First unveiled at Hasbro Pulse Fan Fest 2021, Tricranicus is a lava-colored redeco of Kingdom Deluxe Class Ractonite with a retooled beast mode frill, and transforms from robot to skeletal Triceratops in 16 steps. As a Fossilizer, he can split into weapons and armor compatible with the C.O.M.B.A.T. System for use by other War for Cybertron Trilogy figures. The instructions for his original figure, Ractonite, suggest three possible weapons: a hammer, sword, and spiked club, and an armor mode that uses all of Ractonite's parts. Uniquely, the mold lacks traditional 5 mm port hands in robot mode. Rather, the figure's arms end in fold-out 5 mm pegs instead, and the tail weapon is designed for Tricranius to wield with those pegs in mind. The peg-hand is depicted as a blaster on Tricranius's package art.
Tricranius' branding, like the earlier Deluxe Centurion Drone Weaponizer Pack, is somewhat muddled: he is packed in a unique Generations Selects-style box with War for Cybertron Trilogy branding, a tiny Selects logo, and an accompanying ID number placing him in Kingdom, the latter of which has won out as far as we're concerned. He includes a whopping eighteen redecoed Fire Blast effects: in translucent blue are redecos of SiegeJetfire, Blowpipe, and Caliburst's Fire Blasts, while in translucent red are SiegeOmega Supreme's and two of EarthriseSoundbarrier's Fire Blasts. The Hasbro Pulse description claims the toy includes 19 Fire Blast effects[3]; this number seems to count Blowpipe's blast effect as two pieces and, as seen in one of Tricranius's diorama stock photos, one of Omega Supreme's pieces split into two when previous releases have had it glued together. A full listing of where else these blast effects were used can be found below.
In case you haven't figured it out yet, Tricranius is named in reference to his alternate mode. "Tri-" is the prefix for three, which was originally derived from the Greek word trí- (τρι-), and in this case, refers to the three horns of a Triceratops (the name of which literally translates to "three-horned face"), while "cranius" is derived from the word "cranium", which is the word used for the bones that form the head of a living organism.
Unlike the Deluxe Centurion Drone or Generations Selects toys, Tricranius has character art on the interior of his packaging, which is an edit of Ractonite's package art. Specifically, his frill and colors are changed to be more accurate to the toy, his head is flipped to look to his right, and his right forearm is swung down to point to his right, which looks slightly off since it does not account for the arm's change in perspective.
