Sharcu
Sharcu
These sharp scoundrels are a real thorn in your side
| Physical | |
|---|---|
| Ancestry | animal |
| Relations | |
|---|---|
| Locales | Amber Drop Cliffs,Sunstone Meadow |
| Notable Members | =this.notable_members |
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Series | Primitive Kingdom,Star Guardians |
Sharcus [’ʃɑɹ-kju] are
History and origin
General description
Sharcus are small, reptilian creatures. They are small and slow, and have a bitter territorial personality. They are known for their shells, which are durable, strong, and spiny, making it the perfect defense against predators. Their main predator is the Flillow, so having an aerial defense is ideal.
Regional variants
Amberian Sharcus walk on all four legs. Their shell is orange, tan, and green, and their teel is seen extruding from the end of their shell.
Rosan Sharcus, called Sharcerones, stand on their two hind legs. Their shell encapsulates their head and their feet, and is dark grey, dark red, and dark pink. Their tail is much longer than their Amber Drop counterparts, and have spiked prongs on the end.
These Sharcus are more offensive than they are defensive, as they prefer to attack foes head-on. They also use their long spiked tail as a mace.
Traits and abilities
Development
Inspiration and Creation
Sharcus, along with Moldogs, are the first creatures Adam ever created for his P1/1 - Star Guardians (P1's Adventure)/Primitive Kingdom (series) series. Shortly after creating the Moldog, Adam also created another species as a companion species to be the two first enemies the player would encounter when playing the hypothetical first levels of his P1's Adventure game. With Moldogs (then called Spies) being considered the most basic enemy, Sharcus (then called Porcus) were designed to be more of a challenge, due to their spiked shells preventing players from jumping on them.
The very first concepts of the Sharcu/Porcu involved two variants, actually inspired by a random lyric from a VeggieTales song "Lance the Turtle," which mentioned "paper plastic porcupines." This inspired Adam, strangely enough, to design a duality of porcupine-like enemies: one variant that had spikes by default and could retract them, and one that had retracted spikes by default and could bear them, called a Porcu and a Upine respectively. The "paper plastic" portion had no relation or bearing on it at all, besides being the inspiration of having two different types of them (just like how there were two different types of "porcupine" in the song). Ironically enough, these variants of the Sharcu were scrapped early on in conception, and merged into a single enemy called a Porcu.
Porcus were considered the partner to Spies during conception, as in every hypothetical installment of Star Guardians, Porcus had appeared in almost every area that Spies had, both acting as sorts of tutorial enemies for players, with some exceptions.
Design
Despite its name, Porcus were less inspired by porcupines and more by turtles. They were reptilian creatures with red metallic shells and white spikes. Of course, this design was changed around 2022 when Adam DeVoix started programming Primitive Kingdom (series) in Godot, as a way to avoid looking too much like a Spiny from the Super Mario series.
Etymology
- English: Sharcu comes from sharp and porcupine (despite being based off a turtle, the name comes from porcupines being known for their sharp quills)
- French: Torquépic comes from tortue (turtle) and pic (spike)
- Savarian: SLOK literally translates to spike or trap
Profiles
Primary sources
In the beginning, Sharcus began as small shell-less creatures prone to be snatched away by predators from above. Over time, evolution took its course, and they began to develop a hard, spiny shell that guards almost every part of their body. Almost every part.