#seeliragh

[seeliragh-fr]

i make a list of every canon fr flora or fauna species that exists in the Seeliragh-verse Shifting Expanse

hi . links to the respective database entries and lore under the cut

Amber Gulper: most of the aquatic species of the Shifting Expanse are in fact semiaquatic extremophiles capable of surviving periods of intense heat and little to no moisture, as well as torrential rain and flash flooding. The amber gulper is named for its ability to breathe outside of water, and for its thick red-gold plating.

Blackshield Cockroach

Blue Tang Hippogriff: hippogriffs are smaller than gryphons, but make up for it in formidable pair and pack hunting formations.

Bluetipped Shellbug

Bobwhite Quail

Brown Bat

Brown River Flight: Seeliragh-verse Shifting Expanse has three different species of river flight, and brown and grey river flights are closely related enough to interbreed

Brush Dodo: these things run a lot faster than they look like they do.

Buff Dunerunner: often seen skirting the edge of cliffs along the edge of the Carrion Canyons. Mainly prey on buttersnakes they flush from the scrub.

Canyon Ruffage

Cave Gecko

Charged Duneberry: the name is misleading- duneberries are actually the fruiting bodies of a type of lichen. they can be juiced for a source of clean, if slightly tangy water.

Clouddancer: usually avoid clashing with territorial hippogriffs by occupying a much higher altitude in mesa outcroppings, because they have thicker plumage and can withstand colder temperatures. early morning hunters for this reason as well

Common Sparrow

Corpse Cleaner: found at the bottom of canyons. you can hear their legs clicking on the rocks from far off and it’s kind of fucked up

Cragside Mussels: also called “muck mussels” for their ability to continue to grow in moist silt as water sources dry up for the season. they can often be spotted by the telltale deposits of ore dust around them; cragside mussels will spit out any grainy irritant with a jet of water, rather than forming pearls.

Crested River Flight: crested river flights are larger than both brown and grey river flights

Crow: crows, magpies, and squall seekers will all roost together in large flocks that nest in alcoves in the canyon walls. they look pretty big until you put them next to a storm seeker

Dark-bordered Beauty

Desert Cactus

Desert Scrub

Dire Vulture

Dune Vampire: in the Seeliragh-verse, huge sandstorm-like swarms of dune vampires are fabled to sweep across the northern canyons and the highland scrub, killing everything in their path including dragons. “death by inhalation-based internal mosquito bites” is bad enough but people also say that anything that manages to survive the swarm will be killed by the reaction to sun exposure to all the bites

Duskthicket Bonepicker

Dustwing Hummingbird

Dung Beetle

Emerald Cave Jewel

Engorged Skytick

False Veneer Moth: these moths migrate like monarch butterflies, except to the north for the dry season instead of the south for the winter. seeing big groups of them migrating is kind of a spectacle; their wings reflecting and refracting light create the appearance of a mesmerizing, glittering cloud. this is also some of the first Seeliragh-verse lore for some reason

Fanned Cockroach

Fissure Crawdad: found in fast-running underground streams in deep cave fissures

Giant Desert Centipede

Goat

Golden Roc: Seeliragh-verse rocs can live as long as dragons, and grow as big as some of the larger ones. Rocs in the Shifting Expanse usually have known names, like how people name hurricanes, and their respective ranges are marked out on maps

Greater Sandstrike

Greyback Sparrow

Grey River Flight

Grouse

Grouse Basilisk

Gryphon’s Blood Sempervivium

Hardshell Moonsting

Highreach Bonepicker

High-Voltage Almonds: dragons make fucked up almond milk out of these. it’s a delicacy in the great Southern lairs, along with volt almond liqueur

Hippojay: a lot of raptor species in the shifting expanse are blue-black toned, for camouflage against stormy skies. these guys are highland predators, and aren’t found in the canyons as much

Juvenile Prairie Skink

Leucistic Crow

Magpie

Manyleaves

Masked Gryphon: there are actually some rivers in the Seeliragh-verse Shifting Expanse, even though the majority of them only run above ground for about a quarter of their length. in the dry part of the year, the riverbeds are mostly mud, which is why masked gryphons have such silly little sandpiper legs and raccoon hands for digging out lungfish-type creatures

Meal Moth

Mimic Buttersnake

Murkbottom Gull: found only in the very north and south, by the ocean and the Sea of a Thousand Currents. seen in a lot of heraldic designs for the nomadic highlands clans, as a symbol for fair winds, luck, and locating water

Notocactus: these cacti can be harvested for water, but the outer skin has a poisonous coating that will numb the mouth and irritate the insides if not scrubbed or peeled off first. this was some of the very first Seeliragh-verse lore for some reason

Oasis Songbird: it’s bad luck to eat oasis songbirds in most of the Expanse. their feathers are worn by canyon travelers for luck, and used as offerings at springside shrines

Peacock Scorpion: peacock scorpions turn a different color when they mate, like salmon

Polarized Bell Goat: Closely related to common bell goats, but specialized for a diet of static-charged scrub and lichen species

Polarized Mushrooms: glow brigher around copper deposits in cave walls

Prickly Strangler

Sanddrift Aconite

Sanddrift Fuiran

Sand Sucker: mud leeches. the beast is demonic in nature. very icky, no good.

Shiny Anole

Sparkling Crayfish

Sparksylph: ridiculously rare apparitions. it’s like seeing ball lightning. they feature in a lot of ghost stories and folklore. people regard them as either an ill omen or a sign of the desert’s favor, which can sometimes mean the same thing.

