Giants of Serina

Drifting far out to sea is a strange visitor from a realm alien to the denizens of the open ocean; a colossus from the savannahs of the interior continent. This is the carcass of a full-grown bull ridgeback cygnosaur, probably washed out during a flash flood or cyclonic deluge. The consequence of the warm and humid global climate that has allowed the evolution of such massive land animals is such destructive weather conditions are commonplace and can occur in intensities far worse than anything which occurs on Earth, easily large enough to sweep such a massive body countless miles from its place of origin.

A large ridgeback cygnosaur grows up to twenty-five metres in length and weighs over twenty tons, making it one of the largest animals that has ever walked upon Serina's surface. Its huge body is supported by some of the largest bones to have ever evolved in a land animal, and a complex air sac system, similar to that of the long-extinct sauropods of Earth. Now, these air sacs, which once helped keep its body light on land, fill with putrefying gases that keep the bloating carcass adrift at the surface, where it quickly attracts a growing entourage of scavengers, drawn from miles around. Even long-dead, the sight of the immense corpse is something to behold, a hulking red mirage in the ethereal blue.

However, it is still dwarfed by the titans beneath the sea, such as those which have been attracted by the waft of rotting flesh drifting in the currents. The kraviathan, the undisputed apex predator of the seas. An average adult ranges around thirty tonnes, while exceptional individuals can approach forty tonnes in weight, making them the largest animals alive and twice the weight of the largest cygnosaurs. Huge, bony mandibles over eight feet long make short work dismembering the corpse, wrenching tree trunk-thick legs free and shearing through the thick scaly hide with ease. Smaller species of marine snarks can only pick and tear at preexisting wounds in the carcass, and swarm around the new openings created by the behemoths.

Never before has life on Serina existed at such a scale, both predator and prey, terrestrial and aquatic animals, of sizes not seen since the great age of reptiles on the prehistoric Earth, hundreds of millions of years ago, and it will never be seen again once the climate once more cools and brings about the end of the warm and humid conditions which have allowed the evolution of such gargantuan fauna and the lush ecosystems that sustained them.