Bellacorn

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Warning: This page concerns archaic world setting information from the I.C.E. Age of GemStone III. It is not canon in contemporary GemStone IV, nor is it canonical for Shadow World as the details may be specific to GemStone III. It is only historical context for certain very old parts of the game and these things should not be mixed.

Bellacorn were huge sea monsters that were supposedly "occasional visitors" to Claedesbrim Bay (Darkstone Bay) in the I.C.E. Age of GemStone III. The word is likely Seoltang. Few survivors existed to speak of the bellacorn, but they said it resembles a giant lizard stuffed in a turtle shell. It would bellow loudly to cause chaos, then smash into the sides of the ship, or rise up under it to turn it. It was difficult to pierce its shells or scales with weapons. They were particularly likely to be lurking on the east side of the Bay. This is where Kestrel Etrevion would have been raiding prior to his extended voyages west.

The bellacorn would slash open the crew with its fangs when they were in the water, letting them bleed out to attract scavengers so that it could kill and eat them as well. It was able to overpower ships greater than thirty feet long, and would come on land by dozens of yards to attack coastal settlements. It would walk on land using wide, flipper-like fins, which looked utterly grotesque and horrifying.

I.C.E. Age Example

[Graveyard, Burial Mound]
This small dirt annex houses crudely fashioned wooden furniture of a very functional kind.  One striking exception is a tall chair, which appears to have served as an impromptu throne on the field of battle or in the relative safety of troop encampments.  Though the chair is scarred with sword cuts and arrow holes, it is still a remarkable piece of work.
Obvious exits: north, east

>look chair
The chair is carved from a solid block of ebony and inlaid with bone-white bellacorn ivory and iridescent mother-of-pearl from the depths of Darkstone Bay.  The arms and legs are fashioned to resemble the supple limbs of a great sea drake.  The high back of the throne is carved like the scaly underside of the beast, culminating in a wooden canopy chiselled in the likeness of a fierce dragon's head.

Kestrel Etrevion thus may have made trophies of bellacorn ivory. His burial mound is most likely the only place the bellacorn is referenced, which is symbolically shaped as an overturned war ship. The mound is covered in highly toxic flowers with blue leaves, perhaps resembling blood in the water. It is one of numerous subtly mocking memorials in The Graveyard (see Research:The Graveyard). Because there are so many reasons to doubt the sincerity and authenticity of burial chambers in the Graveyard, it might well be the case that Bandur himself introduced the bellacorn ivory only to symbolize the wrecked ship.

Behind the Scenes

The ruins and cemetery on the Coastal Cliffs might be implying the Etrevion family had some degree of fealty to Klysus (Luukos) through Lorgalis. This would be reading the surrounding context of the Jaiman (1989) source book into "The Legend of the Necropolis of Etrevion", as well as the relationship between Lorgalis and Klysus from Emer (1990) as a retcon. It is thus tempting to interpret the bellacorn ivory in the burial mound as a mocking representation of Klysus as the lizard god. But this seems to be apocryphal. Klysus was not defined yet in published sources when the story and Graveyard were first created. If the mad banquet room of The Graveyard were an allusion to "The Doom That Came To Sarnath", the bounders and bellacorn could play into its demonic water-lizard god. But that is highly unlikely.