, Mt. Vishnu popped up on the radar as a potential candidate for the mountain abode mentioned in the text. Myths regarding the geological feature mention monsters of great sizes living beneath its rock, slumbering behemoths whose awakening would cause great strife and resulted in the disappearance of numerous people who had decided it was a good idea to settle here. It didn't look big enough on the outside to host a thriving ecosystem, but this was assumed to perhaps be due to the cavern leading into an expansive underground environment. With a team of scientists and subterranean explorers, and an outpost station located some distance away from the mountain in case any avalanche or rockslide barrels down the side of the mountain, Adversary plunged into the depths of the earth. Upon descending a few hundred feet into the depths, they noticed a breeze coming from within the mountain, along with a rather high increase in temperature. But there were no signs of volcanic activity where they were, at least at this level. It was only when they began hearing deep, low rumbles from beyond the cavern did they realize that this might be the result of the goliaths dwelling beneath. As they approached the main chamber beneath the mountain, what they saw was quite different from their expectations, but nonetheless quite the sight...

A pack of giants slumbered in the depths of the earth. Multi-limbed armored behemoths each capable of bringing down a skyscraper if they ever wanted to. A large head shield vaguely reminiscent of a ceratopsid dinosaur decorated the heads of each one, their jaws similarly beaked, but instead bearing a resemblance to a jagged-toothed carnivore than a branch-clipping herbivore. Like a swarm of hibernating rattlesnakes, the titans were cuddled up around each other, their deep inhales and exhales filling the still cavern with a light breeze that wouldn't normally be present in an underground area like this. It was also much warmer inside than it was outside, almost hot enough for the team to consider taking off their winter coating, no doubt due to the combined heat generated by each other's bodies. This was enough to make the team realize that they weren't dealing with dormant daikaiju. The rate at which the titans were breathing and their current metabolism at the moment were much too high if they had truly entered a hibernating state. in short, they were simply asleep. Which means they will wake up rather soon...and one of them did. Emerging like the monolithic monster that it was, the largest multi-limbed beast rose its head and yawned, the four large teeth in its lower jaw flexing independently of each other before the titan closed its mouth with a noticeable clank. Eyelids opened to reveal a set of orange optics that tiredly looked around for a few moments before they focused on the survey team. The humans froze as the piercing set of eyes looked down at them, feeling like if a mouse had been caught in the sights of a tiger, unsure what to do other than to stay still and hope it has not been noticed. For a few more moments, the colossus continued looking at them, a low trill escaping its mouth that definitely caused even the most courageous of the team to stagger back a bit in fear. But fortunately for them, humans are much too small to be considered anything close to a meal. The beast rested its head back on the ground, closing its eyes once more as it slipped back into slumber. The survey team let out a sigh of relief as they attempted to make their way back to the surface to inform the others of their discovery.

But it was then that they got a radio communication from the surface speaking of an urgent threat, and that they needed to get out of the mountain now. Almost immediately after, the mountain suddenly shook, rock and dust falling from above as the sound of something massive pounded the mountain from the outside. It was enough to wake up all the giants slumbering within the mountain, the beast getting to their feet as they let out startled and aggressive vocalizations at a potential intruder into their territory. The largest individual sniffed the air, before growling to itself in a lingering roar. It let out a great roar, echoing through the mountain and shaking the cavern, a war cry heralded by an old god and a call to arms for approaching battle. Shortly after the goliath let out its roar, another battle cry was heard, this time coming from the interloper that was bombarding the mountain at this time.

It sounded like thunder...

