Flight Rising Discussion

And Plaguebringer, because she can't fit in the title! The gist of my decision to start this thread is that I'll be writing a glimpse into my Plague rep Sigil's backstory for RoR, and would like some inspiration to get me started. So, what does the Scarred Wasteland look, sound, smell like to you? What would it be like if you met the Plaguebringer herself? I'm talking aesthetics here- describing Plague-related things with all the senses. It would be very interesting to find out how the FR community describes the Plague flight in different ways!

Whoa, this thread plummeted down FRD really fast. Surely someone is willing to share their Plague headcanons?

strap urselves in kiddos lets take a ride

here we go




The Wandering Contagion - The outer "border" of the plague lands, thickest in the east where the Wasteland borders the the Tangled Wood. The landmass itself seems to be alive and over generations seems to migrate outwards if not actively combated, giving rise to its name. Have you ever walked on a thick mossy forest floor? Think that, but more red and fleshy. Lots of organic matter to support a lot of life, thick and humid atmosphere. It occasionally grows tendrils to claim and strangle plant growth and sheet membranes to capture animals that wander by to nourish it. The Tidelord has set strong westward inland tides to prevent its encroach into the Sea of a Thousand Currents. On the south, the land borders the Reedcleft Ascent, where the continuous air currents ward off its growth. In the west, where the Contagion crawls up the backs of the peaks of the Crystalspine Reaches... strange things are to be found.

The Abiding Boneyard - By area, the largest part of the Scarred Wasteland. A massive unending desert, a dragon without excellent navigational skills will be lost here for eternity. Its widest part reaches out north towards Dragonhome, where the Wandering Contagion is thinnest. Dry and rainless, very little vegetation. Very hot during the day, freezing at night. Few to no sandy areas, occasional scrub lands, but mostly just dry, cracked, and parched earth. Almost all clans that live here are nomadic as there are not enough resources in any area to support a family of dragons. Plant eating dragons are few here, and those that rely on agriculture tend to live in the southeast, where irrigation from the Sea of a Thousand Currents allow for desert subsistence farming. The bones of those who died ages past still remain, it is a graveyard for the weak.

Rotrock Rim - By area, the smallest part of the Scarred Wasteland. It is a ring of vegetation and life nourished by hydration and heat from the Wyrmwound. An oasis in the desert of the Boneyard. Where the desert lays unchanged for centuries, the life here undergoes continuous metamorphosis with speed unmatched by the normal processes of natural selection. A botanist could catalogue all the plant life and return a decade later to find the species completely reinvented. The dragons here are flexible, malleable, and adaptive. The wider your diet, the more ways you have of obtaining food and shelter, the greater your chances of survival here. The place in the Wasteland that most non-Plague dragons would find habitable.

The Wyrmwound - The heart of the Scarred Wasteland. The Plaguebringer spends the vast majority of her time here. An enormous crater filled with.... some kind of liquid. The lake boils, possibly from geothermal heating, but more likely from all the bacterial activity. A great lake to dragons, a cauldron for the Pestilent one. There is viral life in the lake and it is full of proteins. Very nourishing, if it didn't kill you first. Few dragons live here. Most who spend time here live in the Rim and commute in when they are capable of it. Dragons who visit the Plaguebringer here are the most devoted and seek to meet her in person, they are a scarred and mutated lot. Strong and weak by turns, full of cancerous growths - they either express some disease, or they are non-symptomatic. Everyone carries something. They are dragons who are willing to expose themselves to viral infections, some to see if they can best the sicknesses, others seek to be changed into a new form. Few are up for the challenge, fewer survive.


The Plaguebringer wants nothing more than for her creations to spread and thrive. Her affections are given in the form of commands and challenges for her followers to meet or fail. This may seem cruel, but mortal morality is nothing to an unending god. She constantly pushes her own into activity, idleness without purpose is waste, and change is the proponent of success. Good changes are to be kept, poor changes are to be discarded, and how would one ever know which was which if one did not first change?

She appears to dragonkind as a great wyrm, and her eyes glow malevolently red with plague magic. Her wings constantly decay and regrow, her flesh is not muscle and sinew but a seething mass of virulent organic matter that pulsates and moves beneath her apparent skin. Her body creates deadly pus that form boils that grow and grow until they burst and drain away. Her followers say her size and shape changes constantly as new growths appear and old parts rot away. She is fearsome, terrifying, and so disgusting to an extent that inspires true awe.



