Any sea story worth its salt has to have a giant sea creature in it, right? There’s ‘Moby Dick‘, ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea‘, and even ‘The Little Mermaid‘. What is it about the depths that fascinates humans so much? NOAA estimates that we’ve only explored less than 5% of the Earth’s oceans. And yet we recognize that most of Earth’s life exists in the oceans, and also originated there. Every year we find fascinating beings that we could never have imagined.

So when it came to Lorn, there of course was an opportunity for an entire host of beguiling beasts. Ben did an amazing job of imagining a bunch of land-roving animals. But before he put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), I had sketched an early rendering of a sea terror that the crew of the Wintu would become intimately acquainted with: the Goltaran.

My notes:

Horrible sea creature which the crew of the Wintu is forced to face. Basic premise: a giant jellyfish, but with the head & beak // combo of a jellyfish & a squid. Size: mammoth. It dwarfs the Wintu, which is over 90 ft in length.

Poison sacs

Eyes

Mouth

Claws: 5′ in length

Jets of oozing stingy slime

Fabled creatures, Goltarans are very rare on the planet & have only been documented in the S. seas of the world. They first detect their victims by listening, & especially large targets are of interest. They use feelers to detect vibrations in the air and propel themselves by using jets of water. They’re extremely quiet & victims are unaware until it’s too late. They grapple on to their victims, an amoeba – slowly breaking poisoning & breaking down their victims to death, whatever is unfortunate enough to be caught. They only hunt at night or in the dark; sunlight kills them.

I think inspiration for this aberration came from partly from the movie ‘Sphere‘. In the film, the characters’ worst nightmares come to life. There’s even a scene where one of the characters imagines (and is *spoiler* eventually killed by) a host of jellyfish. I have a few phobias in life. One is claustrophobia, and I can now say that our author has helped me overcome that fear by cave hunting in the backwoods of Tennessee. The other is jellyfish. Sidenote: much to my dismay, I learned only a recently that my native state of Washington does in fact harbor these horrid monsters. ANYway, so when I was dreaming up the most horrible sea terror I could think of, you better believe a giant jellyfish was the first idea that popped into my head.

William Terry and the gang do in fact…wait for it…ENCOUNTER this beast in the book. If you’ve finished, then you already know. And if you haven’t – don’t you want to know what the hell they do when faced with this thing? Get readin!