Allun is a massive continent hosting a tremendous menagerie of aquatic life. The melt water that streams down from the continent's frozen mountain peaks carve out countless channels, rivers and lakes that scatter all across the continent. It is little wonder then how these habitats can support a sizeable guild of top order predators.
The red-speckled daemon is a large leviathanosaur, a clade of mostly aquatic or semi-aquatic reptyls which includes the likes of the giant leviarex. The red-speckled daemon itself is among the largest in size. Regularly reaching 80 feet long on average, with century old bulls, or rivermasters as they're known, approaching a staggering 120 feet long. Yet it is rare for them to reach such significant old age. The vast majority never exceed their 3rd or 5th decade due to their combative and violent lives.
Males clash in fights for dominance at feeding events and for mates, and females compete for the same reasons as well as for prime nesting sites. The tusks on their upper jaws are an honest indicator of the health and age of an individual, yet it still doesn't mitigate the on-sight aggression they have by any great margin.
Cannibalism is common among red-speckled daemons, in fact an adult may have nearly 10% of it's diet consisting of other daemons. Hatchlings that are too weak to dig themselves out of the nest mounds are also consumed by their mothers, ensuring only the strongest and healthiest are raised. Some take it even further, with the very rare daemons becoming active cannibalistic specialists that often lurk along the margins of female congregations, opportunistically snatching several juveniles or even small females. They may also partner up with other specialists to hunt other equally sized and healthy adults.
Yet for all these seemingly morbid aspects of their day to day lives, they're still remarkably social animals. Males can form coalitions with each other, even teaming up to topple a resident dominant male from his throne. Females of course gather to minimize the chances of their own nests being raided. Some groups take it even further than that, some daemons may even have "friends" so to speak. They will selectively choose to travel, feed and fight alongside the same individuals regardless if related or not, sometimes for their entire lives.
