Dragons

Overview

Dragons are creatures as ancient as they are destructive, and they have existed alongside the mortal races from the beginning. It is said that they were originally created to act as the steeds to the Divine, though due to their unruly nature, they defiantly scattered throughout the wilds. Dragons are -- mostly -- destructive beasts, fixated with the hunt, and domination. For this reason, they are equal parts revered and despised, for their strength and courage, and inversely the havoc they create.

Because of the might and scale of these beasts, they have been incorporated into Atharen's mythos for thousands of years. They are related to particular omens, they are often tied to stories and plays, and they can either be interpreted as a symbol of supreme villainy, divine providence or heroic resolve. To many, Dragons are a symbol of how the Gods have largely abandoned the mortal races to their fate, imparting upon them a wretched race so powerful as to be thought near-invincible, left to their own devices. For this reason, rather than being viewed as any other species of animal, Dragons hold a deep cultural and religious significance that has affected Atharen society for thousands of years, and has made them the most legendary of all the world's creatures.

Diaspora

Dragons originated in the province of Mithira, the capital province of the Unbroken Empire, and a land which no longer exists due to the Bleeding. Ironically, however, the Bleeding has acted to create a modern zenith for their kind. During the Age of Tyranny, the Empire hunted Dragons ruthlessly, partaking in these hunts as a national sport, with the goal being their total extinction. This forced them to migrate throughout the world, with their spread creating a larger variety of Dragons, often based on climate and region. When the Empire met its total collapse in the face of the Bleeding, Dragons managed to recover to near their pre-Imperial peak, reclaiming a great deal of land in the ruins of old provincial territories. The Dragons of today still mostly lurk the most isolated corners of civilization, avoiding the sapient races, seemingly for their own safety.

Carrying on the legacy of old is the Daravinic Empire - or the New Unbroken Empire - which still hunts Dragons when they are found. For this reason they are largely absent from Central Mornoth. The areas most commonly inhabited by Dragons are those least populous, with Atharen's south and northwest their primary range of habitation.

Biology, Life Cycle and Reproduction

Dragons are four-legged beasts, with massive, sturdy torsos, long necks and powerful, plated heads. They typically have long tails that they often use to finely tune their movements while in flight, while also utilizing these tails as weaponry. Their wings are, of course, perhaps the most iconic of their features: massive bat-like appendages with incredibly powerful muscles, in fact supernaturally so, capable of carrying their incredibly heavy bodies across hundreds of miles.

Dragons tend to be anywhere from forty to sixty feet in length, depending on their subtype, including their tails. Some Dragons are much larger, such as Black Dragons which tend to be around a hundred feet long, or Tundra Dragons who - while similar in size to other Dragons - have much longer, finer tails. Most of them are around twenty five feet tall if standing on their four legs, though they may appear much taller if suspending themselves on their lower legs alone. Their wingspans often rest around eighty feet in width, though wingspans of sixty to a hundred feet are not uncommon, again based on breed. Black Dragons are known for wingspans of over a hundred and fifty feet in width, while Locust Dragons may achieve fifty foot wingspans at the most.

Drakes (as they are often called) tend to live anywhere from six hundred to eight hundred years. They also mature somewhat rapidly, becoming 'young' or 'teenage' Dragons at around two years of age, and reaching full maturity around the age of five. Among all animals, they are regarded as being some of the most intelligent, though only a rare few can be compared to a member of the sapient races in intellect. These few are likely Mindrot Dragons, Brass Dragons, Crystal Dragons and Black Dragons, though some others without any particular subtype have been known to be intelligent enough to understand language, though they were unable to effectively speak in return.

Drakes are capable of reproduction once reaching adulthood, though with most of them tending to live isolated lives, they rarely encounter other Dragons for long enough to form meaningful relationships and have children with them. Even so, once the child is born, it tends to be left with one parent or another, with the other partner flying off to return to its own den. Reproduction between Dragons is a fairly odd and incomparable experience, as they do not have inherent sexual organs of their own. Instead, in the presence of a potential mate, the pheromones of said mate will result in a neurological process resulting in the production of seemingly temporary sexual organs with which to reproduce. For this reason, there are no 'male' or 'female' Dragons, and which one is impregnated entirely depends on relatively predetermined reactions to one another's pheromones. This, at least, means that any Dragon can reproduce with any other Dragon, which has served to help replenish their population.

