An-Tut
(Coraabia Artist: Will Beck)
Race: Unliving - mythical creature
Homeworld: Coraab
Era: 100 Tu - present
First legends of Mothman from colonies can be tracked back to Tal min-logs from the early Age of Excavation. Supposedly, it was an unliving creature that creeped into Tal colonies on Haze days searching for its prey. An-Tut was considered a staunch ally of the Unliving slaves laboring in all Tal colonies. Tales of the life-draining monster started to appear after a few dozen Tal children from colony D-Tal went missing. According to the min-log, this act was a revenge for mocking the Unliving for their inability to bear children. The Mothman allegedly appeared on a Haze day and punished Miners for their arrogance. After the tale of An-Tut's vengeance spreaded to other Tal colonies, Tals unsurprisingly stopped with such provocations.
The Mothman is often depicted as a skinny, red-eyed figure with characteristic comb-like antennae. His piercing gaze alone can cause paralysis and loss of speech. Helpless victims are then mutilated on the whole body while remaining fully conscious. Finally, they are taken to the so-called Tat-kruu where they become An-Tut's slaves. They remain mute so they cannot talk back to their new master. Work in the extreme conditions of Mothman's lair soon sounds the death knell for his victims.
In reality, the lost Tal children were taken by secret Dung organization called Dumta (derived from damtha, revenge). Dumta was active in almost every Tal colony. The dead bodies were hidden at the very bottom of Dump mining shafts, never to be found again. Mothman later became a popular centropolitan myth that scares young Miners to this day. Few know that a creature named An-Tut really exists, though it is just a harmless and very shy coprophage.