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Description
Entity CRIMSON (AKA RODAN)
First Sighting: Kazakstan (Soviet Union), 1957
Size: 75 metres in height (when upright), 370 metres in wingspan
Weight: 26 000 tonnes

History: Not long after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union followed the United States in its ability to produce nuclear weapons, and with it came the first cold war. In the early 1950s, more than twenty of these detonations occurred in the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakstan. Even long before the knowledge that monsters could be awakened, these tests were operated with little regard for inhabitants of the area, human or otherwise, as hundreds of tonnes of nuclear material were scattered over thousands of square miles. By the year 1956, there were countless rumours circulating throughout steppe villages around the Altai Mountains of dragon-like beasts, the range echoing with the unearthly screeches of an unseen terror stalking the hidden valleys. Soviet officials arriving to collect censuses sometimes found entire settlements levelled and their inhabitants vanished with nary a trace, bar the occasional arm or smear of blood left behind. Sometimes there would be huge ploughed markings in the earth, usually three parallel. Territorial Defence Forces and radar systems over western Siberia began reporting of large unidentified flying objects, sometimes moving at supersonic speeds. These were much larger and faster than any known aircraft to have been created at the time, and the Soviets suspected that the US was field testing a secret weapon in their airspace.

As the sightings moved east across Siberia, reports from Soviet Pilots suggested that these were not machine but some type of living organism perhaps similar to that which had attacked Japan three years prior. The brief eyewitness reports seemed to suggest pterosaur-like shapes, leading the Anti-Megalosaurus Force to speculate that perhaps they were prehistoric creatures living underground that had been released by atomic testing. They were moving faster than any vehicle at the time could trail them, so their sightings were monitored to indicate their pattern of movement while continued disappearances of small isolated settlements were covered up. Locating the destruction of a mining town near the border of northern China, they discovered that the largest mine had been ripped open, exposing a large uranium vein which had been removed, leaving behind only small chunks and a strong radon signature in the air. It was suggested that the hypothetical creature had been attracted to the town by this uranium deposit and had consumed it to feed its radioactive body. Using this theory, they decided to lure the animal into an ambush where it would be eliminated. Reluctantly collaborating with the Chinese government, they were allowed a region of the Greater Khingan Mountains for their trap, as this was the region the flight pattern appeared to concentrate upon for the past few weeks, where a large uranium pile was used to bait the organism, Operation Radon. Several villages in the region were evacuated under the guise of preparations for a hypothetical nuclear strike exercise.

The plan worked… at first. Soon bursting from the clouds came a massive red object, and as it collided with the earth, it was shrouded under a cloud of dust. From the smoke emerged a horned head and vast membranous wings as the creature began to tear through the military units present, being little affected by the onslaught that they unleashed. Eventually they managed to subdue the creature with numerous electrified harpoons specially prepared for the attack. As ground and air units closed in on the struggling beast, suddenly a second animal appeared, nearly identical to first that came to its defence. Even as wave after wave of Soviet forces came to confront the pair, working together they could not be brought down. Eventually aircraft fire managed to draw one away from the other and firing at its head, landed direct hits at the eyes, momentarily blinding the animal in flight, causing the creature to slam into one of the larger mountains at supersonic speeds. Launching shells at the slopes, a landslide was triggered that buried the animal, and its partner immediately abandoned the battle and ran to dig out its mate. Remaining units were given orders to retreat immediately as several ballistic missiles were launched at the site. Both of the creatures were enveloped in a literal mountain of rubble, sending them deep into the earth. The operation suffered heavy casualties and the uranium bait was lost in the final bombardment, but it was deemed a success.