Description: A true titan, even among his species, Talaghan is one of the largest daikaiju yet discovered, nearly matching Godzilla and Anguirus in terms of mass. Genetic studies have shown this goliath descends from an ancient group of invertebrates known as the lobopodians. Known today with living representatives like velvet worms and tardigrades, they are best known for their Cambrian diversity, spawning off creatures such as the predatory anomalocarids, filter-feeding giants, strange bottom-dwellers with rows of spikes running down their backs, and deep dwellers as large as a man. While few Cambrian fossils of kaiju lobopodians have been found, the sheer diversity and strangeness their wholly biological forms managed to evolve likely means their kaiju relatives would have been even stranger works of nature. Hundreds of millions of years have passed since that time, and the lobopodians have fallen to the wayside as newer forms of daikaiju have begun to evolve and take their place in the ecosystem. Still, the few lobopodian daikaiju that remain are mighty behemoths near or at the top of the food chain in their environments, with Talaghan's species being by far the most massive of these.

Talghan possesses five pairs of limbs, split into three different forms. The first form is typical locomotor appendages. The last three pairs of limbs are pillar-like in shape and possess large claws that provide traction. While not very fast, these three pillar-like limbs are capable of short bursts of speed and provide a very strong sense of balance and center of gravity that makes this giant quite hard to topple over compared to its bipedal and quadrupedal competition. The second type of limb is a pair of grasping appendages free for the need to locomote the animal. As such, these legs have evolved to become deadly raptorial weapons built to seize enemies from afar like the grasping arms of a praying mantis. Most prey is usually killed upon being grappled, as the sheer brute force exerted by these massive hooks is enough to crush a small kaiju with ease. But if a kaiju is not immediately killed upon being snagged by the raptorial forelimbs, they meet a more gruesome fate. The third limb morphotype, and by far the most derived, take the form of a set of gnashing "lower jaws" beneath the animal's head. Superficially akin to how centipedes turned their first pair of limbs into venom-injecting fangs, these jaw-limbs of Talaghan gnash apart prey into mincemeat of bone, armor, and flesh that can then be easily torn apart by the "true jaws". Taking the form of an extendable jointed appendage somewhat akin to its distant cousin Opabinia of the Cambrian, these jaws scarf down the newly minced prey to be digested, but they can also serve the purpose of prey capture if Talaghan is hunting larger prey that needs to be dispatched with his jaws, serving a similar purpose to that of moray eels who use their secondary jaws to pull food deeper into the mouth. Additionally, the real mouth can regurgitate a bolus of super-heated digestive enzymes, ore, and other items that violently explodes, cacking everything in its blast radius in a burning fluid that can melt through metal. More impressive than this though are the threads of sticky substance that Talaghan and his kin can fire out of their lower jaws. This unstable substance acts very much like the glue of the distantly-related Velvet Worm and, perhaps a more apt comparison, the fellow kaiju lobopodian, Cerberus. Once fired, the leading tip solidifies and, upon impact, explodes in a devastating explosion that can take out surrounding aircraft with ease. Despite possessing decent eyesight thanks to a set of well-developed camera eyes (most likely have evolved from a more primitive condition similar to that seen in velvet worms), it is more likely that they use the electromagnetic field as a better indicator of target position to fire at their opponents. This offensive adaptation most likely evolved as some sort of hunting tool but has been kept to serve additional uses like fighting off intruders, be them human of daikaiju.

The dorsal section of Talaghan's body is covered in overlapping plates of bio-terrestrial armor that is impervious to most conventional weaponry. The head is adorned with a vaguely ceratopsian-like frill strengthened by titanolith-infused keratin in addition to a row of large, spike-like projections running down the top of the skull. Such features are hypothesized to have originally evolved as display organs to indicate the fitness of an individual for mating and their dominance over a specific territory. Over time, they have since begun evolving thicker ornamentation, their display frills thickening now as a way to protect them from the attacks of predators and competitors, somewhat similar to that of the last ceratopsid dinosaurs. For offense, a row of horns run down the length of the snout of Talaghan's species, forming an impressive set of headgear capable of goring attackers with an upward swing of the head. The frontmost horn is the largest, with a wickedly pointed tip that is certainly an indicator of it being a deadly weapon for combat. It is hypothesized duels between Talaghan's species tend to be quite bloody and vicious based on their horn shape, as it is perfectly suited for reaching around and goring rivals in the neck or face. There may even be evidence of this in the fossil record, with skulls decorated with scarring and puncture wounds not being an uncommon sign in the megafossils so far discovered of these titans. In addition to the horns, the tail of Talaghan is also a deadly weapon. Taking up half of the colossus' length, it is riddled with rows of armor plating that extend from the main body, and beneath that are dense muscle bundles that provide the necessary force to swing this gargantuan appendage. This alone would make Talaghan's tail a formidable weapon, but it is further heightened in its lethality with a set of thagomizers at the end of the tail. Nestled in three pairs and each stretching several dozen meters long, these wicked weapons can punch straight through bone if the tail swing is powerful enough, debilitating enemies almost instantly. It's such a lethal weapon in fact that it's almost never used in intraspecific combat, as a single strike from these thagomizers can severely injure another conspecific, and a swing to the head could in all likelihood kill. Thus it is only reserved for creatures that the titan holds in deep contempt with, individuals unlucky enough to end on the bad side of this titanic demon lord.

