Errreembuhr
CEO of EODD
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To further flesh out the fauna of New Plympto
- Image Credit: ScalyFloof
- Canon: N/A
- Links: [X] [X] [X]
- Name: Cairsus Dragon
- Designation: Semi-Sentient
- Homeworld: New Plympto
- Language: N/A
- Average Lifespan: Average lifespan is 200-250 years, but the oldest specimen found was approximately 380 years
- Estimated Population: Rare
- Description: The Cairsus is a large reptile-like being, with six limbs - four clawed legs and two large wings. Their scales are onyx black or dark grey, very sturdy, and they have bright blue bioluminescent eyes.
- Breathes: Atmosphere Type I
- Average height of adults: 4.3m
- Average length of adults: 12.8m
- Average wingspan of adults: 32m
- Skin color: Black, Dark Grey
- Hair color: N/A
- Distinctions: Females can be distinguished from males by blue-green striping along their necks.
- Races: N/A
- Force Sensitive: While not capable of utilizing the Force like a sentient being, the Cairsus benefits from a strong connection to it, allowing for several benefits such as enhanced senses and passive precognition.
- Fire Breath: Utilizing a combination of pressurized hydrogen sulfide and a reaction between potassium permanganate and glycerin, the Cairsus Dragon is capable of releasing a steady stream of flame at a maximum recorded temperature of 2650°C. This helps not only with hunting and cooking prey, but with defending itself against enemies in the wild. It has also been speculated that utilizing this flame helps with egg incubation, but no exact evidence of this has been observed in the wild.
- Armored Scales and Claws: The exact process is unknown but the Cairsus Dragon’s scales have been found to possess an extremely thin layer of zersium and neutronium, two metals present in the rocks they occasionally eat, which provides serious reinforcement against attacks, though it is by no means impregnable. The neutronium is also present in trace amounts alongside with extremely high levels of keratin in their claws, making them very durable and dangerous.
- Flight: Utilizing two large specialized bladders to store lighter-than-air nitrogen gas the dragon is capable of flight over long distances, allowing it to balance itself and keep aloft for several kilometers at a time.
- Agile: Despite its size and wings, the Cairsus is a very agile creature on land and in the air, tucking its wings inside while grounded and crawling on four clawed feet to hunt prey. It can easily wind itself around large trees in pursuit, and flick its tail as a blunt weapon to strike at creatures behind and to the sides.
- Eyes: The eyes and tissues around them are unprotected and exceptionally sensitive to outside threats such as blaster fire or physical weaponry. Even a single hit from a standard blaster can cause enough pain to force one intro a retreat, and more powerful weaponry can cause blindness or even kill it.
- Very Low Birth Rates: The species is observed to reproduce via ovuliparity, meaning that the females lay unfertilized eggs which are later fertilized by the males. Several factors covered below have lead to the species lacking in population to the point where eggs often go unfertilized, leaving the species endangered as it has very low birth rates.
- Large Food Requirements: The Cairsus Dragon requires a significant amount of food for several reasons. Firstly its large size requires a significant caloric intake to provide enough energy to even move. Secondly it requires two gases released during digestion in order to supply its flame breath with fuel and make it light enough to fly: nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide. Without proper supply of food they can lose use of both of these crucial adaptations.
- Finite Hydrogen Sulfide Stores: The internal bladder used to store its supply of hydrogen sulfide used in flame production is limited in size, growing to a specific volume capacity as the creature matures. At most it can hold enough of the gas to supply several seconds of continuous flame, but once expelled, the creatures will be unable to utilize the ability again until they feed and digest their prey, which can take upwards of ten to twelve hours.
- Flight Limitations: Related to the above, the Cairsus Dragon’s twin nitrogen bladders can only hold a finite amount, allowing for an estimated three to nine hours of flight before requiring landing. The nitrogen in these bladders is naturally disposed of in excrement, which is a benefit to natural environments, but also forces the dragons ot hunt again and replenish these stores before flight can be attained, a similar ten to twelve hours as the hydrogen sulfide requirements.
- Diet: Omnivore. The Cairsus Dragon’s diet primarily consists of organic creatures in order to provide the necessary energy and organic matter to break down into nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide, but also eats plant matter in small amounts. They’ve also been noted to possess limited silicavore tendencies, though special attention has shown they only eat rocks containing zersium and neutronium, which is understandable as both metals have been found in small amounts in their scales and claws.
- Communication: Cairsus communicate primarily through body language and rough vocalizations such as grunts, growls, roars, and other basic noises.
- Technology level: N/A
- Religion/Beliefs: N/A
- General behavior: Cairsus are solitary creatures, meeting only by accident in the wild or during mating times to fertilize eggs. They are omnivores, eating not only meat and plant matter but ores as well in small amounts, but show a definite preference for carnivorous behavior and hunting. They are highly intelligent, having been observed to remember previously visited locations and returning there later, as well as showing basic problem-solving abilities short only those of sentient, sapient beings. They are known to be sensitive to the Force, much like the Vornskr of Myrkr, though not capable of utilizing the Force actively. Still, they’ve been observed to exhibit behavior in line with such force powers such as precognition while hunting, predicting with high accuracy where their prey will be.
Cairsus dragons were once relatively populous on New Plympto, though remained in more remote regions of the planet, avoiding contact with the natives mostly. Still, they were known enough for scientists before the Gulag Plague to have relatively good accounting of their behavior and physiology. While it was estimated several thousand of the dragons once roamed New Plympto, the effects of both the Yuuzhan Vong bioweapon and the Gulag Plague wiped out the majority of the population, and the current population is essentially a reintroduced species following the hatching of several eggs returned to the planet after its recovery. Thus both male and female specimens number only in the low hundreds, laying few eggs and having even fewer fertilized, resulting in very low birth rates and the classification of the Cairsus Dragon as an endangered species.
Related biologically to the native Nosaurians, the Cairsus dragon as a species diverged from their sentient brethren approximately 9.5 to 11 million years ago. Some connections can still be seen in that the Cairsus can ‘flash’ its mouth, though unlike the Nosaurians which use bioluminescent material, the Cairsus combines potassium permanganate and glycerin, through an unknown production process, to create an unstable flame at the center of its mouth. The Cairsus, however, has a much more practical reason for this flash: it is used as the catalyst when combined with pressurized hydrogen sulfide to create a stream of flames used for hunting and cooking its prey to make it easier to chew.
Recently they have fallen out of much of the public's eye, their small numbers making them much rarer than even before the plague. Seeing one is considered a great occasion due to their known aversion to contact with sentient species such as humans and Nosaurians. At most one might expect, if they were to ever see one, nothing more than a glance at distance as one is in flight.
