Clowns are common the world over, coming in many forms, all unified by their laugh-like calls, their bright colors, and their incredibly dangerous capabilities. Egg clowns are the only ones native to higher latitudes, making them very different from their tropical brethren.
Egg clowns are, unlike most clowns, not at all venomous normally, but they have virulently poisonous flesh. Combined with their thick, leathery hides, skin nearly an inch thick, very few animals will attack them. Their only natural predators are witches seeking ingredients and the occasional werewolf desperate enough to risk their poison. As such, they can afford to be slow, waddling things, marching through the marshiest parts of the taiga, casually picking up soft water plants at their own pace.
Egg clowns live in small families, young staying with their parents for the year it takes them to grow to full size before leaving to found a family of their own. They lay a single egg a year and the male and female take turns caring for it, usually in the few dry patches of their habitat. Egg clowns form no territories and will often gather with other families in larger groups, although they usually disperse due to the scarcity of food available in their environments. They have a simple form of communication that consists of blinking their red noses, mostly used for tracking each other in the darkness.
What is most notable about an egg clown, however, is their last-ditch defense. Only used when a clown’s children are in danger, this is often as lethal to the clown as it is to whatever attacks it. Fitting for their name, the egg clown’s outer body rips away, unleashing an inner monster. More serpentine and with a rib cage repurposed as venomous fangs, this monster attacks whatever threatened the child until it has either killed the predator, driven it off, or died trying. If it survives the traumatic nature of this transformation, it can return to its usual form after several weeks of growing back its outer shell.