An Illustrated Guide to the Humble Mudcrab

While most mudcabs are content to masquerade as rocks, some have adapted a more unusual camouflage. The colorful Coral Crabs of Alinor, for example, blends perfectly into the ancient coastal reefs of the region.

A blue and pink mudcrab with corals on its back

The mudcrabs of Valenwood, meanwhile, have a symbiotic relationship with the eponymous woods of the province. Tiny trees grow in the rich river mud on the crabs’ shells, using the crustacean’s travels to spread their seeds.

An orange mudrab with a small tree growing from its shell

Nearby, the Pyandonean past time of Mudcrab fighting has gained popularity along the southern coast and islands of Elsweyr and Valenwood. It is customary to attach jewelry, spikes, or even bone into shells of juvenile crabs to give them a more fearsome appearance.

A blue mudcrav with skull and knife tied to its back.

On the other side of Tamriel, the Mudcrabs of the Telvanni peninsula, in Morrowind’s remote north-east, are covered in the same molds and mushrooms as their habitat.

A mudcrab of the style found in Elder Scrolls 3, with mushroom growing from its back

Far to Tamriel’s west, the blighted atolls and fibrous seas of what used to be the southern Yqd are home to crabs whose limbs are out of scale with their bodies, and whose crusty upper shells are covered in all manner of strange, symbiotic creatures.

A mudcrab with a elongated brown shell covered in barnacles and long orange legs