The Lizard-Birds of
Mors Dira
Meaning “Dreadful Death” in Elven, the island of Mors Dira is popularly held to be one perhaps the single most dangerous place on all of Terrace. While the island’s geography — rocky shoals along the coastline and several active volcanoes inland — smothering hot and humid climate and wildlife do make the island a dangerous place to visit, it is not quite the place of no return it is popularly believed to be.
In fact, Mors Dira is a popular subject of scientific inquiry and expedition. While there have been several well-document fatal mishaps on the island, a suitably prepared and cautious expedition is not really in any more danger than any given adventuring group.
Natural historians have become fascinated by the island’s recently-discovered so-called “Lizard-Birds.” Sharing similarities with both lizards and birds while not really resembling one more than the other and thus defying any other neat categorisation, the creatures have been given what it is agreed to be the least bad name for scientific purposes.
Approximately the size of a Gardian child, the Lizard-Birds are nevertheless active pack hunters and more than capable of causing bodily harm to a full-grown Human thanks to their aggression and impressive claws. Notably, however, the Lizard-Birds have thus far demonstrated a high degree of curiosity in Human visitors to Mors Dira and seem to become quite docile around Humans when provided with food.
Basically, these are what scientifically-accurate (at least as of 2024) velociraptors look like, though maybe a bit more goofy than the real ones presumably were for the sake of comedy/cuteness.
This isn’t really a “look how smart I am” thing. My first reaction to seeing accurate art of raptors was “Wow, looks like some kind of oddly-adorable Nightmare Chicken.” And my second was “Man, oddly-adorable Nightmare Chicken would make an awesome story.”
So, here we are…
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