Observations and studies indicate that R. oppenheimeri seems to partake in sociality (at least to some extent), as is indicated by smaller individuals sharing Mt. Vishnu's tunnel system with Talaghan and following him after he erupted from the mountain. Bar their smaller size (roughly three-quarters the mass of Talaghan) and less ornate cranial display structures, they are mostly identical to their alpha, perhaps suggesting they are juveniles/subadults, but it is perhaps more likely that they may be of similar age to Talaghan, but fill the role of the subordinate pack members. Talaghan's tolerance of these smaller beings suggests the species seems to display a good deal of sociality. This is further supported by megafossil bonebeds found in South Korea and the Pacific Northwest, showing multiple R.oppenheimeri-grade daikaiju having been buried in a single spot over a short period. How far this sociality extends is unknown, but what is known is that Talaghan gets first dibs on all available food, devouring whatever he or his brethren find, leaving whatever he has not consumed to the scavengers. It's possible that being the alpha of his clan, he protects the food sources of his group from raiders, ensuring a constant supply of nourishment for himself and his companions, though exactly what kind of daikaiju would think about stealing food from these giant lobopodians is unknown. The presence of smaller adults dominated by a larger individual suggests a somewhat interesting social structure, with a successive hierarchy being perhaps the most likely possibility. In this case, if Talaghan were to ever die, one of the subordinate individuals would experience of a surge of hormonal growth and become the next keystone individual of the group, filling the needs of the coalition by protecting against competitors and predators...

Character: Talaghan, being the alpha of his clan, is the group's heaviest hitter, ensuring protection from enemies, be they kaiju or humans. While the full extent of his care to his fellow R. oppenheimeri is unknown, he does come to their aid when a rival threatens to take over their territory. During the Mt. Vishnu bombings of 1960, they may have taken the disturbances caused by the bombs as a possible rival daikaiju that has come to challenge their claim to this particular stretch of mountains, with the sinkhole that was formed from a stray charge being the last straw for them. It is likely that after assessing the situation of their ruined lair, Talaghan and his cohorts marched across the mountain range to find a new home with plentiful resources to settle down upon. The disappearances of people trying to settle in Mt. Vishnu's base were probably the victims of avalanches or rockslides caused by the underground movements of these colossal subterranean beasts, with the incidents being frequent enough to spark the legend that Mt. Vishnu is a taboo place to venture to.

Talaghan himself is marred with scars from past battles, be they from members of his kind or other daikaiju. Due to the resilient nature of most daikaiju, the presence of scars suggests the infliction of severe wounds by a rival monster god sometime in the past, being so grievous that they remain as permanent reminders of that past conflict Talaghan had gotten himself into. Some marks were most likely caused by the claws or teeth of a large daikaiju, but a few are more unique. Some look like burn marks, caused by fire or radiation-based attacks fired by various yet-to-be-determined daikaiju species. But one type of scarring is of most particular interest. It's a burn mark, but it does not match the kind of wound that could have been inflicted by fire or radiation. It is notable in that it has a branching structure to it, spreading across the skin in a beautifully intricate display of savagery that has remained etched in the skin of this mighty super-organism. The closest thing someone could possibly compare this scarring to...is the same kind of burn that some people have gotten from getting struck by lightning...

