Homaridagons; the Dragons of Fodere
"Moltcatching has the potential to pay fer your daughter's daughter's daughter's wedding, and her acreage, too! ...if you can get back alive, that is." - Marque One-Limb
On the limestone islands of Fodere (foe-deh-r̃ay), culture revolves around fossils, and the power imparted by spirits remaining inside. However, mortals aren't the only sort competing for that ancient power.
Lurking beneath the waves of Fodere's surrounding seas, submerged caverns and rugged shorelines are home to immortal, gargantuan crustaceans known as the homaridagons (hoh-ma-red-ah-gons), also colloquially called great lobsters; huge lobster-like monsters of alien intellect and hoarding disposition. With no upper limit to the size and age they may grow to, their power is enforced only by the success of their decrescent molts. Infants are typically no bigger than an adult lobster, though homaridagons which are considered adult can be as large as an elephant.
Due to their ferocious hoarding of fossil components which mortals of Fodere might use for fossilurgic magic, mortals and homaridagons are naturally hostile to one another. From mortals, homaridagons can catch large meals, metallurgic goods which they may affix to their shells like scrap armour, and fear from local settlements. From the homaridagons, mortals seek to gain their hardy shells, their abundant meat, and the fossil hoardes which they amass deep below the sea.
Mortals of Fodere utilize the shed carapace of homaridagons in construction of buildings, armaments such as plate armour, tools, and blades. For this reason, older homaridagon molts are prized for their sheer mass, and many risk their lives to fetch it from the ocean floor or caves. It is easily the most dangerous profession in Fodere, even when done during the marginally safer molting season, when most homaridagons are preoccupied with the shedding of their exoskeletons.
