| Class: | Beast, weird |
| Hab: | Grasslands |
| Fre: | Uncommon |
| Num: | 6-36 / 3-18 / 1-6 (by size category) |
| Lair: | 20% |
| Size: | = boar / = rhino / = elephant (size categories) |
| Move: | float, fly |
| Def: | Boar- (heavy leather), rhino- (studded leather), elephant (plate-armor) |
| Att: | Razor-edged fan-blades line sucking maws = a dozen sword cuts per "bite" |
| Int: | Beast |
| Spec: | "Horror" effect from fan-blades splattering flesh during attack |
| Posns: | None |
Hoover-bells look something like a cross between a rhino and an aardvark. They float ponderously over the grasslands, tails up and their long trunks hanging down. The trunk tip flares out, forming a large bell. This bell contains whirling, sickle-like blades with which the hoover-bell mows the grasses upon which it feeds. As they are cut, the grass clippings are sucked up the trunk to the first of several stomachs.
The limbs of the hoover-bells have small grasping claws. These are used to cling to trees to avoid being blown away during high winds or to grasp other hoover-bells to kept the herd together when "rafting" to new grazing ground.
Hoover-bells float by means of gasses derived from fermenting the copious quantities of grass they ingest, assisted by Buoyant Blubber Blastula, which SEE.
Hoover-bell species generally fall into three size classes, = to boar, rhino, and elephant in size - and in natural armor. Size of herds is inversely proportionate to the size of the individuals.
While generally docile herbivores, the more intelligent (= to dog) hoover-bells can be trained to attack or serve as watch-beasts - even while doing double-duty as living lawnmowers; their sickle-bladed bell-maws can macerate flesh as easily as vegetation.
Hoover-bells set up "nursery" areas for their young, generally just corrals loosely hedged with live thornbrush or broken branches, with some "umbrella trees" in the middle for shelter. They guard the nursery vigilantly while fetching bales of grass for their young. The youngest may retain use of their limbs, but they soon switch to hopping about on their pogo-stick-like trunks until they are fat enough to float.
Some exotic alien types may have armour plates, no limbs, and 4-8 bell-tipped trunks.
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