Leviathan

"While in deep water, be wary for the Leviathans. They are to be feared and respected, and also killed if spotted" General notice from the Dragoian Imperial Navy.
Leviathans are an immense all female DragonKin species that live in the oceans of Dragoia (Planet). Their average natural lifespan is around 10,000 years but it is considered extremely rare for any to reach this age. Their average size is 2km for children (so weak and abnormally flat-chested, even by newly born/hatched DragonKin standards, that they are believed to be males to the Dragoians and Humans, both of whom are ignorant of the nature of the Leviathans and DragonKin in general), and 5km for adults (known as females by Dragoians and Humans). Children start to develop noticeable breasts and grow larger and stronger, becoming fully grown adults at around age 100. Many individual Leviathans do not last more than a few years, as older and larger Leviathans will often cannibalise young ones while their usual food supply replenishes.
==Overview==
Leviathans are immense ocean-dwelling semi-sentient creatures that devour sea-mammals (typically whale-like creatures) and various fish as a diet. Leviathans are also known to devour merchant and naval ships when living food supplies are low. Despite being able to breathe comfortably underwater, they are also capable of living above the sea as they can breathe air, but since they do not have legs and food large enough to sustain them don't exist on land, they do not. In ancient times when non-sentient dragons roamed Dragoia (Planet), leviathans were known to jump out of the ocean and devour low flying dragons.
Leviathans have been known to exist in Ancient Dragoian times, yet the leviathan queen has been known to exist since early Ancient Dragoian history with both her appearance and abnormally large size being consistent in all accounts of her despite the average natural lifespan of a Leviathan being 10,000 years.
Leviathan nostrils as well as their exposed jaws let a considerable amount of water into their bodies, this water is converted into life energy but is not quite enough to survive on, as a result leviathans still have to eat solid matter (typically fish and sea mammals, but sometimes other leviathans) but this intake is considerably lower than what other DragonKin their size would need, with just a few hundred tons of organic matter required to sustain them for a month. Despite their colossal intake of water, water levels on Dragoia (Planet) remain stable due to the huge volumes of slowly melting ice on the two poles and Leviathans sweating out excess water intake.
Leviathan eyesight is almost universally dreadful, often being incapable of telling two objects of the same size apart. Very few Leviathans have good eyesight, with those that do often living to older ages due to being able to tell the difference between a large edible creature or ship and another Leviathan who may eat them.
Estimates from both Human nations and the Dragoian Empire put total Leviathan numbers around 2500 with the greatest concentration found in the Leviathan Sea, with the vast majority of these being children.
==Technology==
Leviathans do not possess any technology since they use their immense size and bulk to fight and hunt. This immense size makes Leviathans not need technology, and also makes it semi-impossible to create it due to huge resources being needed to create the simplest of things.
Very rarely, smarter Leviathans have been known to crudely dismantle the ships they attack, and use parts from these ships to create crude weapons and armour. This happens so rarely, that it's believed that the Leviathans are not even capable of technological advancement and are about as intelligent as most sub-human species.
==Culture==
Leviathan culture is solitary, with only families sticking together to hunt. Children will band together with other children to stop them being injured when hunting. Adults, however, will hunt alone to stop competition for food within a localised area. During long periods with small food supplies, leviathan families will often fight over food with the winning family's adults cannibalising the losing family leaving the small food supplies for the winning family's children.
Leviathans rarely communicate with each other, and are one of very few intelligent species in the Dragoian Home Galaxy to not speak the galactic standard language which does little to quell the common belief that Leviathans are not sentient life-forms on the level of Dragoians or even Humans. Some individual leviathans have learned the galactic standard language, albeit nowhere near as fluently as native speakers due to the universal DragonKin constant of struggling with languages other than their own birth language.
==Menace==
Despite small population numbers and long lifespans, Leviathans are often considered a menace by both the Dragoians and the Humans. This is due to the Leviathans perceiving the small Humans and Dragoians in their boats to be just a very large fish, in other words, food.
While the Humans lack the resources to build larger and stronger ships which can successfully fend off a Leviathan, the Dragoians can. The constant threat of Leviathan attack has prompted the designs of Dragoian ships to be long; thin; have heavily armoured hulls and sides; powerful surface propellers to create a long disturbed wake to simulate a Leviathan's tail; and also giant cannons designed to punch holes in a Leviathan (as well as any opposing vessel). These trends also introduced the Dragoian "Figurehead" style of ship, which has it's bow shaped to look like a DragonKin's head along with painted eyes to try and trick the Leviathans into thinking that the Dragoian ship is actually another ocean bound DragonKin and not prey. The large propellers on the upper decks of many Dragoian ships are a further anti-leviathan measure, as while the speed gains are barely measurable, the propellers disturb the water for a long distance behind the ship to make the ship appear bigger as if it was moving a long tail to the poor eyesight of a Leviathan. While these propellers seem ungainly and make the ships look top heavy, compared to the lower hull their weight plus that of the towers they are mounted on is insignificant in relation to the entire ship.
==Notable Leviathans==
*Leviathanessa - Gigantic Leviathan know as the "Leviathan Queen"
*Laevia - Leviathan tech genius (by Leviathan standards)
Category:Species
Category:Dragoia (Planet)