S02E04: Sorranids - An Unexpected Savior - TRANSCRIPT

 

Hello, and welcome back to another episode! I'm on a roll these days, working on episode after episode. I'm especially excited for the next couple of episodes because they're going to be all about two very interesting creatures that live in the Black Desert: the sorranids and the kahlaqrabs. Today, I've decided to get us started with a little background on sorranids.

Sorranids are really cool little creatures. As I mentioned in the last episode, they're these slug-like animals with tough, leathery skin. They are quite small, with the male sorranids growing to the size of maybe an adult's thumb, and female sorranids growing to almost twice the size. There are millions of sorranids living in the Black Desert, and their population has really thrived in this environment, possibly because of the lack of natural predators to keep the population controlled. I said that they were slug-like creatures, but hey differ from slugs in that they don't have a mantle and have a more prolonged conical shape to them. They tend to be either a dark brown, maroon, or black color, and have small eyes that are sensitive to the sunlight.

So, let's start with what they eat. Sorranids can sustain themselves entirely on the minerals and sand available to them in the Black Desert. Now, you might be thinking how that works. How do they digest these minerals and this sand? Well, here's the thing about sorranids: they can absorb the sun's rays and use them as energy to break down the minerals and glean nutrition from them. It's sort of like what we know of as photosynthesis, but there are many different theories to explain how that actually works, and the specific chemical reactions taking place within a sorranid's body that make it so that it can survive and break down what it eats with the help of sunlight.

Alright. So, now we know what they eat. Let's move onto what they do all day. In fact, most of the year, sorranids spend their days with their heads buried in the sand and the rest of their bodies sticking out, their circular mouths gobbling up the grains and transforming them into energy. As for their nights, they spend them with their whole bodies buried under the sand, curled up in a circular form, conserving energy. The only time this changes is during the mating season, when sorranids spend part of their day looking for a mate - which, of course, requires that both the male and female sorranids are able to create enough energy to move around for much of the day. So, during those days, they spend half their time charging, so to speak, and half the time looking for a mate. As a little bit of an aside, female sorranids tend to have longer-lasting energy reserves.

Sorranid reproduction is interesting. In terms of how that works, the female sorranid will burrow down in the sand - a very long way - until it damp sand or soil. It'll stay there until it has given birth, and then work its way back up. Its young will follow, but it's basically a survival of the fittest scenario, as they have to make it to the top and reach the sunlight to survive.

Sorranids aren't carnivorous, and are generally harmless to other creatures. They're also an excellent source of nutrition if you're in the desert and are running low on supplies, making them a bit of an unexpected savior for many travelers of the Black Desert who might find themselves in desperate situations. Sorranids will keep you alive, even if they don't give you all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs. The important thing is that they'll keep you alive long enough to get through, if you can catch them.

Sorranids can be eaten raw - because they're clean creatures. They spend hours under the sun or buried in the sand - a very naturally clean environment. As animals, there's nothing in them that will hurt a person if they were to be eaten without being cooked. However, most people prefer to eat them cooked - usually over an open fire, almost like you do with marshmallows. I don't know how tasty they are, but they're definitely not disgusting - if you can get over the sand that you'll probably find inside them, no matter how much you clean them before cooking them, and the fact that their touch, leathery skin makes them rather chewy.

Needless to say, as really the only food source to be found in the Black Desert, the sorranid makes up a substantial part of the Qorsan diet in the desert. Stealing from trades caravans is not always successful, and the Qorsan have to have a backup in case things go badly. So, the sorranids are basically a staple food for them in that region of Qarra.

So, that's pretty much everything I wanted to tell you about sorranids today. Let me know if you have any questions about these creatures by contacting me on my social media - you can find the links in the episode description. You might also have realized that lately, I've been letting everyone know that you can get a free copy of Apartment, my psychological suspense novella, by helping me out with some academic research and filling out a survey on enhanced ebooks. It's a quick survey, and if you're feeling so inclined, it would be a major help if you could take the time to let me know your thoughts on ebooks and enhanced ebooks. The link to that is also in the episode description.

And that's all I have for you today! Thanks so much for tuning in. In the next episode, I'll be talking about the kahlaqrabs and what they're like. Stay tuned for that!

Until next time.