I've been researching monsters from African folklore lately, and I believe grootslangs are the coolest thing I found. I've been trying to figure out the best way to implement grootslangs into my fantasy world of Scarterra, but it occurred to me that it would make a good Warhammer creature. I believe grootslangs originated from southern Africa or thereabouts, but the legend has spread a bit. The legend is that grootslangs were so powerful that the gods split them into two animals, elephants and snakes. But some groostlangs escaped the gods purge. Originally, the stories said they were just really big snakes, the only thing they got from elephants is raw size. But when a story is retold, there is embellishment, and over time more storytellers and artists gave them more elephant traits. Some grootslang legends have them lair in caves full of gemstones, others don't have any treasure Some of them are more elephant than snake. Here is an actual miniature available\/ This is the picture on the grootslang wikipedia page. That's probably my favorite, but I don't like that the trunk is on the bottom of the creature's chin. I would recommend anyone interested in grootslangs to do an image search with your favorite search engine, there are many many different interpretations for what grootslangs look like. In Warhammer or AoS you could create a holy or neutral origin, but I think a Chaos origin would be best. With the introduction of Chaos, different grootslangs can have different proportions of elephant to snake in them. In Warhammer, I'm not sure if the Southlands has elephants but I'm pretty sure Ind does. Even though this is based on a South African legend, grootslangs could be reskinned to give them an Indian feel. I also think they would work great as a Southlands but I'm not sure if they would be enemies, allies, or third wheel beasts to the Lizardmen there. In my fantasy world, they are going to be giant snakes with thick elephant skin, but floppy retractable elephant ears and tusk like fangs. They can spray cobra style venom from their trunks. The venom is painful but rarely lethal. Basically when fighting a group they spray poison as a crowd control tactic and gore and bite a single target to death one at a time. They tunnel almost as fast and well as the tremor's monsters, sleep for months, wake up and eat a bunch of stuff, then they burrow hundreds of miles away and sleep somewhere else. That is because if they didn't lair underground in hard to predict locales they would be hunted down and exterminated. But in Warhammer, there is big enough wilderness that they could survive above ground. In Age of Sigmar there are all sorts of worlds filled with freakish monsters. How would you guys want to include grootslangs in Warhammer?
I also think that they fit best to AoS, as beasts of Chaos. Bonus points if a necromancer can raise an undead version. As for the physical properties: I prefer the ones that keep the elephant parts a bit lower. And yes, the trunk (if any) should go on the upper jaw. The ears can be OK and tusks are fine as well, ideally somewhat parallel to the body. This one comes relatively close to what I imagine. Source: https://www.deviantart.com/dread-softly/art/Day-30-Grootslang-859729686
Having the tusks further back on the head could also be an idea, like here: Source: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Elder_Grootslang_(5e_Creature)
This is very interesting! I have never heard of such a thing, but i would definitely put it in Chaos or Destruction, but maybe more Chaos. Love the idea in Warhammer Fantasy or AOS really. Southlands or Ind would be a great spot for them, maybe even the Dragon Isles. This drawn picture reminds me a bit of a model ill be using to depict my "Burrow Worm" for my Chitinian Empire for AOS, or at least the melee variation. I dig it!
This is awesome. Never heard of it before, but what a beautiful mythical creature! I would say that I is probably more of a Chaos creature. Almost the opposite of the Coatl. Grrr, Imrahil