S!auren (sʼɔɹɘn)
The s!auren were a species of giant, sapient pseudosuchians native to the southern continent that died out by the time the mont!aar and anoli began record keeping in earnest. What is known is that they had a complex social structure, with groups of small villages all looking to a central priesthood, likely representing a death god, acting as leaders.
Males, or s!auri, were smaller and subservient to the females, who were called s!aura. This seemed to be true in all villages except that of the high priests slash grave keepers, who preserved a small number of highly decorated s!auri bodies separately from the communal catacombs in which the majority of their people were buried.
Basic Information
Anatomy
The S!auren were morphologically similar to their extant cousins, having four limbs, a long tail, and a long muzzle with primarily carnivorous teeth. However, S!auren had a much more splayed gait than the semi-erect mont!aar and anoli and were mainly quadrupedal. They were also significantly larger, with s!aura averaging about sixteen feet from nose to tail-tip and s!auri being between fourteen and fifteen feet.
S!auren skin was covered in dermal scutes that generally followed a brown-grey striated pattern similar to the mud flats they lived in that provided excellent camouflage. S!auri had flaps of skin between their upper arms and their sides that both helped with temperature control and were considered secondary sexual characteristics. Both sexes were capable of short-distant sprints of great speed on their hind legs.
Genetics and Reproduction
S!auren were oviparous, laying clutches of between one and four soft-shelled eggs in burrows lined with moss and daub. They had a long, twenty four month fertility cycle, and a ten month gestation period. S!auren mothers carried their eggs within their bodies for the first eight months, before they grew too large and had to be laid in the nest.
The eggs were very vulnerable during their two month external gestation, and S'auren communities tended to build a nest-cluster at near the centre of their villages with up to six separate nesting chambers. Because newborn S!auren are incredibly hungry, a single mother usually kept watch over the eggs as they approached hatching day to ensure that the newborns did not consume their nest-mates.
Newly hatched S'aurin are between three and five feet from nose to tail, not including their egg tooth.
Growth Rate & Stages
S!auren hatchlings were fully quadrupedal, with a keratinous egg tooth forming a cap over the end of their noses. This was lost during their first moult, which usually came within a month of hatching, at which point their nostrils were revealed and they became significantly more adventurous.
S!auren grew rapidly in their first two years, moulting roughly once a month. Feeding the growing hatchlings put a lot of strain on their communities, and so many S!auren tribes forbade raising more than one clutch at a time. By the tenth anniversary of their hatching, S!auren children had usually grown to roughly twelve feet long.
Shortly after their tenth hatching-day, S'auri began to experience puberty. They became aggressive towards females and one another. It was customary among S'auren communities to channel this aggression towards useful ends, forcing the young s'auri to go out hunting daily with the expectation that they would make two kills. One for themselves, and one for the village. Their behaviour calmed down once they reached full maturity by their sixteenth year. Their moults slowed to perhaps one or two a year, and their adult colouration came in, with colourful patterns on their belly and on the skin flaps between their forearms and their bodies.
S'aura started puberty later than s'auri, and it was significantly less dramatic. They usually entered their first fertility cycle at about fourteen years of age, but did not gain their full growth until their twentieth year. Their hips and hind legs thickened and became more muscular as they achieved maturity as their bodies prepared to carry their enormous eggs.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
S!auren had relatively good eyesight with forward-facing eyes that allowed for excellent depth perception. They had passable peripheral vision, but mostly relied on sensitive pads in their feet and tails that could detect small tremors in the ground to alert them to the presence of predators large enough to threaten them.
They also had the typically advanced drakekin sense of smell, developed vomeronasal organs and scent-sensitive tongues allowing them amazing awareness of their surroundings and ability to track prey.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Not much is known about S!auren naming traditions. They made no written records, and made little effort to communicate with other drakekin communities during their short post-shockwave existence.
Major Organizations
Mont!aar archaeologists believe that the S!auren had an inter-village organisation responsible for funerary rites, as most S!auren bodies have been recovered from large, communal grave sites distant from known village sites.
Beauty Ideals
S!auri with bright, symmetrical chest and wing colouration appeared to be more successful with the s!aura. They also seemed to prize jewellery, and bodies of both genders have been found with extensive ornamentation made from feathers, shells, and precious stones.
Gender Ideals
S!auri appear to have been treated as submissive by the larger s!aura, expected to do the majority of the hunting and gathering. S!aura stayed at home, pursuing creative pursuits such as creating tools, homes and jewellery, digging burrows and preparing kills brought back by the s!auri.
Average Technological Level
By the time of their extinction, the S!auren had attained a late neolithic technology level. They were beginning to move away from hunter-gatherer lifestyles and begin investigating the possibilities that lay in agriculture. There are signs that they were starting to discover the science of smelting as well.
Common Dress Code
From the preserved remains of S!auren who died mid- or post-shockwave, they favoured leather belts and chest harnesses to hold equipment, but rarely wore clothes for modesty or protection. This is likely due to being only partially endothermic. Most S!auren were buried without grave goods, including clothes.
Remains have been found of expansive, decorated cloaks however. Presumably they had a ritual or rank-marking purpose, as they were rare finds and most of them have been recovered from all-s!auri grave sites kept separate from the common charnels.
History
It's estimated that S!auren civilisation predated the shockwaves by a considerable amount. Signs have been found that they co-existed with pre-shockwave Mont!aar and Anoli civilisations, and had a similar level of technological advancement.
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