When the Anti-Megalosaurus Force investigated the original test region, they discovered within the detonation zone was a single bird nest, the shattered eggshells abnormally thick and rugose. Several of the eggs had failed to hatch and contained the fragmented skeletons of the embryos. These skeletons showed that the fetuses possessed sharp teeth, long clawed fingers, and sickle-like claws. It seemed that fallout from nuclear testing had mutated a clutch of bird eggs into monstrous beasts resembling prehistoric creatures. Not willing to admit their disregard for the consequences of their actions had resulted in monsters of their own making, the information of this was censored by the Soviet government, along with the attacks by the creatures themselves (latter dubbed ‘Rodan” after the radioactive signature they left in their wake), with the destroyed villages and small towns officially stated to be the casualties of an unusually harsh winter. Although information would later leak out to the United States of a kaiju-related event within the year, the Soviet Union would deny these claims. However, the AMF would later find records of winged monsters similar in description to Rodan stretching back millennia, an ancient Firebird of Alaskan aboriginal folklore, the thunderous Soran of Chinese mythology, and the wind god Quetzalcoatl of Aztec worship. And in the mid-1940s into the 1960s, unknown to the AMF, the United States (later as Monarch) was unearthing mega-fossils of a pterosaur-like kaiju on the Puerto Rican island of Mona and uncovering prehistoric cave art of “fire demons” scattered throughout Southern Asia. The implications of both facts and their connections to Rodan would not be more clear until years later following expeditions to discover the origins of kaiju.

Description: Wrought through a strange form of radiation-induced mutation, Rodan is the result of highly advanced spontaneous atavism, where instead of inducing hybridization with foreign genetic material, it resulted in animals that retained features that would normally be lost in early fetal development (some evidence may suggest similar mutations have occurred periodically throughout prehistory). Rodan’s ancestral species was probably some type of innocuous passerine, the nest of which was caught in the blast radius of nuclear testing. The radioactive particles filtered through the eggshells and affected the development of the embryos, producing avian creatures as big as a battleship. It was long known that birds evolved from reptiles, and Rodan is living proof of this. In the place of feathery plumage, Rodan are covered in blade-like quills and armoured scales, and their wings are supported by membranous skin stretched between elongated fingers like a bat. The body is held horizontally, balanced by an unusually long tail, with relatively long legs that enable Rodan to walk and run competently on land both bipedally or vaulting on all fours.

Rodan strongly display traits indicating a carnivorous diet, with a hook-like teeth and serrated teeth to tear apart prey. The claws on both the wings and feet are sickle-like, and launching out at high speeds, Rodan can sheer through steel several feet thick, easily tearing apart armoured vehicles. The second toe is retractable and has an unusually large claw that is held off the ground, another trait likely derived from its atavism. Like all birds, Rodan possesses a complex series of internal air sacs which drastically reduce mass and allow for more efficient oxygenation of the blood than mammals. However, in Rodan this has been developed further into a propulsion system that stretches into his chest and wings which forms a cushion of air around the body in flight. This streamlines the body while providing additional thrust, allowing Rodan to travel at speeds exceeding Mach 3 while soaring. One air sac located underneath the crop has an opening into the mouth, and Rodan can blow out a pneumatic scream strong enough to blow down small buildings for a distance of at least two-hundred metres. This unique organic propulsion system and their broad wings also make Rodan excellent swimmers, with efficient respiration and large stores of oxygen allowing the kaiju to remain submerged for several hours underwater and cruise at speeds exceeding a hundred knots.

The thin layer of overlapping scale-like quills covering both sides of their wings retains a layer of air between them and the wing membrane, providing excellent protection from extreme heat and making them much more durable than they appear. This coat also hides their radioactive signature, making them difficult to track through this method on top of already being hard to track from radar due to their speed. The membrane itself, although thin relative to the animals’ size, is already roughly a metre thick. The animals’ wings are powerful enough that they generate powerful shockwaves simply by flapping. The backdraft from the kaiju flying low over the ground is strong enough to uproot forests and buildings, and send people and vehicles into the air. Entire towns can be wiped off the map simply by Rodan flying overhead. In their most destructive attack, they can launch at a ground target at supersonic speeds, tucking their wings close to their body to maximize aerodynamics, releasing an energy equivalent on impact rivalling a small nuclear weapon, cratering the earth. However, despite their apparent destructive properties, it appears that Rodan are social creatures like many birds, and travel together. Despite the extreme mutations that affected the organisms during prenatal development, it seems their thought patterns and behaviour are little if any different from that of regular animals, something that applies even to social bonds between them.

