Name: Augrym
Gender: Female
Height: 16 feet, from belly to back (5 meters)
Length: 440 feet (134 meters)
Weight: 335 tons (304 tonnes)
---Powers & Abilities---Drill. Augrym's most notable trait is her ability to function as a gigantic drill. While moving underground she twists her body in a rapid corkscrew pattern, flexing her muscular segments and rotating constantly. At the same time two lines of ventral spiracles suck in air at the front of her body and forcefully exhale it backwards, further accelerating her rotational speed and driving her forward. If given the time and space needed to reach maximum velocity she can bore through an open stretch of dirt with all the ease of a missile flying in air. Hard solids like rock present a far greater challenge and slow her speed to a crawl, but do not stop her completely. Manmade barriers and kaiju flesh are just the same; it might take a while, but if it's solid Augrym
can drill through it.
Sandstorm. Augrym's drilling disturbs tremendous amounts of dust, especially when boring through loose soil, sand, and buildings. The debris picked up by her rotational current spreads in all directions and can severely limit visibility in nearby areas. Though a constant concern, this phenomenon appears to be an unintended side-effect rather than a deliberate attack.
Twister. A particularly nasty power only seen during the events of the Golden Adventure. By extending most of her body length straight up and spinning in reverse, Augrym could move currents of warm air upward and generate winds powerful enough to birth tornadoes. It's believed this behavior was taught or somehow commanded to her by Syn during her time under their control, as the subterranean kaiju would've had little reason to need or know this technique. It was used fairly regularly- and to devastating effect- against small towns, trade ships, and cities with breached energy barriers.
---Strengths & Weaknesses---+Monstrous Momentum. When moving at full speed Augrym is practically unstoppable. Her already sharp and well armored head becomes an unyielding drill, and with its constant rotations and shroud of high pressure air her body is extremely hard to grab hold of. Even kaiju powerful enough to stop her from spinning do so at the cost of severe friction burn. Projectiles are the only truly safe way to stop her cold, but landing a direct hit on her constantly squirming, spinning surface is sometimes easier said than done.
+Flexibility. What Augrym lacks in complexity she makes up for in adaptability. She can burrow in any kind of terrain, in any climate, in any place- even underwater. In fact her twister attack is even more dangerous at sea than it is on land, as she can generate either waterspouts or whirlpools depending on her depth. She does not see, so bright light and absolute dark are no issue. Her requirements for breathing are apparently quite negligible and extreme hot and cold have little effect on her.
-Overspecialized. Augrym is very good at what she does, but what she does is also very specific: burrow at high speed in dry strata. If thrown into literally any other kind of situation her weaknesses begin to show through. Her physical strength, reaction times, regeneration speed, and regular movement speed are all actually below average for a kaiju. She can be made quite vulnerable if her movement is impeded by a secure enough grab, a sticky substance, or an injury to her head or spiracles- without the ability to spin she's sluggish and very limited in terms of attacks.
-Open Vents. The spiracles that jet out air and supercharge Augrym's spin are liabilities as much as they are assets. They are almost constantly gaping open and lead directly into the far softer interior of her body. They're a perfect spot to attack, both for enemy kaiju and the military, and can be exploited in a multitude of ways to slow down or injure her. They can close shut for protection, but without her wind current Augrym's speed decreases dramatically.
History: There are no historical accounts of Augrym before the Golden Adventure, nor sightings of her after. Her current whereabouts and place of origin are not known, and perhaps never will be- it seems that were it not for the machinations of one Alexander Gulbastis she may have never been seen by humans at all.
Augrym's first appearance was in Ivech, where she appeared suddenly and without warning inside the city's walls. These sudden ambushes became a calling card of hers, as she could burrow deep enough and rise fast enough to strike at cities from below before seismographs could detect her. She obliterated a lumber yard and paper mill in central Ivech before engaging the local military and cutting through an unevacuated residential district. Hundreds of lives and thousands of markints worth of resources were lost in the wreckage, which Syn claimed responsibility for within the hour.
The months that followed brought more of the same.