*Scientific name has no bearing on Robert E. Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project, but rather Markus Oppenheimer, an Apex scientist who discovered the first megafossils pertaining to this particular group of daikaiju super-organisms.

-----

NEXT: Enter the Dragons

-----

Talaghan/Vishnu/Strange, Dead Monster is owned by Legendary.

Description
M.T.O. VISHNU
Codename: Talaghan
Scientific Name: Rakshasa oppenheimeri* (Oppenheimer's Demon)
Length: +340 m / ~1,115.5 ft
Height: ~50 m / ~164 ft
Weight: +120,000 tonnes / +132,300 short tons
Category: 6
Aggression Level: 5

History: Deep in the remote Himalayan Mountain range, local legend speaks of a certain section of this great geological feature deemed taboo to traverse. This area is known as Mt. Vishnu, named so after the Hindu God of preservation, but it is anything but welcoming. The harsh slopes and frequent avalanches make this mountain range particularly dangerous. But it isn't just the terrain and weather that has spurred the notion of death onto this peak. Over thousands of years, several attempts were made to settle along the mountain's base, but all resulted in the sudden disappearance of those involved. It is said in the local legends that this stretch of mountains is the home of monsters that rose from the hellish depths to claim the surface as their own. Such myths may have some credence to them, for the area is known for its unusual seismic phenomenon, the emission of odd acoustic signals from time to time, and the occasional sinkhole that would form without warning. Sometimes, the mountain itself would appear to shudder, as if a massive object was moving beneath the earth. From these unusual phenomenons and legends of mountain beasts were born from a name only spoken in hushed tones: "Talaghan", A Vessel of Death, the Demon Lord of Mt. Vishnu...

At roughly the time Apex was struggling financially due to their blunder that was the failed Antarctica Expedition, their Soviet counterpart was making great strides in their research. After several years of study and with permission from the Chinese government, the Soviet Union's kaiju hunting group has located many underground tunnels lacerating the bedrock across various regions in Central Asia. These surveys were being done in order to locate a supposedly mythical realm in the heart of the continent. Not too long ago, an ancient text from an archaeological dig in Mongolia was translated and dated to be almost eight thousand years old and spoke of a strange and wondrous place. It mentions a mighty mountain abode surrounded by snow, wind, cold, and lightning and inhabited by great numbers of strange creatures completely unlike anything known. The rulers of this summit were three beings, known as the "The One of Thunder", "The One of Stone" and finally "The One of Light". Such an account would likely have been considered nothing more than fabricated mythology, albeit notable for being the oldest written record in the history of mankind. But after the discovery of strange and monolithic creatures such as Godzilla and Anguirus, it might actually have a good chance of being true. If this was the case, the organization conjectured, then this leads to the possibility of an as-yet-undiscovered kaiju hotspot somewhere in Asia, a find more expansive than the discovery of even a single species of these ancient goliaths. If this ecosystem can be proven true, then it would not only be a breakthrough in daikaiju/kaiju research but also as one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science...

So for the last few years, Adversary has been drilling away and uncovering mysterious cavern after cavern in the remote regions of mountainous Asia to find this strange and unusual land. Recently, Mt. Vishnu popped up on the radar as a potential candidate for the mountain abode mentioned in the text. Myths regarding the geological feature mention monsters of great sizes living beneath its rock, slumbering behemoths whose awakening would cause great strife and resulted in the disappearance of numerous people who had decided it was a good idea to settle here. It didn't look big enough on the outside to host a thriving ecosystem, but this was assumed to perhaps be due to the cavern leading into an expansive underground environment. With a team of scientists and subterranean explorers, and an outpost station located some distance away from the mountain in case any avalanche or rockslide barrels down the side of the mountain, Adversary plunged into the depths of the earth. Upon descending a few hundred feet into the depths, they noticed a breeze coming from within the mountain, along with a rather high increase in temperature. But there were no signs of volcanic activity where they were, at least at this level. It was only when they began hearing deep, low rumbles from beyond the cavern did they realize that this might be the result of the goliaths dwelling beneath. As they approached the main chamber beneath the mountain, what they saw was quite different from their expectations, but nonetheless quite the sight...