Abilities

In general, Dragons are the most deadly animals on Atharen, and those gifted with divine abilities by the Adac - such as Black Dragons - tend to be some of the more powerful beings traversing the planes. While many Dragons belong to some subtype or other, there are abilities innate and universal to all of them, which will be detailed here.

The average Dragon is a Tier 5 beast, with sizes roughly in line with what is stated in the Biology section of this article. They all have the ability to breathe fire (or in rare cases, some other liquid or gas), they can all take flight, and they are all dense and sturdy beasts with natural armor-like plating across their forms. Not all Dragons fall into subtypes, but all subtypes appear to benefit from the general abilities of Dragons.

Some Dragons are much more intelligent than others. Among the most intelligent are the famed Mindrot Dragons, who appear to be capable of performing magic. In fact, it is theorized that the most intelligent Dragons are capable of learning magic, though to a limited degree. While humans can learn specific abilities and refine upon and master them, Dragons tend to understand and master bare concepts, such as producing kinetic blasts or creating wards before them. While most humans tend to use their hands to channel the arcane, Dragons are limited to their breaths, with any of their few and selective abilities tending to come through harrowing roars and shrieks.

Legendarily, some Dragons can use Malformity to transform into members of the mortal races. This appears to be most common among Mindrot and Silver Dragons, in fact, though other cases have been documented. While no Dragon can 'Ascend' in any magic, their uses and restrictions appear to differ, bound by different constraints. Thus, shapeshifting Dragons can be some of the most powerful and versatile among them, and due to their incredible rarity they are written of in countless theories and tales.

Subtypes

Most Dragons belong to a subtype, with all presently known draconic subtypes being listed here. Those who do not belong to a subtype are typical fire-breathing Dragons, typically Tier 5 beasts so long as they have achieved adulthood. Their abilities can be found in the 'Abilities' section, with the subtypes and their unique traits and advantages being listed here, in their individual section. The Tiers of these Dragons are assessed using our Fauna system.

Locust Dragons

Comparatively small compared to most other species of Dragon, the Locusts (or Zandrachen) stand around ten to fifteen feet tall and measure up to thirty to forty feet in length with a wingspan of around fifty feet. While their strength alone is subpar to nearly every other species of Dragon, it's rare that they're encountered alone if at all. Upon sighting one of these monstrous creatures, the adventurer can expect to encounter to meet with a dozen more in a display of coordination and speed unmatched by their cousin species'. It's for that reason that they're believed to possess a higher level of intelligence than other Dragons. Some even go as far as to claim that they have their own society, but this couldn't be further from the truth. While it's true Dragons do not hunt in packs, these Dragons don't hunt, and only seem to swarm unfortunate wanderers that explore certain parts of northwestern Atharen. That isn't to say that an encounter with these dragons means certain death, as their aggression, though intense and destructive, is limited by their territorial nature. Leaving the area will result in a cease-fire where the Locust Dragons return to their caves, regardless of the casualties they have suffered.

Documentation of this species is difficult due to their isolated, dangerous habitat and the likelihood of being attacked in a growing mob of Dragons. Despite the perils, samples of chitinous plates and toxic blood have been retrieved by adventurers that survive their encounters. Their shells are described as hard and flexible, while their wings are exceptionally fragile and similar in appearance to that of a fly. Because of their six legs and lower abdomen in place of tails, some scholars refuse to acknowledge this species as a form of Dragon. The stingers on their abdomens are known to pierce plate armor with general ease and deliver a payload of deadly poisons after breaking off from the body. A Locust Dragon has not been spotted without a stinger before, so it's suspected that the natural weapon regrows over a given amount of time, but this has yet to be confirmed. In addition to the stinger, these dragons are known to breathe high-pressure streams of highly corrosive acid that can reduce an armor-clad knight to soup in a matter of minutes.

Burrow Dragons

Burrow Dragons (or Bordrachen) are the most common to Atharen's southern deserts, tending to live deeply buried within the sand. Though they most often spend their days hibernating and lounging within their own isolated ecosystem, the Bordrachen do occasionally rise from the dirt and sands to hunt, and they tend to bring back a true bounty when doing so. Because of their ability to so easily evade hunters by burrowing deep into the ground, they are among the most populous subtypes of Dragons, with many scholars speculating there to be thousands of them buried beneath the sands. In terms of appearance they are light brown in color, with large heads and huge, powerful wings, which serve as their primary tools of digging and burrowing, as well as taking flight. Their primary method of attack is their fiery breath, with their piercing spear-like tails a secondary method for handling those at their flank or backside.

