King of the Water Lizards

Nothic

New member
Nov 17, 2022
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South of the Shinarian Temple, there is an island.

The island is not well-known to many. At first glance it seems uninhabited yet nestled in the rocks reside the oft-forgotten Water Lizard.



The island appears ordinary and empty of interesting flora or fauna, with multiple divets in the ground to hinder a happy traveller. However, upon closer inspection these furrows span from centre to the edge of the island, with each groove being deeper and wider than the last, and here lies the spectacular truth to the island.



This island is home to the Water Lizards in a way not understood by the passive observer. At the peak of the summer season, when the days are longest and the heat of the sun is enough to cause exhaustion in a man, the Water Lizards grow hyper-aggressive. These creatures seek to hold dominion over others of their kind, and so a single island welcomes a multitude of Water Lizards from across islands near and far.



Each Water Lizard that steps foot on the island must challenge the current champion; the King of Water Lizards, if you will. Many contestants will embark on the journey to this island to challenge the King, as to prevail means to crown oneself the King of Water Lizards until the next summer season, with the island becoming a new home to this champion and offering up its bounty to the victor.



Over the many years of this ritual, one such Water Lizard alighted upon the shores of the island and bested the champion of the time through cunning use of fang, venom, spit and regeneration. This Water Lizard, cunning as he was, bested all other challengers and won the crown. Unlike his competitors, this regal lizard possessed an insatiable hunger. In times before a Water Lizard would clear the area of corpses to make the grounds amenable to copulation. However, this voracious being cleared the carcasses via consumption, gorging on the plentiful feast of his own making.



A year passed, and this King of Water lizards again set his mind to the task of dispatching any and all competitors. With his mind well-fed he was aware of the common brute-force tactics employed by his competitors, and deposited his acid into small furrows scratched into the ground. These would seem to offer easy purchase for a hopeful challenger to enter the island, but would cause irritation and minor injury to those hoping to offer up a challenge. The King of the Water Lizards remained crowned for his second term.



Another year passed, and the King grew in size, strength and intellect, setting his abilities to the grindstone to prepare for the upcoming season. This King was truly great, and again feasted on what had become mere victims.



Multiple years passed and the King of Water Lizards became a mighty creature, ruling over his harem of females who feared his presence, for the King would just as easily feed on a concubine as to mate with one, and so the smaller females would hide themselves among the rocks on the far edge of the island to avoid the King's venomous gaze.



Over time the King no longer kept pools of acid filled, for room had become scarce for such a beast. The furrows that once allowed the King to lure his victims in became his only routes in and out of the island due to his enormous paunch, as his legs would need to drag his girth through the furrows, scraping them ever-deeper and ever-wider. Legends tell that great swaths of land were shorn from the island, floating out to sea and creating their own small habitats, with the furrows of the King to mark them as once-his.



The King of the Water Lizards eventually could no longer sustain himself on the meager offerings of the island, and even the yearly challengers were no longer enough to sate him. Possessing a cunning like no other, the King waded into the ocean and, with a much-expanded lung capacity, began to plunder the depths of the ocean for food.



It is said that the King of the Water Lizards is still out there, as sailors occasionally catch a glimpse of a great fin stretching above the waves as he catches the sun and takes in air. Some say that the various creatures fed on, with such strange and vicious abilities of their own, have mutated this creature to heights above the ken of mortals, and that perhaps the Sators once worshipped the King of the Water Lizards as a god, but these must be mere rumours, for no proof has ever been found save for the stories of sailors or those vessels which never returned.



The King of the Water Lizards is likely no more. His legacy: furrows in the ground around an island rarely touched by sentient beings, with a minor creche of diminutive Water Lizards among the rocks.