Next, we have biology. (I’ll admit it’s not my best subject.)

There are two kinds of creatures in Lura:
1. Transient (mystical/magical/spectral) creatures
2. Living creatures

The animals found on Lura are much smarter than the ones we have on Earth. Most have a pack mentality. They are highly intelligent; able to communicate with each other, build, and attack in a very organized fashion. This makes travelling extremely dangerous.

If there is a large, organized group of animals, they usually have a spectral creature as a leader, which will have some kind of proper name and usually be the source of many colorful local stories; sometimes even worshipped as gods. They do not die until they are slain. And when they do, they don’t leave behind even a trace of a body. They just disperse like a ghost. Wardings work against them.

• animals

The dharchu are medium-sized living creatures with four muscular legs, their hooves extending in a claw-like fashion. They have round bodies, half of which are covered by very short armored wings they hold close to their body for protection — as if it were a second ribcage. While the wings are useless for flying, they can help the dharchu glide far when they leap and also aid their swimming. They are green and brown, mostly covered in scales with some patches of fur. Their tails are long, muscular, and very curly, which, coupled with their wings, allow them to swim very quickly. Their faces have a peaceful, solemn, humanesque form. They have long snouts and maws with sharp teeth, and protruding whiskers that are thick as beards. It is said the dharchu can leap over sea-faring vessels.

• birds

It is worth mentioning there are crows in Lura. They are three times larger than ones we are familiar with. They are very territorial and actually lay out bone patterns to mark their territories. The transient crow Haeckallis is their fearsome transient leader, with a wingspan that can cause hurricanes and sandstorms.

• fish

Coellandis are the most commonly eaten salt-water fish in Lura. They stick to shallow waters and multiply very quickly. It is said if you become wealthy by overfishing coellandis, they will strike at your boat until it sinks.

• insects

Salt-flies live near the ocean. They eat the uncontested leftovers of dead things that wash ashore and bite relentlessly at anybody that manages to get too close to a meal. Their wings are very water resistant.

• plants

Easily, the most important plant to Lura is the flicker tree. It is very limited in supply, but necessary to life. The currency of Lura, ‘shardir’ is actually claimant paper that can be exchanged for flicker wood, measured in worth by how much it takes to trade for a twig or branch.

Flickers are trees that grow in the pitch-darkness under an area known as ‘The Altahra Shelf’, which is a rock shelf that extends off of part of the Altahra Range. (Amongst other pretty terrible things, the Shelf is home to a nasty pack of dire wolves that live in a network of caves that actually extends to parts of the rocky ceiling. There are stories where they have been known to literally pull their prey up into their rocky burrows.)

Flickers’ roots grow around a large oval crystalline bladder that emits a natural sapphiric light. The bladders no longer emit light when it dies or is extracted, but the branches themselves emit a strong light if struck.

Generations of families usually can only afford one flicker branch, which they pass down. They notch the branch for each generation it is passed which usually last about seven generations. They place it into a hammered dome-like copper plate which hang from ceilings, called flickerplates. They put the flicker branch inside and strike the copper plate with anything from a common stick to a hammer to light the room for hours.

People who smoke purchase very expensive twigs to light their very expensive ‘aki’, which is the Lurian equivallent of tobacco. Flicker twigs only last for a dozen or so uses before a new one must be purchased. Once they flick at the twig, they must use heavy-duty gloves and press its edge against the aki until it smolders, then blow on the sparks. It takes a lot of patience to successfully light something with a flicker branch or twig, but it’s one of the only ways Lurians can start a fire. Stealing the flicker branch from a travelling group is one of the most certain ways to kill them.

The legendary dragons:

I’m not one of those people who purchases movies and videogames just because they have the word ‘dragon’ or ‘sword’ in it, but if there’s a good reason (you know … story-wise) to include them, then I don’t complain. :P

The three legendary dragons, Hvyarisinth, Oliest, & Gabanon, are probably my favorite set of transient creatures in Lura. Lurians know very little about them, mainly because they haven’t shown themselves for thousands of years. But some believe they were birthed by the Mother (personification of the planet) as a form of planetary protection against mass destruction and death, and sleep deep within the planet to this day.

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