———

NEXT: The Insect Gods

Description
Entity CRIMSON (AKA RODAN)
First Sighting: Kazakstan (Soviet Union), 1957
Size: 75 metres in height (when upright), 370 metres in wingspan
Weight: 26 000 tonnes

History: Not long after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union followed the United States in its ability to produce nuclear weapons, and with it came the first cold war. In the early 1950s, more than twenty of these detonations occurred in the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakstan. Even long before the knowledge that monsters could be awakened, these tests were operated with little regard for inhabitants of the area, human or otherwise, as hundreds of tonnes of nuclear material were scattered over thousands of square miles. By the year 1956, there were countless rumours circulating throughout steppe villages around the Altai Mountains of dragon-like beasts, the range echoing with the unearthly screeches of an unseen terror stalking the hidden valleys. Soviet officials arriving to collect censuses sometimes found entire settlements levelled and their inhabitants vanished with nary a trace, bar the occasional arm or smear of blood left behind. Sometimes there would be huge ploughed markings in the earth, usually three parallel. Territorial Defence Forces and radar systems over western Siberia began reporting of large unidentified flying objects, sometimes moving at supersonic speeds. These were much larger and faster than any known aircraft to have been created at the time, and the Soviets suspected that the US was field testing a secret weapon in their airspace.

As the sightings moved east across Siberia, reports from Soviet Pilots suggested that these were not machine but some type of living organism perhaps similar to that which had attacked Japan three years prior. The brief eyewitness reports seemed to suggest pterosaur-like shapes, leading the Anti-Megalosaurus Force to speculate that perhaps they were prehistoric creatures living underground that had been released by atomic testing. They were moving faster than any vehicle at the time could trail them, so their sightings were monitored to indicate their pattern of movement while continued disappearances of small isolated settlements were covered up. Locating the destruction of a mining town near the border of northern China, they discovered that the largest mine had been ripped open, exposing a large uranium vein which had been removed, leaving behind only small chunks and a strong radon signature in the air. It was suggested that the hypothetical creature had been attracted to the town by this uranium deposit and had consumed it to feed its radioactive body. Using this theory, they decided to lure the animal into an ambush where it would be eliminated. Reluctantly collaborating with the Chinese government, they were allowed a region of the Greater Khingan Mountains for their trap, as this was the region the flight pattern appeared to concentrate upon for the past few weeks, where a large uranium pile was used to bait the organism, Operation Radon. Several villages in the region were evacuated under the guise of preparations for a hypothetical nuclear strike exercise.

The plan worked… at first. Soon bursting from the clouds came a massive red object, and as it collided with the earth, it was shrouded under a cloud of dust. From the smoke emerged a horned head and vast membranous wings as the creature began to tear through the military units present, being little affected by the onslaught that they unleashed. Eventually they managed to subdue the creature with numerous electrified harpoons specially prepared for the attack. As ground and air units closed in on the struggling beast, suddenly a second animal appeared, nearly identical to first that came to its defence. Even as wave after wave of Soviet forces came to confront the pair, working together they could not be brought down. Eventually aircraft fire managed to draw one away from the other and firing at its head, landed direct hits at the eyes, momentarily blinding the animal in flight, causing the creature to slam into one of the larger mountains at supersonic speeds. Launching shells at the slopes, a landslide was triggered that buried the animal, and its partner immediately abandoned the battle and ran to dig out its mate. Remaining units were given orders to retreat immediately as several ballistic missiles were launched at the site. Both of the creatures were enveloped in a literal mountain of rubble, sending them deep into the earth. The operation suffered heavy casualties and the uranium bait was lost in the final bombardment, but it was deemed a success.

