Brine Strider

Brine striders. The Tuz Tastan people hold a close relationship with these strange creatures; possessing the head of a seahorse-like creature and the physiology of a flightless bird, they may be heavily altered descendants of the ancient mounts the Tuz Tastan once rode; this is, at least, what their masters claim. They do share many similarities with their triton riders, namely a mastery of cold and water and a vaguely aquatic shape.

Opportunistic scavengers. Wild brine striders will eat anything - meat, plant matter, stragglers of the salt cow herds. Their typical diet is a mixture of briny water and the lichens and mosses which grow around it, and to support this microscopic organisms are kept in the strider's gut, allowing it to drink safely the otherwise toxic brine of the dried seas. These organisms are scraped off salt crystals, leading some to assume that they eat salt itself. In danger, the strider can expel a projectile of that same brine, rendered frigid cold by the chemical reactions of those organisms and its own low body temperature - a clinging cold that can kill a weaker creature in moments, leaving its body preserved for later consumption.

Strange mounts. Serving as hunting companion and speedy steed alike, brine striders are commonly seen strutting between the salt cows that the once-aquatic people herd, and their distinctive whistling screech has been the prelude to many a raid on the settlements surrounding the dried seas.