#saurians

It wasn't anything out of the norm for a baby saurians to be seen alone in the wild. Yes, it was sad but what could anyone do? The mother of the saurians were either killed or had abondoned the poor thing because it was too weak.

So it wasn't a surprise when you and kinich stumbled on a baby Iktomisaur in the wild while exploring. The poor thing looked confused and slightly scared as it looked around for it's mother. It's ears dropping everytime it turned and she wasn't there. It broke your heart while kinich couldn't help but sigh..for some reason he understood how it felt.

Before he could act tho, you were already off to where the baby Iktomisaur sat. As you reached over, it looked up at you in slight fear, letting out a small hiss to try and sound intimidating but it only broke your heart even more. You moved down onto your leg, making sure to keep a certain distance as you held out a small apple you had in your hand. The poor thing couldn't help but perk up staring at the apple in slight hunger. Seeing that it mom wasn't there to guide and feed it, it was no surprise it was probably starving. After a few minutes, it finally walked over to you in hesitant steps. It's ears twitching in high alert in case it needs to run.

After stopping infront of your hand that held the apple, seeing you didn't try anything. It took a small hesitant bite out of the apple, before quickly eating more. Your hand held the apple out more as it ate quickly. Kinich couldn't help but watch the interaction, his heart breaking yet feeling slightly warm that you had help it. Ajaw tho, he looked blankly before sighing. "Are we really gonna stand here feeding some stray thing? The almighty-" kinch wasn't having any of it, putting Ajaw in time out before he could scare the baby saurian with his loud voice.

After some time, the baby saurian seemed to finally warm up to you. Cuddling up into to your arms almost as if seeking warmth. Seems like the baby saurian was now seeing you as it's parent. Kinich sighed and before you could even turn to ask he replied quickly, which was quite unusual of him. "The saurian seems to have take a liking to you..maybe we should bring it home? It would probably die in the wild without it's mother." It wasn't unusual for people to take in saurians, it was natlan after all.

So after some talking, you had lifted the baby Iktomisaur in your arms walking home with it. Kinich had proposed saying that it may had been too heavy for you to carry, but seeing how the poor thing didn't want to let go off your shirt. He let it be as you both headed back home.

It had been two weeks since you had taken in the baby Iktomisaur and it had now warmed up to you both. It was still quite wary of Ajaw tho, but who could blame her. Yes, you both had found out from a saurian trainer in the Scions of the Canopy, that the baby saurian you both had decided to adopt was a female. You had decided to name her Bubbles and the baby saurian had seemed to be quite happy with it. Her ears flickering excitedly as her small tail wagged. Kinich found it cute how you had started taking care of the baby saurian like it was your own already and he couldn't help but think of what the future held for both of you..maybe one day, you two could start a family together. When all the troubles in Natlan had settled down.

Side note~

Ajaw couldn't help but scoff at the name that you had given to the baby Iktomisaur. "Are you serious right now? What a childish name...something like the Almighty Ajaws servant or Ajaws loyal servant would have-" Kinich couldn't help but scoff putting Ajaw in time out with a small huff of annoyance. The baby Saurian was sitting beside him on the couch as the two were now waiting for you both to return home from a commission. Ajaw had commented on how there was not now one needy person to take care of but now a baby saurian that didn't hesitate to wait near the door for your arrival.

Chivalry & Sorcery (1977) was one of Fantasy Games Unlimited’s staple games. I’ve covered it previously — it was originally a D&D-like that aimed for more realistic simulation of the medieval world. It has a reputation for a sort of ridiculous level of complexity that isn’t entirely unearned; I certainly wouldn’t want to run it. But I do think the logic behind its systems is mostly sound, even if the philosophy doesn’t do it for me.

This, of course, is a big part of what makes Saurians (1979) so hilariously delightful. The core experience of C&S is so centered on recreating a plausible medieval world that a sourcebook devoted to “Dinosaurs & Intelligent Saurian Races” stands as a real outlier in the line. But this is intentional on the part of the authors, who were annoyed at C&S being dismissed as a “historical” game. Their larger argument here is that real playing of roles requires detailed worlds to draw from, and that those worlds should also inform the mechanics of play. They aren’t wrong, really!

The book is 170 pages of monospaced type (thankfully not shrunk, as with the main C&S rulebook). Illustrations only show up in the beginning, scratchy sketchy things, some of which are direct lifts of Charles Knight paintings. They quickly give way to page after page of tables that I am mostly unable to parse. There are dinosaurs, of course, as well as prehistoric mammals, and an elaborately detailed race of dinosaur people called the Hss’Taathi, whose society is portrayed with as much detail and nuance as the medieval-style kingdom Arden (1979), published the same year. There are also crocodile people called Kulun’Ssaatha, who get less robust treatment. And the authors propose that the world of Saurians can interact with, say, the world of Arden, through dimensional gateways (caused by space/time weakness in the wake of supernovas). I believe this amounts to the first serious published presentation of the multiverse concept in RPGs, which is pretty neat.

Somebody's sleeping on the couch tonight... :')

(I hope an inflatable Kholosaurus is okay, I thought Saurians were too close to dinosaurs to not take the opportunity, haha)

I will protect you at all cost.