Saurians
Summary and Origins
When the ancient dragons first created life on IIo, they quickly realized that their magickal experiment was too powerful as life exploded, draining their collective magicks and causing one of the great Lessenings of the dragons. Plant life, along with Yggdrasil, and the rise of insects and fish brought great fear to the dragons. The magickal repercussions did not end on the main planet of the Realm of IIo and life began on not only the planets of the Realm of IIo, but across all of the Realms of the Multiverse.
When the dragons of IIo could no longer allow the abomination of uncontrolled life to continue, they combined their powers to attempt to bring their experiment back under control and back to a life-form similar to their own design. The result of their attempt were the saurians.
Possessing untold elemental magicks, the saurians prospered and evolved quickly. Soon many different races of the Saurians spread across the face of IIo. Their race was treated like an infestation of bugs, but the dragons, who were even then usually solitary, found that the mighty saurians could match them in power when they ganged up on them. The ancient dragons, fearing another Lessening if they were to try to join their powers together again, retreated from the surface world of IIo and allowed the Saurians to live, hoping that the short-lived creatures would soon die off on their own.
They were sorely disappointed. For hundreds of millions of years, the saurian civilization was ascendant on IIo. Still, the saurians respected the many dragons sought refuge on other planets, where they found friends and allies in the unaltered life-forms there. Those dragons that refused to leave IIo explored the world underground and ventured to landscapes unsuitable for saurian habitation. For their part, most saurians respected the god-like dragons and their immense power, but they banded together and fought off any threat to their land.
The saurian civilization had many fruits, both technological and artistic, but the ancient dragons could never accept their place as fellow citizens of IIo when there were still dragons alive that could remember ruling all of existence--the Aether Realms. Finally, the dragons of IIo combined their fear and hate of the Saurians with their potent magicks and created the Comet, tearing apart the Aether of the universe and making off-world travel nigh impossible.
The Comet succeeded in destroying most of the saurians. Those few left banded together to create impregnable fortresses and citadels where they continued to live a hunted existence for millions of years as dragons fought the new invaders of their homes: the elves. So jealous and hateful were the dragons of the saurians, that any sign of their once great civilization was destroyed by them--leaving only the bones of the dead as markers of their existence.
Although their technological and cultural advances faltered as they lived in the years after the coming of the Comet, their magicks continued to improve, and their citadels stood for aeons. Even after the last saurian died, their magicks continued to live on, preventing the dragons from destroying their great citadels. When the elves were finally overthrown by the humes and tauren races, and magicks were sealed from IIo by the seven archmagi, the great citadels of the saurians were enveloped in the many subRealms that could no longer exist in the main dimension of IIo. Finally, there was no trace of the once great civilization of the saurians on IIo.
Their story did not end there however. When the Seal of the Seven Archmagi was sundered by the reality-warping technologies of humes, the great citadels were returned to the Realm of IIo proper. There, the long-slumbering magicks of the saurians empowered the closest genetic relatives they could find: birds.
Hence the birth of the aviadins and all of their atrocities.
Extensions
The legend of the Saurians has been extended to include the aviadins as the divine inheritors of their ancient power. The aviadins have established themselves as gods in their own legends, and regularly warp and pervert any of the ancient artifacts and magicks they can find.
The true inheritors of saurian magick, the lizardfolk, have been regulated to no more than the slaves and thralls of the aviadins in their twisted extension of the legend.
The Legend Today
Aviadin commoners are nearly always unaware of the true origins of the saurians, believing the stories and tales that their shamans hand down to them from birth. They are regularly sent into lizardfolk communities to tell the tales to new generations of lizardfolk and brainwash the youth. Most aviadins relish the opportunities to be presented as gods to the lizardfolk, since the shamans act as speakers of the gods in their own communities.
Related Legends
The Beginning of Life on IIo
The Comet
Yggdrasil