When the Anti-Megalosaurus Force investigated the original test region, they discovered within the detonation zone was a single bird nest, the shattered eggshells abnormally thick and rugose. Several of the eggs had failed to hatch and contained the fragmented skeletons of the embryos. These skeletons showed that the fetuses possessed sharp teeth, long clawed fingers, and sickle-like claws. It seemed that fallout from nuclear testing had mutated a clutch of bird eggs into monstrous beasts resembling prehistoric creatures. Not willing to admit their disregard for the consequences of their actions had resulted in monsters of their own making, the information of this was censored by the Soviet government, along with the attacks by the creatures themselves (latter dubbed ‘Rodan” after the radioactive signature they left in their wake), with the destroyed villages and small towns officially stated to be the casualties of an unusually harsh winter. Although information would later leak out to the United States of a kaiju-related event within the year, the Soviet Union would deny these claims. However, the AMF would later find records of winged monsters similar in description to Rodan stretching back millennia, an ancient Firebird of Alaskan aboriginal folklore, the thunderous Soran of Chinese mythology, and the wind god Quetzalcoatl of Aztec worship. And in the mid-1940s into the 1960s, unknown to the AMF, the United States (later as Monarch) was unearthing mega-fossils of a pterosaur-like kaiju on the Puerto Rican island of Mona and uncovering prehistoric cave art of “fire demons” scattered throughout Southern Asia. The implications of both facts and their connections to Rodan would not be more clear until years later following expeditions to discover the origins of kaiju.

Description: Wrought through a strange form of radiation-induced mutation, Rodan is the result of highly advanced spontaneous atavism, where instead of inducing hybridization with foreign genetic material, it resulted in animals that retained features that would normally be lost in early fetal development (some evidence may suggest similar mutations have occurred periodically throughout prehistory). Rodan’s ancestral species was probably some type of innocuous passerine, the nest of which was caught in the blast radius of nuclear testing. The radioactive particles filtered through the eggshells and affected the development of the embryos, producing avian creatures as big as a battleship. It was long known that birds evolved from reptiles, and Rodan is living proof of this. In the place of feathery plumage, Rodan are covered in blade-like quills and armoured scales, and their wings are supported by membranous skin stretched between elongated fingers like a bat. The body is held horizontally, balanced by an unusually long tail, with relatively long legs that enable Rodan to walk and run competently on land both bipedally or vaulting on all fours.

Rodan strongly display traits indicating a carnivorous diet, with a hook-like teeth and serrated teeth to tear apart prey. The claws on both the wings and feet are sickle-like, and launching out at high speeds, Rodan can sheer through steel several feet thick, easily tearing apart armoured vehicles. The second toe is retractable and has an unusually large claw that is held off the ground, another trait likely derived from its atavism. Like all birds, Rodan possesses a complex series of internal air sacs which drastically reduce mass and allow for more efficient oxygenation of the blood than mammals. However, in Rodan this has been developed further into a propulsion system that stretches into his chest and wings which forms a cushion of air around the body in flight. This streamlines the body while providing additional thrust, allowing Rodan to travel at speeds exceeding Mach 3 while soaring. One air sac located underneath the crop has an opening into the mouth, and Rodan can blow out a pneumatic scream strong enough to blow down small buildings for a distance of at least two-hundred metres. This unique organic propulsion system and their broad wings also make Rodan excellent swimmers, with efficient respiration and large stores of oxygen allowing the kaiju to remain submerged for several hours underwater and cruise at speeds exceeding a hundred knots.

The thin layer of overlapping scale-like quills covering both sides of their wings retains a layer of air between them and the wing membrane, providing excellent protection from extreme heat and making them much more durable than they appear. This coat also hides their radioactive signature, making them difficult to track through this method on top of already being hard to track from radar due to their speed. The membrane itself, although thin relative to the animals’ size, is already roughly a metre thick. The animals’ wings are powerful enough that they generate powerful shockwaves simply by flapping. The backdraft from the kaiju flying low over the ground is strong enough to uproot forests and buildings, and send people and vehicles into the air. Entire towns can be wiped off the map simply by Rodan flying overhead. In their most destructive attack, they can launch at a ground target at supersonic speeds, tucking their wings close to their body to maximize aerodynamics, releasing an energy equivalent on impact rivalling a small nuclear weapon, cratering the earth. However, despite their apparent destructive properties, it appears that Rodan are social creatures like many birds, and travel together. Despite the extreme mutations that affected the organisms during prenatal development, it seems their thought patterns and behaviour are little if any different from that of regular animals, something that applies even to social bonds between them.

———

NEXT: The Insect Gods