Spore Spreader Moth

Squall Seeker

Star Moss

Stonewatch Flatblade

Stonewatch Scrub

Storm Seeker: will sometimes flock with smaller corvids, especially in high places with a lot of storm activity. leucistic storm seekers are rare, but possible. also show up in a lot of heraldic designs, but mostly ancient ones from the beginning of the fourth age. there are ancient cartouches a quarter mile tall carved into the walls out in the canyons that depict storm seekers alongside long-dead pictographic languages

Striped Monitor

Subterranean Termite

Swallowtail Buttersnake

Thistle

Thunder Scarab

Valley Quail

Warmwater Twister

Wild Catsup

Winged Barb

Wispwillow Peryton: I also kind of wanted to include the petal peryton, but I think in general the Seeliragh-verse Shifting Expanse has a variety of peryton species and color morphs. they’re the main large prey animal for the region, although hippogriffs and other predators routinely die in conflict with them. wispwillow peryton are mostly nocturnal, and are nicely camouflaged against the voltaic foliage they eat. other types are smaller and hardier canyon species that behave a little bit more like mountain goats.

Wood Shrimp

[seeliragh-fr]

in the seeliragh verse obelisks are the first dragon breed whose discovery is concurrent with the timeline of the characters. Previously for bogsneaks and the ancient breeds I just headcanoned them as wildly rare or secluded remnants of cultures that were slowly making their way into public awareness again, after the devastating inter-flight wars at the beginning of the fourth age. But I just really liked the dig and the reveal, so the discovery of the obelisks happens in the seeliragh verse as it does on-site! in this case, however, earthshaker is a far more distant and unpredictable presence, and the obelisk dragons themselves lack a conscious awareness of him. since the news broke along the trade routes of their emergence, there are many who have taken it as a sign of the twilight of the fourth age, and the end of days. others regard them as unholy, strange false creatures masquerading as dragons. to make things worse, rather than being wholly new creatures, some of the newly-unearthed obelisk dragons seem to have indistinct impressions of being alive before their entombment in stone.

[seeliragh-fr]

wip designs for the new subclan leaders.... Tenroen and Saeli have been around conceptually since the start of Seeliragh lore! I wanted to eventually have a subclan of posh craftsmen mingle with the grimy desert criminals, and work together to combat their collective baggage and make their desert stronghold more comfortable. Tenroen (top) is a bookbinder, and Saeli (bottom two) is a papermaker.

I really like the Nam Huattam uniform outfit elements but I wanted to keep them unique to the temple members, so I used the tunic+linen wraps+sage set but in different colors. I’m hoping it sorta communicates that these characters are also from light flight without having them appear to be too overly similar. in lore, light flight fashion is lots of drapery and jewelry accents

[seeliragh-fr]

also seeliragh-verse imperials get larger with age, though not necessarily proportionally. dragons don't often really show their age until they're very, very old but imperials tend to lengthen out somewhat which is a pretty obvious tell

[seeliragh-fr]

i’ll come back to this and clean it up later but harpies and harpy clans have been involved in the seeliragh-verse lore for a very long time and it’s at the point where it deviates pretty strongly from existing stuff about the beastclans, although it didn’t originally

basically rather than the fr canon lore unification of all beastclans, the nine greater harpy covens (mesacliff, chillwind, stormcloud, sunstream, windcarve, ironclaw, condorwing, stonewatch, and falconclaw) are locked in an inter-clan conflict as some of the covens struggle to resist unification under Talona. I don’t wanna say that talona is some kind of crazy villain in the seeliragh verse because honestly i think the canon behavior of a lot of the beastfolk is pretty justifiable when you’re having to live under the threat of giant supercharged magical legendary creatures at all times. specifically, talona is warring with some of the great light flight imperial lairs (imperial as in empire, not imperial as in the dragon breed), who were responsible for the ousting of the covens from the sunbeam cliffs and the destruction of the 10th great harpy coven. however, her goals aren’t analogous with all of the covens. stonewatch, chillwind, stormcloud and windcarve are putting up a fight, though chillwind is undergoing a change of leadership that seems to be leaning towards deescalating hostilities and pledging to the cause.

stonewatch has an outpost that’s very close to the seeliragh lair, and the stonewatch harpies and veruka and company have formed a tentative alliance based mostly on the fact that neither of them want to be found by anyone who might come looking for them- especially since the outpost has not one but two awol princes, including one who might be extremely politically significant

[seeliragh-fr]

wanted to see what all of veruka’s children look like next to each other w their gene plans.. poor ardago, vorjek and kalmein outnumbered 3:1 by their fleet of horrible sisters

[seeliragh-fr]

Respite in the Shadow of the Carrion Canyon

The telltale first sign is felt three days into the Saturnalia. The watchdrake shakes her spiny neck out nose to wingtips, flicking droplets of water that catch the sun reflected off the canyon walls in auburn, russet and gold. The Expanse’s breath is cool this morning; a dense fog has settled into the canyon depths like a mudfish in wait, and the welcome humidity takes the teeth out of the harsh early sun. Great cumulonimbus clouds, Stormcatcher’s pride and progeny miles tall and more blue than copper ore, roll high above the landscape. As the lair known as Seeliragh comes into slow wakefulness below, the highland becomes alive all at once with frogsong. The quarternary cycle of desert rain frogs, dormant under the earth for 25 years at a time, are stirred from their slumber by the moisture on their backs. And as they emerge, there is no thunder or subtle lightning sounding overhead to drown them out.

And it rains.