This evening I dived into fantasy with my kids, and we used plasticine to model a new species.
They called them Chitin Dragons, so I checked some Latin vocabulary and came up with a name: Chitodracus.
There are three of them. They look different, but I’m pretty sure they all come from the same tribe.
Lore. Log Entry BZ-YC-126-0705
We found them near HIP 36601 A 1 – a scorched, airless rock with strange mineral deposits scattered across. A field team stumbled onto a cave system crowned with old Guardian ruins. Inside those tunnels, sensors picked up movement. Deeper scans revealed something unexpected. Creatures, weird-looking ones.
About 2 to 3 meters tall, compact, hunched, with layered exoshells in chaotic colors, like a child’s drawing brought to life. One was curled up like a coral serpent. Another moved like a 8-legged brute. The third stood tall, with stiff antennae and branching claws. None of them showed aggression, but they made clicking, rusty sounds. Might be a form of communication.
They’re organic, but there’s something underneath. Chitin-like plating over what could be tech—maybe synthetic nerves, maybe hollow. The team couldn’t get a clear scan through the outer layers.
Some scientists think they’re Thargoid offshoots, forgotten subspecies, abandoned ages ago. Others say they’re constructs, built to mimic life and seeded across moons like probes or sentries. There’s even a fringe theory they were once pets, domesticated and later left to survive on their own.
Whatever they are, they haven’t left the caves. They just patrol. Slow, circular paths, always along the same lines. Like they’re waiting.
For a signal. For orders.Or maybe... for someone to come back.
