Modding:Sightglass Dino Lore

This is a lore document for Sightglass's (at time of writing, PLANNED) dinosaur race mod. This focuses on the history of the dinosaur-morphs in Lilith's Domain. Pieces of this document are going to be split up among the races' encyclopedia entries.

Intro

In the very distant past, dinosaur-morphs were commonplace and dominated much of the wild areas outside of the at-the-time fledgling city of Dominion. With ravenous appetites for power, wealth, and pleasure, they carved out small fiefdoms lording over the smaller, squishier morphs. While nominally under the rule of Lilith and the demons, they were mostly free to conquer and rule as they saw fit, as long as they paid proper respect and tribute to the real ruling class. In fact, the highest levels of dinosaur societies were often half-demon dinosaur-morphs working for their demon parent. These dinosaur-lords would demand large tributes of food, treasure and slaves, threatening to flatten towns and cities if they did not receive absolute submission and satisfaction. The exact nature of their practices and the severity of the reign varied from place to place (and accounts vary greatly depending on the historian's feelings towards the dinosaurs).

Reign of the Dinosaurs

The reigns of large carnivores, such as theropod-morph dynasties, would terrorize their underlings into serving their every whim. Quickly conquering and subjugating neighboring areas, feeding their hunger with easily-exploited peoples, but not as concerned with keeping "spent" territory, these kingdoms built on plunder would grind their way through the forests and jungles through history, chewing up weaker areas while being eaten up by rivals on the other side in turn. At the time, the only real barrier containing them were the citadels of the large herbivore dinosaur-morphs. To any aspiring conqueror, even the smallest of those cities would be a enough of a prize to gather all others to their banner, and perhaps swallow the rest in turn. While there are records of these fortress-cities being conquered, it appears that in all cases the conquering carnivore king or queen would instead spend the rest of their life living in indolent indulgence, with their kingdom quickly disintegrating as their many, many offspring fought for power afterwards.

Herbivorous dinosaur kingdoms of the grasslands and deserts were reputed to be comparatively stable and gentle, especially compared to carnivores'. Pouring their wealth into grand public construction, the largest herbivore dinosaur families sought to gain prestige and loyalty through splendor, awe, and benevolence. Marvelous gardens, aqueduct and geyser-fed public baths, decadent brothels, luxurious palaces, and colossal amphitheaters were protected by high, unbreakable walls, promising safety and comfort in exchange for absolute obedience and loyalty. Despite their grandeur, it was not always grand. Competition between prominent sauropod, ankylosaur and stegosaur-morph families led to wild spending and mismanagement, while important infrastructure decayed from neglect. Rebellions over the resulting famines and disasters would be unceremoniously crushed, with the dissenters exiled to the exposed plains and easy pickings for bandits.

Maniraptors and pterosaurs, smaller carnivorous dinosaur-morphs, rarely formed permanent settlements. Bands of roving maniraptor-morphs would frequently splinter and diverge, reform and merge as they ravaged their way through jungles, woods and plains. Despite the large number of subspecies (or even perhaps because of it), raptor-morphs held a certain sort of camaraderie, and a shared contempt for "weak, soft" settled folk, so these bands were often composed of a wide array of different shaped and sized raptors. This allowed for a great deal of tactical flexibility in their raids, allowing them to attack effectively with different weaponry from many angles. Arriving in an area, they would extort the locals for "protection" by muscling out smaller isolated crews, while acting as little more than bandits themselves. Usually, they would stay only long enough to rearm, gather a load of food, and breed more raiders from the locals. Occasionally, the raptor-morphs would act as mercenaries and patrols for larger dinosaurs' kingdoms, in exchange for a steady supply of food, luxuries, weapons, and sex. These raptor enforcers would be given a very long leash and allowed to take liberties with how they operated (and liberties on how they treated their arrestees). Even so, as the crews grew, many would become dissatisfied and break off to return to freedom as a raiding horde.

Sexual Ceremonies

It seems it was a common practice the dinosaurs to sexually humiliate the subjects in seasonal ceremonies.

