User:Captaincarrot/A Complete Guide to Gastropods & Their Role in Echmeri Society

Coming out of Your Shell on Yneslea

by Leinelon Tryptis, the famed traveling High Elf wildlife scholar, penned 3E 234

A description of the snails kept by Yneslean society as pets written by a traveling High Elf wild life enthusiast.

---

Written by Audin of the Uutak Mythos discord community

---

In Tamrielic societies the household is not often empty when it comes to companions. Most families opt for some furry friend to keep them company, guard the household & property, or even assist with chores. In my time on Yneslea & the few dozen years I’ve spent in the Dweech, the household companion takes not the form of the smelly dog or the sneaky cat, but rather, the gallant gastropod themselves: snails.

Here, they live as pets in the same way we keep them. Snails on Yneslea are larger in scope compared to any variety I’ve recorded or heard of on Tamriel. Within the Dweech, they are fed moss, food waste, mushrooms & other fungi - quite a clever way to reduce the amount of trash or undesirable pollutants in that great hole, if I do say so myself; despite this, the Echmer already have their own advanced sewage systems. There are about five different species of snail kept as pets here, & in this essay I intend to inform you of them all, along with various aspects of snails in society.

The Snail’s Slimy Seat in Society
As mentioned before, snails are typically highly regarded in Echmeri culture. Among any family or dwelling where many members live together, it is not uncommon to find one or two of these creatures living in unison.

The snail, noted as benthos, meaning “bottom-feeder” in Echmeri tongue, eats any sort of waste. This means the bat folk can live without worry of organic waste such as food scraps, feces, or decaying plant matter building up & filling the Dweech. Other benthos exist on Yneslea, such as khajfish, but the snail is most treasured & highly regarded amongst them. Many Echmer view snails as nothing more than natural janitors who don’t feel or understand what they’re doing for the Echmer environment, but others still will argue they do have feelings & know they are directly helping the situation. Either way the bat elves look at it, both groups agree: snails are valuable & somewhat respected on Yneslea.

Snails are never hostile creatures, yet they are not timid. I would daresay my findings indicate they do not have the ability to contextually read a room, which is to say, they don’t care about situations where it might be improper for them to appear. Large arguments, for example - the snail ignores the yelling & noise, and wanders around seemingly aimlessly, slowly, searching for discarded scrap, sometimes crossing people’s paths or going simply over their feet. Some disallow snails in their homes for this reason.

The Five Types of Yneslean Snail
Of the five types of Yneslean snail kept as pets, only four are true snails, the last one being a bit more like a Tamrielic slug. All of them, however, share these traits:

• They range in size from small cat to small hog.
• They breathe using a single lung.
• They all inhabit an enclosed shell they have on them at all times (in the case of shell-less snails, slugs, they leave them secured & return to them.)
• They are covered in a slimy mucus that trails.
• They have a lifespan of 3-10 years, excluding Tunitee snails.

The Red Snail, or Gitchi Snail
The largest & most primal member of the snail varieties, the gitchi or red snail is the ‘king’ of the pet snails here on Yneslea. The smallest of the species are about 3 feet tall to the top of their shell, while the largest sometimes stand above Echmeri heads at nearly 6 foot to the top of their shell. These snails are vibrantly crimson in color, and their shells range from white, brown, black, & sometimes marbled or spirals on them. This makes them highly valued & expensive to buy if bought. They can eat nearly 200-300 pounds of waste a day, which is quite tremendous for their size. However, most of the time, they only eat 50-75 pounds as to share.

The Bright Snail, or Lumisi Snail
Smaller in size than the Gitchi, the Lumisi is roughly the same size across the species, around the size of a medium sized dog. At the largest they grow to about 3 & a half feet tall. These snails are quite unique in their mostly fungal diet, which in turn reacts with the chemicals within their bodies for a most intriguing appearance - they glow a faint green after feeding for a duration of time. This unique trait makes them (& the bioluminescent light show they put on in the Dweech) quite beautiful. They eat about 15 or so pounds of fungus a day, each.

The Black Snail, or Opicis Snail
About the same size as Lumisi snails, Opicis snails are characterized by their shadow-black skin & nearly translucent shells. They also have long, protruding eyestalks - more so than the other snails. The Opicis snails are rumoured to live in places other than the Dweech, but because they are mostly noiseless, its hardly confirmable. It is unknown how much food they consume a day; some say as much as 150 pounds each.

The Sea Snail, or Padomic Snail
The height of these snails are mostly the shell. They are curvy, spiraled shells that shoot upwards like spikes, and typically get no more than 5 feet tall, but some have been seen larger. The body size of the Padomic snail is much, much smaller, and without its colossal shell, it is quite tiny, weighing in at only around 15 pounds. It is a rare find to spy a Padomic snail in the Dweech. They favor living near the beaches of Yneslea, and owning one can be seen as fancy or upscale. They can breathe underwater & have even sometimes been known to accidently sink small boats with the tips of their shells. The Padomic snail mostly feeds on organic waste such as dead fish, but will eat most anything, like other benthos on the islands.

The Shell-Less Snail, or Tunitee Snails
These are the fifth kind of snail on Yneslea, & they are the only species to lack a shell they calk their own. Instead, they behave similarly to hermit crabs - they live in a suitable home (be it a shell or not) until they grow too large for it. These snails are unique in that they have no upper limit to their growth & are biologically immortal. As such they have grown so large before as to claim large crashed sailing ships or even entire cave systems as their shells. They are considered a nuisance at such tremendous sizes, but when small & young are kept around like any other snail. The food they eat largely depends on their size.

Facts & Trivia about Yneslean Snails
In my time on Yneslea I’ve found these tidbits of snails to be attractive to understanding them & their role as pets & companions to the Echmer. Below I’ve compiled them:

• Large boats, such as traders, often loose Lumisi snails on their vessels at night. They glow & provide an eerie light to see by, as well as alerting other ships in the area as to avoid a collision. Some wartime vessels have been known to travel in pairs - one with lumisi snails, one without. The one with lumisi snails acts as a decoy, and the one without sneakily attacks the target going after the decoy.
• Gitchi snails are fond of cuddling, seemingly more than the others.
• Attacking a feeding snail is a crime akin to Tamrielic laws of animal cruelty.
• The Tunitee Massacre of 3E 101 helped secure their place as a bit of a nuisance. A large Tunitee went on a rampage, attacking a small village underneath the hull of a great iron-clad Cyrodiilic Empire vessel sank during their time occupying Yneslea. The snail ate half the village or more before being brought down, as it destroyed a salt warehouse, wounding it heavily in the process. The village supposedly ate snail for months to come.