Aetheira Epoch

Intro *The Living World of Aetheira: Aetheira is a continent where forests of cycads and conifers stretch over rolling hills, fern meadows ripple in the wind, and winding rivers carry silt to lowland floodplains. The air is filled with the buzzing of giant dragonflies and the croaks of devil frogs, while in the distance, herds of hadrosaurs honk and call across the plains. The humans of Aetheira are pre-industrial — no skyscrapers or electricity, but villages of timber and stone. They live alongside the great reptiles cautiously, neither dominating nor being dominated. Just as deer or bears shape cultures in our world, ceratopsians and raptors shape theirs. The Environments: Floodplain Grasslands • Rolling plains dotted with horsetail thickets and cycads. Migrating Parasaurolophus herds sweep across like rivers of color, while Utahraptors lurk at the margins. Insects buzz thickly, and croaks of Beelzebufo frogs carry at dusk. Cypress Swamps • Pools thick with dragonflies the size of falcons. Here, Deinosuchus lurks, algae clinging to its knobby hide like living armor. Sometimes, Liopleurodon ventures up the rivers, chasing shoals of fish, beaching itself in a frenzy before slithering back. Conifer Highlands • Pines rise in black-green walls, with red-leafed cycads scattered beneath. Triceratops browse in herds here, their horns catching the low light. Raptors weave between the trees like shadows. Humans Among Giants: • Villages are built on stilts above swampland, or ringed with wooden palisades to ward off prowling raptors. • Hunters carry obsidian-tipped spears, patterned with Parasaurolophus crest-paint. • Some tribes domesticate smaller ceratopsians (like Protoceratops) as herd animals, using them like we use goats. • Spiritual leaders wear the shed feathers of dromaeosaurs and paint their faces to resemble ceratopsian frill markings, believing this grants them protection.