Large carnivores, such as the infamous Tyrannosaurus Rex, would force their subjects to "sacrifice" some of their own to be used as sex slaves, discarded when they were too traumatized, stretched or pregnant to be any more fun. They would most commonly target virgins, and would even invade weddings to ravage the newlyweds. Another common practice would be to wage mock wars against their already-conquered territory over the most trivial (or imagined) of slights as an excuse for violent sexual excess. Tyrannosaurus-morphs would notoriously go into such "battles" with slaves worn as living cocksleeves or dildos, violating them in front of their village or tribe. Afterwards, the subjugated people would reenact their original surrender by ritually cleaning their warlord's "armor" and "weapons". What this meant was they were forced to lick clean the unfortunate slave's holes or cock, and to take turns to worship their master's cock or pussy (or both). The "lucky" one who happened to bring the tyrant to orgasm would be taken as the next slave, to be used for next year's "battle".

Herbivores such as the sauropod-morphs, seeing themselves as more gentle rulers, would smother tribute-slaves under their oversized breasts, testicles or buttocks, using them as living seats and footrests. Favored servants would have their orifices elasticized and genitals enlarged to massive proportions with magic potions, to satisfy their overlord's massive cocks or pussies without discomfort. Symbolically, this was supposed to represent the great burden of rulership, and the fact that only the titanic dinosaur rulers were both great and merciful to bear it. It seems that compared to the carnivores, they did not have any trouble finding "volunteers".

After a successful raid, the defeated villages would be gathered to watch the raptors party and fuck over a pile of loot. After they were satisfied with each other, they would then turn their attention to their captives, walking among them and bickering, taking some as slaves, taking others on the spot for some more sexual relief. Despite their disdain for the "weakness" of settled peoples, maniraptor-morphs seemed to have respect for strong opponents they fought. Occasionally, one or two captives who fought particularly skillfully or bravely would be picked out of the crowd and declared "contenders". Those chosen would be dosed with a unique potion, the "storm brew", that would bring them to a rut or heat similar to that brought about by exposure to an arcane storm. Surrounding the dazed captive, the raiders would dance, gyrate, moan, tease, whatever they could think of to entice them. In this state, they were given an offer: if they could resist falling to lust, the warband would forever leave that town alone. Almost inevitably though, their will would break and they would mindlessly breed with enemies. As a tool to erode defenders' morale, it seems to have been very effective. Whole towns, after repeated losses and becoming increasingly populated by raptors, would be absorbed wholesale. On the other hand, it seems that if the the "contender" managed to hold out, the raptors would keep their word and never again raid them. Several towns are noted to have gotten this protection, going untouched for the entirety of this period. There are even stories of bands of raptors coming by to pay "tribute" and politely ask to be bred by the Contender or their relatives. In other cases, raptor raiding parties would come to the aid of these towns against other threats, usually larger predatory dinosaur-morphs. In some cases a rogue raptor band would be singled out and hunted by others if they menaced these protected settlements. Several historic towns that would eventually merge into the city of Elis have stories gaining this protection, but this particular case seems apocryphal.

Downfall

Despite being immensely intimidating and physically powerful, dinosaurs were slowly edged out by the rise of the dragons. Not only were the dragons able to match them physically, but they had powerful magic and the backing of the powerful Elder Lilin, Lisophia.

The carnivore dinosaurs (especially the theropods) were the first to fall to the dragons. With their reigns being built on brutality and conquest, those they had subjugated saw an opportunity, and saw the dragons' reign as being (potentially) being less violently sadistic. Uprisings against them sprouted up almost constantly, keeping the various dinosaur warlords distracted as the dragons methodically picked them off one by one. In addition, the distrust between rival domains mean that the dragons could easy play one warlord off of another.

The herbivorous dinosaur kingdoms, while being heavily fortified and having an ostensibly stable society, was not immune to the dragons either. Under the surface, the ruling families were deeply competitive and divided. During a moments of particular intrigue in the high courts, the dragons took the opportunity to seize the relatively undefended flatlands around the cities, nibbling away chunks of vulnerable territory. As they lost territory, the supply of vital supplies to the citadels slowly but surely dwindled from a river to a trickle, magnifying the issues with neglected infrastructure and shortages caused mismanagement and political infighting. Eventually, the massive cities became simply unsustainable to support, and the dragons were able to claim most of the husks without a fight. The largest of these cities escaped becoming simply a ruin as the old town was eventually absorbed into the outskirts of Thinis.

The maniraptors, living almost entirely as divided, nomadic bands, began to settle down as the watchful eye of the dragons disapproved of raiding and stealing what could instead fill the dragons' coffers. Many settled in "protected towns", the ones spared from the raids. These were the few places that did not have an overwhelming distrust of the raptors. Others fled even further into the wilds, living as isolated tribes.

