Sewer Lizards

Sewer Lizards

	There was a great deal of genetic engineering going on throughout WW3 by all of the participants and the creature known as a Sewer Lizard is one of the most well-known examples of a “successful” project gone awry. The Chinese, whose lack of ethical restrictions on their research set them far ahead in cloning and genetic manipulation of animals at the start of the war, desired to create biological counters to the tactical supremacy of the Russians. A number of secret labs labored to deliver something that could rend steel and flesh alike while being resistant to conventional munitions.

The choice of a reptile template had a number of sound, logical reasons behind it. Even early in the war, it was already becoming obvious that reptiles were resistant to some chemical weapons (particularly blistering agents) and entirely immune to almost the entire known body of biological weapons. Thick skin and natural armor plating combined with the ability to clot and recover from trauma quickly (not to mention the prospect of regenerating severed limbs) seemed to be ideal traits for the battlefield. And the propaganda value for the Chinese in unleashing living dragons seemed enormous.

The first living prototypes were hatched after only two years work, ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, the neural implants required to control the new creatures were far behind schedule and the facility in which the prototypes were being kept was captured by the Russians in the meantime. As commandos stormed the labs, many of the experiments were destroyed by the scientists but a single bleeding heart found himself unable to fulfill the command to eradicate the living culminations of his research. Equally incapable of letting the juvenile lizards fall into enemy hands, he began flushing as many specimens as possible down the toilet. When the Russians finally found his stall, he had released two entire clutches into the plumbing.

The story eventually emerged in the media and became a scandal of the highest degree, essentially ready-made propaganda for American conquerors who sought to display the previous Chinese government as irresponsible. The lizards themselves thrived, moving from sewer systems to rivers and vice versa in many cases. Today they are prevalent despite municipal countermeasures and cleaning out a nest of Sewer Lizards is a task commonly given over to GEC.

While a just hatched sewer lizard will fit comfortably in the palm of an adult human, they are considered sexually mature adults within two years and will grow as large as their food source and habitat permits them to, the true upper limits being purely mechanical in nature. There is some variety in appearance but generally the lizards will have long snouts and thick, overlapping scales. These scales shed regularly and are considered to be the most obvious sign of a sewer lizards presence. Additionally, some sewer lizards have bony plates protecting their heads, joints, or backs and a few have spines which protrude from their tails.

Most adults subsist off of a diet of rats (including Muta-rats) which they devour with gusto but the rodents also represent one of the few checks on the lizard population, frequently terrorizing their nests in pursuit of eggs. Juvenile lizards on their own also make a tasty snack and have only their speed to protect them as they hunt insects to provide the protein they need to grow to adulthood.

Once mature, the lizards become fiercely territorial, particularly during mating season.