A pack of giants slumbered in the depths of the earth. Multi-limbed armored behemoths each capable of bringing down a skyscraper if they ever wanted to. A large head shield vaguely reminiscent of a ceratopsid dinosaur decorated the heads of each one, their jaws similarly beaked, but instead bearing a resemblance to a jagged-toothed carnivore than a branch-clipping herbivore. Like a swarm of hibernating rattlesnakes, the titans were cuddled up around each other, their deep inhales and exhales filling the still cavern with a light breeze that wouldn't normally be present in an underground area like this. It was also much warmer inside than it was outside, almost hot enough for the team to consider taking off their winter coating, no doubt due to the combined heat generated by each other's bodies. This was enough to make the team realize that they weren't dealing with dormant daikaiju. The rate at which the titans were breathing and their current metabolism at the moment were much too high if they had truly entered a hibernating state. in short, they were simply asleep. Which means they will wake up rather soon...and one of them did. Emerging like the monolithic monster that it was, the largest multi-limbed beast rose its head and yawned, the four large teeth in its lower jaw flexing independently of each other before the titan closed its mouth with a noticeable clank. Eyelids opened to reveal a set of orange optics that tiredly looked around for a few moments before they focused on the survey team. The humans froze as the piercing set of eyes looked down at them, feeling like if a mouse had been caught in the sights of a tiger, unsure what to do other than to stay still and hope it has not been noticed. For a few more moments, the colossus continued looking at them, a low trill escaping its mouth that definitely caused even the most courageous of the team to stagger back a bit in fear. But fortunately for them, humans are much too small to be considered anything close to a meal. The beast rested its head back on the ground, closing its eyes once more as it slipped back into slumber. The survey team let out a sigh of relief as they attempted to make their way back to the surface to inform the others of their discovery.

But it was then that they got a radio communication from the surface speaking of an urgent threat, and that they needed to get out of the mountain now. Almost immediately after, the mountain suddenly shook, rock and dust falling from above as the sound of something massive pounded the mountain from the outside. It was enough to wake up all the giants slumbering within the mountain, the beast getting to their feet as they let out startled and aggressive vocalizations at a potential intruder into their territory. The largest individual sniffed the air, before growling to itself in a lingering roar. It let out a great roar, echoing through the mountain and shaking the cavern, a war cry heralded by an old god and a call to arms for approaching battle. Shortly after the goliath let out its roar, another battle cry was heard, this time coming from the interloper that was bombarding the mountain at this time.

It sounded like thunder...

Description: A true titan, even among his species, Talaghan is one of the largest daikaiju yet discovered, nearly matching Godzilla and Anguirus in terms of mass. Genetic studies have shown this goliath descends from an ancient group of invertebrates known as the lobopodians. Known today with living representatives like velvet worms and tardigrades, they are best known for their Cambrian diversity, spawning off creatures such as the predatory anomalocarids, filter-feeding giants, strange bottom-dwellers with rows of spikes running down their backs, and deep dwellers as large as a man. While few Cambrian fossils of kaiju lobopodians have been found, the sheer diversity and strangeness their wholly biological forms managed to evolve likely means their kaiju relatives would have been even stranger works of nature. Hundreds of millions of years have passed since that time, and the lobopodians have fallen to the wayside as newer forms of daikaiju have begun to evolve and take their place in the ecosystem. Still, the few lobopodian daikaiju that remain are mighty behemoths near or at the top of the food chain in their environments, with Talaghan's species being by far the most massive of these.