As the dominance of the dinosaur-morphs fell, many were transformed to morphs matching their former underlings. Former ruling families were often forced by their former subjects, as a ultimate humiliation by being brought down to the level of the "small folk". Others chose to transform, or were pressured, in order the fit in better with the lizard, bird and mammal-morphs surrounding them. Some saw it as their best chance of a fresh start, or as penance for failing to preserve their dynasty. Many dragon-morphs disapproved of having the dinosaur-morphs walking around as a potential rival, and offered subsequent generations of dinosaur-morphs a comfortable life if they quietly accepted a transformation potion and a cushy position in government. Over many, many years, the dinosaur-morphs disappeared almost entirely outside of small remote, isolated communities.

Re-Emergence

Around fifty years ago, dragon-morphs fell from their privileged positions after their failed challenge against Lisophia, resulting in most withdrawing to the most remote regions of Lilith's domain and trading their riches for farming equipment. It seems unlikely, however, that the dinosaur-morphs, or another powerful mortal morph may again reach the same level of power, at least in the short term. The demonic establishment seems to desire more direct control over the realm, instead of allowing a powerful mortal race to take power at a low level.

Nevertheless, the dinosaur-morphs are slowly re-emerging into the world at large. Settlers expanding outwards from the crowded Dominion urban agglomeration find that well-established farms and ranches cover most of the Foloi Fields, and delve deeper into the jungle and woods. Discoveries (or more accurately, rediscoveries) of morph species long forgotten are frequently announced as explorers make contact with isolated communities. Among these are, of course, the many dinosaur-morph species. Without the shadow of the dragon-morphs over the world, dinosaurs are beginning to re-enter society as they are, and as they were so many years ago.

Additionally, there is the odd phenomenon of "primal reversion" occurring in some groups of morph. On very rare occasions, lizard or bird-morph parents will produce a dinosaur-morph offspring. As yet, not pattern has been discovered of the relation between the parents' species and the offspring's, other than a vague taxonomic relation. The underlying arcane mechanism responsible is also unknown. It is rumored that these anomalous births correspond to certain artifacts and fossils being dug up in archeological and paleontology sites. This same phenomenon also occurs in feline-morphs producing sabertooth offspring, and thylacines being born to quolls, and other extinct or near-extinct species reappearing in related species' litters.

The battlefields of the dinosaur era are scattered widely throughout the land. Arcane-fossilzed bones, weapons, treasure, and other artifacts are common finds when farmers till and plow their fields. Wealthy mortals with an interest in history sponsor the occasional archeological dig, uncovering these artifacts in a more systematic manner. Demons, many having lived through these times, are less interested in the history than in the chance to perhaps recover an amusing souvenir. When an enchanted artifact of great power is unearthed, it often sparks public interest in ancient dinosaur culture among reptile and avian morphs. Overnight, a farming town may metamorphose into a dinosaur village from so many enthusiasts transforming themselves to match their new fixation. These towns also report a wave of "primal reversion" births, though it's entirely possible it's just people taking their new dinosaur bodies for a roll in the hay.

Re-Emergence, Short Version

After the fall of the dragon-morphs, dinosaurs began to re-emerge. As settlers pushed into the remote corners the the land, they rediscovered lost villages of dinosaurs. By a strange phenomenon of "primal reversion", dinosaur-morphs are occasionally born to avian and reptilian parents. Finds of enchanted archeological artifacts and partially-fossilized bones inspire fanatics to transform themselves into their favorite dinosaur species. It is even rumored that these unearthed treasures somehow spark spontaneous transformation and "primal reversions", though this might just be tall tales designed to get into someone's pants.

Modern Dinosaurs

Whether from relict villages, anomalously born, or transformed, dinosaur-morphs often feel out of place in modern society. For one, the larger-bodied species find it awkward living in cities and buildings designed for much smaller people. An instinct to conquer or dominate the "small folk" around them served dinosaurs well in the ancient past, but in modern times, attempts to climb over others are brushed off, or stifled from demons above them. Large carnivores, like theropod-morphs, can find work as bodyguards, bouncers and dominatrices where their intimidating appearance and physique is an asset. Large herbivores use their immense strength and size in construction, and as living platforms for smaller morphs to get around or get to high places. Smaller dinosaurs, whether herbivore or carnivore, blend more easily into the milieu of average-sized morphs and have the least social and ergonomic awkwardness.