View source for The Saurian Cosmology

The Saurian Cosmology is a [[poem]] recorded from the [[Lizardfolk]] oral tradition by, as the historian and divinity student K———— wrote, "an unlucky series of flavorful graduate students." The name is a scholarly invention; the true [[Draconic]] name of the work is unknown. In his epigraph on the subject, K———— writes:

<blockquote>Like those of many tribal peoples, [[Lizardfolk]] beliefs are varied, informal, syncretic, and variously expressed. Common to almost all tribes is a belief in an entity known as [[The Mother]], the progenitor of the universe and creator of the Lizardfolk, who after creation left the surface for the warm, dank caverns at the heart of the Earth. In the Mother’s absence, a vast roster of minor gods – generally euhemerized ancestors, culture heroes, borrowed foreign gods, and saurifications of natural phenomena – governs the sacred. Some illustration of this can be found in the so-called “Saurian Cosmology.”</blockquote>

The standard translation into the Common tongue comes from [[elf|Elven]] High Prefect [[Elandar Ancientblooded]]'s [[Crusader’s Guide to the Blasphemies of the Barbarous Races]], and is provided below.

== The Saurian Cosmology ==
<blockquote>"Like everything, the world hatched from an egg.

The Mother split it open, and the shell's

two pieces formed the vast bowl of the earth

and the dome of the sky, and mountains were
 
the jagged edges. From within, the fell 

and fey and noble spirits all were birthed,

and they became the trees, the beasts, the birds,

the fish, the stones. The greatest of her brood
 
became [[the gods]], the numberless, who berth

among the stars. The Mother, to ensure

that all should be maintained, formed from the crude

clay of the earth the [[lizard folk]] to rule
 
over creation. Then the Mother turned

to gaze upon the boundless plenitude

and beauty of her issue, sharp and cruel;

it pleased her. Satisfied, she left to sleep 
 
belowground, where the pillars of earth stood.

The gods, desiring to possess the jewel

of her creation, came down from the deep

night sky and warred together, raising hordes
 
of monstrous [[men]] and [[elves]], their blood like pools

of wine staining the stone of their tall keeps.

But when they turned their savage spearpoints toward

the lizard folk, the Mother stirred below.
 
In rage, she raised the mighty waves to sweep

the mammal armies from the earth, and for

her lizard children, made the waters flow

and placed her egg, the [[moon]], into the skies
 
to rule the tides. When [[the gods' final war]]

destroys the earth, she will emerge anew

to crack the moon, and a new world will rise.

Like everything, it will hatch from an egg."</blockquote>