Talghan possesses five pairs of limbs, split into three different forms. The first form is typical locomotor appendages. The last three pairs of limbs are pillar-like in shape and possess large claws that provide traction. While not very fast, these three pillar-like limbs are capable of short bursts of speed and provide a very strong sense of balance and center of gravity that makes this giant quite hard to topple over compared to its bipedal and quadrupedal competition. The second type of limb is a pair of grasping appendages free for the need to locomote the animal. As such, these legs have evolved to become deadly raptorial weapons built to seize enemies from afar like the grasping arms of a praying mantis. Most prey is usually killed upon being grappled, as the sheer brute force exerted by these massive hooks is enough to crush a small kaiju with ease. But if a kaiju is not immediately killed upon being snagged by the raptorial forelimbs, they meet a more gruesome fate. The third limb morphotype, and by far the most derived, take the form of a set of gnashing "lower jaws" beneath the animal's head. Superficially akin to how centipedes turned their first pair of limbs into venom-injecting fangs, these jaw-limbs of Talaghan gnash apart prey into mincemeat of bone, armor, and flesh that can then be easily torn apart by the "true jaws". Taking the form of an extendable jointed appendage somewhat akin to its distant cousin Opabinia of the Cambrian, these jaws scarf down the newly minced prey to be digested, but they can also serve the purpose of prey capture if Talaghan is hunting larger prey that needs to be dispatched with his jaws, serving a similar purpose to that of moray eels who use their secondary jaws to pull food deeper into the mouth. Additionally, the real mouth can regurgitate a bolus of super-heated digestive enzymes, ore, and other items that violently explodes, cacking everything in its blast radius in a burning fluid that can melt through metal. More impressive than this though are the threads of sticky substance that Talaghan and his kin can fire out of their lower jaws. This unstable substance acts very much like the glue of the distantly-related Velvet Worm and, perhaps a more apt comparison, the fellow kaiju lobopodian, Cerberus. Once fired, the leading tip solidifies and, upon impact, explodes in a devastating explosion that can take out surrounding aircraft with ease. Despite possessing decent eyesight thanks to a set of well-developed camera eyes (most likely have evolved from a more primitive condition similar to that seen in velvet worms), it is more likely that they use the electromagnetic field as a better indicator of target position to fire at their opponents. This offensive adaptation most likely evolved as some sort of hunting tool but has been kept to serve additional uses like fighting off intruders, be them human of daikaiju.

The dorsal section of Talaghan's body is covered in overlapping plates of bio-terrestrial armor that is impervious to most conventional weaponry. The head is adorned with a vaguely ceratopsian-like frill strengthened by titanolith-infused keratin in addition to a row of large, spike-like projections running down the top of the skull. Such features are hypothesized to have originally evolved as display organs to indicate the fitness of an individual for mating and their dominance over a specific territory. Over time, they have since begun evolving thicker ornamentation, their display frills thickening now as a way to protect them from the attacks of predators and competitors, somewhat similar to that of the last ceratopsid dinosaurs. For offense, a row of horns run down the length of the snout of Talaghan's species, forming an impressive set of headgear capable of goring attackers with an upward swing of the head. The frontmost horn is the largest, with a wickedly pointed tip that is certainly an indicator of it being a deadly weapon for combat. It is hypothesized duels between Talaghan's species tend to be quite bloody and vicious based on their horn shape, as it is perfectly suited for reaching around and goring rivals in the neck or face. There may even be evidence of this in the fossil record, with skulls decorated with scarring and puncture wounds not being an uncommon sign in the megafossils so far discovered of these titans. In addition to the horns, the tail of Talaghan is also a deadly weapon. Taking up half of the colossus' length, it is riddled with rows of armor plating that extend from the main body, and beneath that are dense muscle bundles that provide the necessary force to swing this gargantuan appendage. This alone would make Talaghan's tail a formidable weapon, but it is further heightened in its lethality with a set of thagomizers at the end of the tail. Nestled in three pairs and each stretching several dozen meters long, these wicked weapons can punch straight through bone if the tail swing is powerful enough, debilitating enemies almost instantly. It's such a lethal weapon in fact that it's almost never used in intraspecific combat, as a single strike from these thagomizers can severely injure another conspecific, and a swing to the head could in all likelihood kill. Thus it is only reserved for creatures that the titan holds in deep contempt with, individuals unlucky enough to end on the bad side of this titanic demon lord.