Augrym had become the first kaiju to be recruited into Syn's army, enslaved by a surgical implant grafted directly onto her brainstem. This implant- a more permanent and internal version of the technology used to coerce Cerabos- manipulated the monster's behavior through concise, remote controlled electric impulses. Artificially induced longings and memories could be used to alter the monster's direction whilst traveling, and once present at a desired site she could be sent into a violent rage through massive spikes of serotonin and adrenaline. The same trick could be used in reverse, with a sudden overproduction of melatonin turning the creature near-comatose and safe enough to bring indoors for storage and transportation. If discipline or additional motivation were ever required, the hurtles of physically torturing a four-hundred foot bulletproof monster could be bypassed rather effortlessly- an appropriate shock to the midbrain could trick her body into feeling pain of any severity, for any duration, with the simple push of a button.
With control firmly established, Syn used the drill-like kaiju to target cities all over Tarrun. She was a key instrument in disrupting trade and raising paranoia, especially among the general populace. Her ability to strike quickly from below put virtually every settlement on the continent at risk and raised public concerns over the viability of energy shields. Allinos saw petitions, protests, and half-baked suggestions from amateur inventors ceaselessly after the first rampages. Attempts at extending the mana-dome underground were planned and allegedly even attempted, but never saw fruition. Meanwhile Ebika, Alserah, Raja'Din, and Nalassa all suffered severe and costly breaches throughout the years, while no fewer than seven small settlements were wiped off the map by her completely. Allinos did eventually face an invasion of its own, but human casualties were kept to a minimum thanks to inside information and an exceptionally swift response.
Surprisingly, Augrym was arguably of more use to Syn when not directly attacking cities. Her impressive subterranean speed made her an ideal scout for finding underground resources like oil, ore, buried ruins, and mana deposits, and her ability to bore through thick walls and armor allowed her access to otherwise inaccessible vaults and bunkers. The tunnels left by her passing were huge and usually stable enough to build in, easily repurposed to create underground strongholds and expansions. The organization's rapid, undetected growth during the Golden Adventure was largely made possible by her efforts. The tunnels she made closer to the surface were also regularly collapsed, either by her or remote explosives, and aided in the capture of several other monsters taken in by Syn.
Outside of direct attacks, her most nefarious use was undoubtedly as a vector. By strapping explosives to the roof of Augrym's mouth while she slept, Syn could later sneak biological weapons into populated areas and detonate them; as the surprised monster would spin to escape the blasts, her high-powered air current would jettison the contents of the bombs miles high into the air. Entire cities suffered side-effects from caustic, neurological, and carcinogenic gases unwillingly spread through these means, technically making her responsible for the most human injuries of any Syn kaiju. If deaths are included she has a kill count rivaling Ghouldon's.
The last time Augrym was encountered was at the Navallo island facility, when Caityln and the other wranglers made their final push against Syn. Augrym was not involved in the battle itself, but was sighted twice by special ops aiding in the assault: first asleep in an underground holding pen, then again fleeing from the island. When the final explosion took the lives of Alexander Gulbastis and Subject Vermillion the majority of Syn's controllers were incinerated. Twelve more were discovered, confiscated, and disposed of elsewhere in Tarrun during the weeks immediately after, but no more have surfaced since. It's believed no technology remains that could ever truly activate Augrym's implant, and so wherever she is, she is hopefully acting by her own free will.
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Design Notes: This monster has really come full circle! The very first sketch of Augrym I did was supposed to be a living creature, but I couldn't explain how the head could spin independently from the body like a drill without it being mechanical, so when I did the first drawing for DA in 2009 I changed it into a machine. Now, 11 years later, I've made the switch back to organic to better fit the lore. Turns out there are plenty of ways to make a creature spin if the whole thing moves and not just the head!
Speaking of heads, you actually can't see hers here! With the new design comes some weird new anatomy. The big prickly club I'd added in some earlier designs is now the true body of the beast, housing all the major organs and having a set of grasping legs instead of spikes. So technically, the long snakey part that lifts up out of the ground is just an extension of her mouthparts, like a proboscis or a trunk. The real mouth is located inside and all the way down at the bottom, where the real body starts!
PS, fun fact: when I first made this monster
wanted me to call it Drilldo.
Artwork © Chris Eye, 2020.
https://www.deviantart.com/dinohunter2/art/Augrym-851182165
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