Fume Dragons

Fume Dragons (or Vögdrachen) are a Tier 5 Dragon. They are often called Red Dragons due to their brick-like color, and their use of their fiery breath as their main weapon. Fume Dragons are incredibly fast, and are poor physical fighters compared to other Drakes, who tend to be larger than them. They make up for this with their sweeping speeds and the vast damage they can cause with their breath, as well as their excellent ability to evade. Their wings are proportionately much larger as compared to their body than with other Dragons, explaining their speed and agility. Fume Dragons were previously most common in Daravin, but have migrated west over time as a result of the hunts. Now, they are common in Radenor, and have even been integrated into the Kingdom's military.

Tundra Dragons

Tundra Dragons (or Mürdonir) are a Tier 6 Dragon primarily found in the Kingdom of Lorien, though they are a critically endangered species due to the Kindred. Like Von Rabe, the Mürdonir originally came from a plane of pure frost, created by Venadak long ago and for inexplicable reasons. Also like him and his Kindred brethren, they flooded into Atharen thousands of years ago through a great portal, settling the world's wintry northeast. While originally the Kindred and the Dragons were ambivalent to one another, the events leading to the destruction of House Reizend put them at odds with one another.

Unlike most Dragons, Mürdonir are not violent, instead tending to act fairly benevolently to the sapient races. They were known to serve as mounts for the Kings of Lorien, and fought against the Kindred when they first emerged. However, this has - over time - resulted in their near extinction, as the Kingdom's institutional power fails to protect them from the roving birds which hunt them in packs, often alongside members of the Order.

Mürdonir are Dragons covered in a fine, but densely plated layer of ice armor. They are incredibly adept fighters, wielding their long tails like spears that they can rapidly thrust and rebuke attacks with. They are also capable of wielding immense, glacial powers that appear almost like magic, creating powerful blizzards and forcing avalanches to run across flat surfaces by compiling and manipulating snow. Their breath is known to be precise and rapid in meeting its destination, able to freeze and brittle even advanced walls within a few blinks of time. As such even a multitude of Kindred struggle in facing them, yet through hundreds of years their numbers have waned to near-nothing, and the remaining few reside in the Graaf-Reinet mountains, awaiting their fate.

Flesh Dragons

Flesh Dragons (or Kundrachen) are Tier 6 beasts, wielding among the most dense external plating, with their scales appearing much like a collection of blades forging their outer layer. Kundrachen are capable of shedding this outer layer whenever they wish, revealing an overflowing molten layer beneath. This molten layer will seemingly infinitely melt and replenish, and with the Flesh Dragons also capable of producing massive gobs of molten spit, they are a lethal and destructive force, though among other Dragons they tend to be slow and less prone to taking flight. Flesh Dragons are wildly aggressive and will almost certainly attack if they are stumbled upon, though again, their relatively poor speeds can prove essential in evading them once discovered. These beasts are somewhat frequently found in Atharen's northwestern wastes, though they also sometimes take residence within mountains. In fact, they are a frequent and bitter enemy of the Gnomes, who have devised countless strategies for dealing with them if they somehow make residence in one of their neighboring peaks.

Brass Dragons

Brass Dragons (or Brondrachen) are among the upper echelon of Atharen's Drakes, those not created by individual Gods to serve some purpose. They are Tier 6 beasts, and are known for their intellect and stunning ability to outmaneuver and deceive. Considering they are among the most intelligent of Dragons on Atharen, they have learned to harness World Magic. Brass Dragons are particularly fond of the magic of Artifice, the source of their name, and frequently use it to augment themselves with mechanical limbs or armor plating. They are also known to design golems, filling their lairs with strange, often useless automatons. Almost all adult Brondrachen are fully plated in dense copper-colored armor, and they typically sculpt and empower their wings with similar techniques to make them more durable and capable of sustaining greater speeds. Considering they are not afraid to flee and repair themselves if damaged, they are incredibly difficult to kill, though due to their reclusive nature they are low in number. They typically live in mountainous caves, and can be found in virtually all of Atharen's mountain ranges save for in Lorien.

