Fire-Salamander
| Fire-Salamander | |
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| Fauna | |
| Official Name | Fire-Salamander |
| Common Nicknames | Nāhuī |
| Classification | Amphibian |
| Habitat | Volcanic caverns of Guldar |
| Domesticated | No |
| Current Status | Rare |
The Fire-Salamander is an immense creature native to the volcanic caverns found across Guldar. Known for their size, the creatures can breathe fire through a simple means of biology. How such large amphibians thrive in such a scorching climate is not entirely clear, even to the Maquixtl who have extracted the animal’s Genos for use in one of their many appearance-altering forms, but they do thrive. Their numbers remain small, but they are unlikely to disappear from Westafar anytime soon.
History
The Fire-Salamander is one of Guldar’s largest creatures but was seemingly not identified by the earliest Eronidas. In later years, folktales speak of giant underground fire wyrms battling against Eronidas engineers seeking to expand their cities or produce new bathhouses and the like. They were often characterized as creatures closely tied to Daiana, but also Caius given their fire aspect, and became widely adopted symbols of these elements. However, conflict between the Eronidas and the Fire-Salamanders only increased over time, as their cities expanded and grew. While most Fire-Salamanders were forced out of an area and then blocked from gaining further access, it is said some were killed to safeguard the Eronidas constructions. While sometimes claimed by outsiders as perhaps one of the reasons the Dragons pushed the Eronidas out of Guldar, this is not likely true. The Eronidas Exodus brought the departure of the Eronidas, and the arrival of the Maquixtl, who unlike those who had just departed the continent, almost immediately found the huge creatures in surveys delving into their new environment. Their Genos fascinated the Elves of science and were used to create one of the first new forms their people could adopt. It remains fairly popular to this day, while the Fire-Salamanders are largely left alone in their underground caverns, content to laze, and spurt gouts of flame.
Physical Appearance
The Fire-Salamander is an immense creature, sitting at nine feet tall, up to twenty feet long, and with a weight of several tons. Their head features a short muzzle with a wide mouth, two small eyes, a crest of dense, slightly curling horns around the top of their head extending out from plating along their face, and on either side, a pair of webbed fans that flick closed and open based on a range of factors. However, it is the Fire-Salamander’s mouth that is the most interesting part of their species. Glands within their mouth project streams of volatile fluid that, when encountering the heat of the air around them, create gouts of flame. This is no magical effect, only something entirely naturally developed over time in their existence. This ability has led to a highly regenerative and heat-resistant interior of their mouth and retractable teeth to avoid damage. The animal’s head is directly connected to their thick body, which propels its vast size on four equally huge limbs with thick claws and six toes on each foot. The animal’s body then ends in a thick, vertically flat tail. Fire-Salamanders are covered in incredibly thick scales from head to toe, which are resistant to enormous heat. This allows them to cross the lava caverns where they live, but that is not to imply they are immune to lava. They can survive encounters with it, at most wading through pools or streams, but cannot survive long basks in a pool of the substance. These scales are various shades of dark brown and red, the same hue as the creature’s horns and plating around its head.
Diversity
Fire-Salamanders have limited diversity on the whole, as their scale colorations remain in the same hues, with the only easily discerned difference being the degree their coat is in the process of molting. Their crest of horns and facial plates do provide some differentiation, but their eyes are their most notable point of diversity. Fire-Salamanders have black sclera with eye colors ranging from blue, brown, orange, or bright yellow. Gender, meanwhile, is entirely impossible to determine from an external look, but as their population has remained stable, it is broadly believed both genders have stable numbers within the species.
Life Span and Development
Fire-Salamanders are born from large, dark red four-foot long eggs, which while richly colored and smooth upon first laying, slowly blister and develop a thicker shell in the heat of the tunnels. They are laid in groups of up to three eggs, and these are carefully watched over by both parents until the offspring hatch. At this stage, the mother leaves, and the father is the one to take over the role of parenting. This role is not required for very long, as Fire-Salamanders actively abandon their parent by six months, already significantly grown if they have survived their juvenile months to reach a length of around ten feet. Their growth significantly slows at this point, and it takes a solid five years for them to fully mature from the start of their young-adult stage to full adulthood. They are capable of living up to a hundred years.
Mental Overview
Fire-Salamanders, while casting a terrifying shadow and often portrayed in the myths of the Eronidas as fierce, flame-wielding beasts hoarding over natural wonders or treasures, lack these traits. Instead, one would be surprised at how lazy the creatures can be, at least in a contemporary Alorian view. The large creatures can lay still for days at a time, dozing, relaxing, and just enjoying the magma-heated chambers in which they live. Younger Fire-Salamanders often group up for such activities, sunning themselves together nearby, but this behavior entirely fades into adults of the species. They are not fond of groups when they fully mature and rarely cross paths with other Fire-Salamanders except during the mating season. If two Fire-Salamanders do end up crossing paths outside of this period, it is often due to competition for a prime resting place, at which point fighting breaks out after several hours of standing off with one another. Fire-Salamanders rarely kill in these encounters, with one party usually beating a retreat eventually, but when one does die, it often benefits the survivor in how the cavern flora and fauna quickly descend on the remains. The survivor then gets a meal out of the whole experience, largely feeding on these other creatures and plants. Fire-Salamanders are also fairly neutral on outsiders, as long as they are not bothered, they barely shift when Maquixtl groups pass through the volcanic caverns. Fire-Salamanders are also noted in that the Maquixtl have fully mapped the meaning of their webbed face-fans, which shift position based on a Fire-Salamander’s emotional state. This allows the Maquixtl to easily avoid further angering the creatures if they encounter an irritated specimen.
Territory and Groupings
Fire-Salamanders are solitary creatures once they fully mature, though during their earlier years, small groups of them remaining together are not uncommon. These large creatures thrive in the volcanic caverns and tunnels that are dotted beneath Guldar, and while they are at the apex of the food chain when fully grown, do face predation from other creatures that lurk in such space when younger. Fire-Salamanders often claim only a small personal space in these caverns, lounging there for days at a time, but are broadly migratory otherwise, moving through the tunnels after they grow bored of their former spot.
Trivia
- Despite their hard exterior, the Fire-Salamander is still an amphibian. Exactly how they survive in such intensely heated caves, when their species normally thrives in damp surroundings, can only be accredited to adaption to the environment.
- Fire-Salamanders are unable to be tamed, but some younger generations of Maquixtl cave dwellers have earned the trust of juvenile salamanders. This is a recent development of minimal progress; this may only apply to a small population of Fire-Salamanders in this part of history.
- Fire-Salamanders, despite their association with Caius, do not seem to populate the Rock of Eternity, where his chief temple and site of power are located. Draconists read into this fact, and believe that the Fire-Salamanders have kept away due to his rages since his soul’s partitioning.
- Fire-Salamanders appear to have held a notable place in Avarr conceptions of the world, with their appearance on murals and more being the first clue to the creature’s existence among the Maquixtl migrants. Avarr souls are unable to remember specifics of this, beyond core information about the animal’s nature and appearance.
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