Daphrene Darson Dopples' Sea Bestiary for Dummies

The Bilious Bleederpede

Threat level: 12/20
Hostile?: Yes!
Intelligent?: Not really
Diet: Hematophagous, cannibalistic when necessary
Category: Leviathan
Where to find them: Dark ravines, sea caves, abandoned reefs
Size: 92 feet long, 212 tons

Bleederpedes are the first species of Leviathan I ever met. They're actually the most common species of Leviathan, but they're lone hunters. I named 'em "Bleederpedes" because when they hunt, they have a tendency to... Well, lemme put it like this: A year ago, I was shipwrecked and decided to swim to shore, but I ended up sinking to the bottom of a dead reef. Luckily for me, I can hold my breath super long. After sinking, I heard a loud, roaring noise, followed by what sounded like a dying whale. it was a Leviathan bearing dozens of arms and limbs, and it was encroaching the poor whale like a snake surrounding a crippled badger!

The water was foggy with fields of blood and the whale was as good as dead. It seemed to be bleeding from its side. The Leviathan then began to unhinge its enormous jaws and wrap around the whale's body before sucking the whale dry. Before I could eavesdrop any longer, the creature stared at me with its unblinking eye and hissed! I swam for my life and luckily found a beach to barf on, much to my relief. That's how I decided to name these big, bloodsucking bastards "Bleederpedes." As terrifying as they are, they're harmless towards humans, as they only care about large prey.

They sometimes drag ships into the water, but only because they confuse them for large fish or porpoises. Afterwards, it may or may not eat you or your crewmates, so try not to look conspicuous and the beast probably won't eat you. Simply climb back onto whatever's left of the ship and be as still as possible no matter the circumstances! Bleederpedes only care for live prey, so if they just see a limply floating corpse, they'll think "to heck with this" and move on. They don't use their limbs to climb onto land or anything, but they prefer to use them to help propel through the water or perhaps for crawling on the ocean floor like centipedes, hence their name.

Although they hunt large prey, large prey that's easy to kill isn't that common, aside from whales. Bleederpedes know whales aren't very common, so they cannibalize each other when food seems scarce. This is also a main reason why Bleederpedes are loners most of their lives.