Observations and studies indicate that R. oppenheimeri seems to partake in sociality (at least to some extent), as is indicated by smaller individuals sharing Mt. Vishnu's tunnel system with Talaghan and following him after he erupted from the mountain. Bar their smaller size (roughly three-quarters the mass of Talaghan) and less ornate cranial display structures, they are mostly identical to their alpha, perhaps suggesting they are juveniles/subadults, but it is perhaps more likely that they may be of similar age to Talaghan, but fill the role of the subordinate pack members. Talaghan's tolerance of these smaller beings suggests the species seems to display a good deal of sociality. This is further supported by megafossil bonebeds found in South Korea and the Pacific Northwest, showing multiple R.oppenheimeri-grade daikaiju having been buried in a single spot over a short period. How far this sociality extends is unknown, but what is known is that Talaghan gets first dibs on all available food, devouring whatever he or his brethren find, leaving whatever he has not consumed to the scavengers. It's possible that being the alpha of his clan, he protects the food sources of his group from raiders, ensuring a constant supply of nourishment for himself and his companions, though exactly what kind of daikaiju would think about stealing food from these giant lobopodians is unknown. The presence of smaller adults dominated by a larger individual suggests a somewhat interesting social structure, with a successive hierarchy being perhaps the most likely possibility. In this case, if Talaghan were to ever die, one of the subordinate individuals would experience of a surge of hormonal growth and become the next keystone individual of the group, filling the needs of the coalition by protecting against competitors and predators...

Character: Talaghan, being the alpha of his clan, is the group's heaviest hitter, ensuring protection from enemies, be they kaiju or humans. While the full extent of his care to his fellow R. oppenheimeri is unknown, he does come to their aid when a rival threatens to take over their territory. During the Mt. Vishnu bombings of 1960, they may have taken the disturbances caused by the bombs as a possible rival daikaiju that has come to challenge their claim to this particular stretch of mountains, with the sinkhole that was formed from a stray charge being the last straw for them. It is likely that after assessing the situation of their ruined lair, Talaghan and his cohorts marched across the mountain range to find a new home with plentiful resources to settle down upon. The disappearances of people trying to settle in Mt. Vishnu's base were probably the victims of avalanches or rockslides caused by the underground movements of these colossal subterranean beasts, with the incidents being frequent enough to spark the legend that Mt. Vishnu is a taboo place to venture to.

Talaghan himself is marred with scars from past battles, be they from members of his kind or other daikaiju. Due to the resilient nature of most daikaiju, the presence of scars suggests the infliction of severe wounds by a rival monster god sometime in the past, being so grievous that they remain as permanent reminders of that past conflict Talaghan had gotten himself into. Some marks were most likely caused by the claws or teeth of a large daikaiju, but a few are more unique. Some look like burn marks, caused by fire or radiation-based attacks fired by various yet-to-be-determined daikaiju species. But one type of scarring is of most particular interest. It's a burn mark, but it does not match the kind of wound that could have been inflicted by fire or radiation. It is notable in that it has a branching structure to it, spreading across the skin in a beautifully intricate display of savagery that has remained etched in the skin of this mighty super-organism. The closest thing someone could possibly compare this scarring to...is the same kind of burn that some people have gotten from getting struck by lightning...

*Scientific name has no bearing on Robert E. Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project, but rather Markus Oppenheimer, an Apex scientist who discovered the first megafossils pertaining to this particular group of daikaiju super-organisms.

-----

NEXT: Enter the Dragons

-----

Talaghan/Vishnu/Strange, Dead Monster is owned by Legendary.