Mindrot Dragons

Mindrot Dragons (or Mnirdrachen) are Tier 6 beasts, though the oldest of them are considered Tier 7. They are some of the most hated and feared Dragons of all, given their penchant for attacking human settlements and making them their lairs. Rather than secluded caves or mountain peaks, they prefer to rest in the ruins of castles within walls, or at the heart of a town they made their own. Mindrot Dragons are capable of influencing and controlling the minds of beasts and men with their will alone, projecting a nauseating psychic energy from their brains that acts to degenerate the independent will of others, enslaving them. While the most stalwart of minds might be able to resist their pull, most cannot, and so they can subject entire towns to their desires within minutes. Worst of all, their magical influence appears capable of altering the physiologies of those they capture, slowly morphing them over time to resemble their own vile appearance.

Mindrot Dragons are large, dark-grey colored, sleek beings with a somewhat chromatic color scheme. They do not appear to have scales, but rather a sort of external layer of flesh and skin that almost makes them appear undead. Their body has several gill-like ventilators for what appears to be breathing, each of them glowing a mesmerizing emerald while open. In fact, these are tools that magnify their power to corrode the mind if looked at, for those men and beasts that cannot be as easily subdued. Mindrot Dragons are wildly powerful and breathe a corrosive, fog-like breath, while being equally capable of breathing a dark purple flame. They are also, like other Dragons, skilled and dangerous melee fighters, making them among the most versatile and deadly of all earthly draconic beasts. Mindrot Dragons are most common in Central Atharen, though they have been sighted across the continent.

Blood Dragons

Blood Dragons (or Viledrachen) are Tier 6 beasts, created by the Imprisoned God Valteran to serve him in the Endless War. They are beings of pure blood, much like Ascended Blood Mages. For this reason, their shape can be somewhat amorphous, and their appearance draws no shortage of disgust from onlookers. They are capable of manipulating blood to an exceptional degree, and are known to effectively reanimate their fallen foes by turning their blood into a fully functioning entity, an automaton of theirs capable of suspending itself and fighting viciously. Blood Dragons wield their breath as their primary weapon, acting as a bloody projectile vomit that tends to come out in massive, burst-like quantities rather than a sustained stream. This build-up of vomit is extremely acidic, able to melt almost any material it comes into contact with in mere moments. The rest of their body does not have this trait, making mounting or damaging them feasible, though their liquid and amorphous forms are difficult to damage conventionally. As is to be expected, Blood Dragons primarily live in Bel.

Crystal Dragons

Crystal Dragons (or Koldrachen) are incredibly powerful creatures, but one has never been seen outside of Reverie or Muid. They are Tier 7 beasts and are responsible for the dreams and nightmares of many, their form itself a shifting gallery of blended imagery. Being that Crystal Dragons are essentially living dreams, they wield a very personal connection to mortals, and take interest in their dreamers. The most lucid dreams appear to be ones where their influence is the most tangible, though it is unknown what draws them to specific minds within Reverie.

Due to the nature of their abilities, their power is that of shaping reality itself. This means that within Reverie, they are almost invincible beings of God-like strength, as they can reform the world around any hostile force to be completely at their mercy. Thus, they serve as Kyrikain's great guardians, defending him and his realm.

Black Dragons

Black Dragons (or Nürdrachen, pictured above) are among the most powerful subtype of Dragon, considered to be Tier 7 beasts. They are the servants of the Living God Malek, and enforce his will. They are known by a few within the Black Remedy's inner circle to be the creators and distributors of Beacons, necessary to initiate others into Sigilic Pyromancy. In fact, Sigilic Pyromancy is designed after them, as they breathe natural Shrivenflame capable of obliterating spiritual beings and the undying with incredible ease. Nürdrachen are also massive, onyx colored beasts, much larger than the typical Dragon seen on Atharen.

Because of the rarity of their sightings, they are mostly anomalous. However, scholars of planar cosmology know that they are adept at traversing through the Dead Realm and are capable of consuming and harvesting miasma, as well as breathing and utilizing it for their own ends. This makes them a truly diverse and terrifying beast. Black Dragons are virtually non-existent on the mortal plane, though famously one is known to serve the Court of Dusk in Sil-Elaine, in opposition to its own creator, Malek.

Notes

• Most scholarship on Dragons is done by Lorien native scholars, and so a great deal of literature on them - including their 'academic' names (such as Brondrachen, Koldrachen, etc) - are written in the Rien dialect.
• In order to encounter, fight and especially kill a Dragon, moderator approval is needed. Acquiring a Dragon as a mount is virtually impossible in most circumstances, and this would require Architect-level approval. Even then, this request should be reviewed by multiple Architects before confirmation is given.
• Doppelgangers can become Dragons. They are the only Malformity mages who can.

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