EDIT: also everything smells like death. either dry death or wet death. it's hard for scavengers to find carcasses bc EVERYTHING SMELLS LIKE ROT (im kidding) (or am i)

@acheronta
*slow clapping* The descriptions conjure a vivid image of the Scarred Wasteland in my mind, and your take on the Plaguebringer is A+++. At first glance, Plaguebringer may seem like an evil tyrant who wants her followers to constantly suffer, just to earn her respect. However, as you mentioned, 'idleness without purpose is waste' and 'change is the proponent to success' are intriguing morals for such a powerful figure. I like the way she encourages perseverance and hard work through her 'tough love' myself! From your headcanon, the Plaguebringer's ideals are quite similar to how I view the Lightning flight's motives, as shown in an old thread of mine As well as being two of the least hospitable flights to live in, they also share traits of ambition, resourcefulness, and sometimes, moral ambiguity. It all adds up to some interesting, if not conflict-ridden, interactions between Plague and Lightning in my lore. The reps for these two flights loathe each other...and it's a long, long story, xD.

May I ask, how do you think the Plaguebringer feels towards her sister today? It's clear there was quite some fighting between them in the Third Age, and I'm curious as to whether she would just focus on her own flight's advancement now or continue to attack the Gladekeeper.
Thank you very much for sharing these ideas with me! Writing my Plague rep's bio is going to be even more exciting thanks to your awesome headcanons.

@acheronta Thank you for sharing, bless you. 8;D
I especially like the description of the Plaguebeinger herself. ;o

@acheronta
"Her body creates deadly pus"
I read that as puns.
I am hopeless please bury me.

The Wandering Contagion functions close to the creep of StarCrafts Zerg alien race.
It's a living structure forever trying to spread and get bigger. Plague clans are however able to build their nests around it - sometimes even in it - with special organ-like structures.

The Abiding Boneyard is, unlike the actual icon shows because it looks ugly, a giant black purplish desert with a menacing red sky above it.
Deep beneath it is the tissue of the Contagion. During its tries to devour the land, the Contagion pretty much turns the former healthy earth into the desert of the Abiding Boneyard above it.

The Rotrock Rim is just a cauldron of the tissue from the Contagion to protect the Wyrmwound in it.

The Wyrmwound functions as something similar to a heart or brain for it. Most probably both. Some clans say the Plaguebringer is what keeps it alive, some say the Wyrmwound is its own creature.

Also, in my headcanon the Plaguebringer herself is a silent, yet gruesome creature that never hurts anyone or anything without a plan or need behind it.
That does not necessarily mean, however, that those needs are rational.

@QuetzalQueen

Yeah, I agree that Lightning has a similar... drive! I kind of based my thinking on this old fr tumblr post where the admins compared each flight to a dnd alignment. And both Plague and Lightning are high on the chaotic change scale (as opposed to, say, Earth and Ice which are on the opposite lawful constancy side).

Where Plague and Lightning differ is methodology I think. It's notable that Plague dragons are described "as strong and adaptable as the plague they spread." Whereas Lightning dragons "are the most ambitious, changing the world to adapt to them, rather then adapting to the world." SO THIS IS QUITE COOL, because in this way they are foils to one another. Plague is self-change oriented: adapt to suit your circumstance, whereas Lightning is environment-change oriented: adapt your circumstances to suit you.

As for sisterly rivalry, I imagine the dragon gods aren't much for personal grudges? At least I don't think Plaguemom is, she's got other priorities as the living embodiment of her element. Dominance is the name of the power game, and I think that's her main interest. Spreading her power and influence is the biggest goal, and she's got five territories on her borders to engulf first before launching pointless attacks on the Gladekeeper at the Behemoth across the continent. Although since their magics are so antithetical perhaps she finds the Gladekeeper's existence more irritating and bothersome than any other god's, like say, the Flamecaller. So I guess if a good opportunity presented itself she'd totally go after her sister over the others, possibly.

Also I figure if the other gods weren't asleep in the pillar at the time, she would've scrapped with them too. Good thing the Arcanist was holed up in the Observatory or she would've fought him. PLAGUEMOM WILL FIGHT ERRBODY



@Mystica

Thank you! I'm glad you like my interpretation of plaguemom. :D



@Forelle

i'll just bet she spawns puns. deadly pun filled pus. pusns. as infectious as any biological agent, dad jokes as torturous as any plague



@Asmo

yooo i dig the idea that the Boneyard is what's left behind after the Contagion gets through with the turf. that is cool i am takin that with me :D