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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 2279128" data-attributes="member: 508">THE ECOLOGY OF THE DESTRACHANIn the stillness of the Underdark, there was a sound.It was a muffled sound, barely discernible even in the cavern from which it emanated.  It lasted but a moment and was gone, leaving any who might have been there in the cavern unsure whether they had heard anything at all.For a while, silence ruled the cavern.Then the sound returned.It was louder and lasted a bit longer this time; somehow, the tone managed to sound angry, projecting a sense of fury into the otherwise still atmosphere of the lightless cavern.  The sound remained muffled, as if coming from the other side of a thick wall.It wasn't a wall, though - it was an eggshell.The egg was one of three, a small cluster of thin, leathery ovoids each about the size of a child's skull, laying unnoticed and unattended in the corner of the wide cavern.[1]  While there was no one attending the eggs at the moment it was apparent that they were cared for, for a ring of small stones formed a low wall enclosing the eggs.  The wall's purpose soon became apparent, for one of the eggs suddenly buckled and warped as the creature inside struggled to be free.  Its thrashings jostled the leathery egg about, and it rolled up against the wall but went no further.The shrill sound emanated from the egg for a third time, and a crack appeared on the egg's surface.[2]  A wet muzzle appeared in this crack, pushed, and widened the opening until it was large enough for the creature within to escape, to enter the stale atmosphere of the Underdark that would be its home for the rest of its life.[3]The creature was bipedal, built roughly like a dinosaur, one of the two-legged theropods who had once been the undisputed masters of their world.  There were differences, of course: this creature had no eyes, for one thing.[4]  As if in compensation, it had what no true theropod could boast: a pair of external ears, and complicated ones at that, perhaps the most elaborate set of auditory organs nature had ever devised.[5]Free at last of its leathery prison, the creature stood proudly on wobbly legs and let the muck of its egg dry upon its pebbled skin.  It repeated its sonic cry a fourth time, and this time there was no egg barrier to muffle it; this time, it echoed and reverberated across the darkened cavern.This time, it was answered in kind.The hatchling sensed a creature approaching.  The newcomer was built like itself only much larger, and it repeated the hatchling's sonic cry exactly, right down to the precise pitch and tone.  It towered above the hatchling and stood silently, as if in anticipation of an upcoming event.  The hatchling stood silent as well, waiting to learn what would occur next.A few moments more and another of the eggs started buckling, as the creature inside attempted to make its escape into the world.  It, too, used a sonic scream to disrupt the fabric of its prison; it, too, ripped its way out of its leathery egg and stood for the first time on its own two feet, sticky and wet.  It, too, repeated its sonic cry in triumph, and the firstborn noticed that its sibling's cry was several microoctaves higher than its own and lasted a good seven-thousandths of a second longer.That was all the larger creature was waiting for.  Without hesitation, it repeated the secondborn's cry and struck out with a clawed forelimb.  The third of the eggs, just now starting to buckle and warp, was lifted and ripped asunder.  The struggling creature inside fell to the cold stone with a wet plop, then was pierced by sharp claws and roughly pulled to pieces.  These pieces were fed, bit by bloody bit, to the hungry hatchling siblings by the larger of the beasts, the mother of all three.For such was the way of the destrachans: the last to hatch became food for the others.</blockquote>

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