Quests & Challenges

The Caryatid Valley is a broad ravine running nearly the full length of Dragonhome, from the outskirts of Cairnestone Rest in the northwest to the southeastern corner, near the border with the Tangled Wood. The valley takes its name from the statues built along its floor and in niches in the walls, in countless materials and styles, from bipedal oddities of the Second Age to identifiable pre-modern draconic art styles. Riddled with caves and hollows, the Caryatid Valley has served as home to countless dragons; its current masters are Clan Galena, a large and diverse clan whose main lair lies near the Pillar of the World. Prosperous and welcoming, the Galena are known for taking in Earthshaker acolytes, misfits, and wanderers of all sorts. It is said that any dragon who comes to the Galena in peace will never again know hunger or want.

This is not their story.

Near the northern expanses of the Caryatid Valley is a particularly desolate patch of Shattered Plains badland. Shunned even by hearty Earth Flight clans, the area is used by unscrupulous dragons as a dumping ground for unwanted hatchlings. A few survive, finding foster families or growing into dangerous near-feral survivors; most simply die. For many years, the local Beastclans have watched this with indifference, focused on their own survival. However, a splinter group of Longneck have decided to try and help abandoned hatchlings to survive. Some are motivated by compassion, while others hope that an alliance with "tame" dragons will help them solidify their control of the area. It's a bit of a desperate plan, and more than a little crazy, but what do they have to lose?

This isn't quite their story, either.

This is the story of the dragons they took into their care, three hatchlings abandoned to die far from home. This is the story of how those hatchlings came of age and what they tried to build in the wastelands of Dragonhome. This is the story of their nameless clan, struggling for survival at the edge of the Caryatid Valley, and what became of it...

Welcome to yet another Pinkerlocke! With the release of lair tabs, I decided it was time to finally try one of these for myself. This will be using the Pinkerlocke rules, written by Tar, with a few modifications and exceptions:

1. I can't draw to save my life, so I'll be writing for both material and trinket drops. Thus, this Pinkerlocke will probably be lore-heavy.

2. I tend to get attached to dragons too easily, so I reserve the right to move dead dragons with a lot of sentimental value (or high actual value) to the Hibernal Den instead of exalting them. They'll still be dead in the lore and out of the challenge for good.

2a. Hatchlings that lose coin flips will be moved to my main lair and trained/exalted when they grow, because I love dragon money too much to exalt level 1 hatchlings.

3. I'm not going to segregate my regular and Pinkerlocke resource supply, because that way lies hoard-juggling madness, so I will be using my full stock of potions in the coli and battlestoning my Pinkerlocke dragons for survival. However, I will not be equipping any apparel that doesn't come from Pinkerton or from Pinkerlocke coli drops -- gotta fight for dragon dressup! -- and all fams will be from Pinkerton, Pinkerlocke coli drops, or Longnecks that will be written into the story, because apparently I'm also writing Beastclans lore here? Just playing this by ear, folks.

4. Battles will be in Medium mode (randomized teams, venue one tier below the highest-level dragon), moving up to Hard mode for battle item death streaks. If this is too frustrating, or I lose early and decide to start a new Pinkerlocke, this may be downgraded to easy/medium.

4a. The Newbie Mercy Clause: if an RNG-randomized battle team would put a dragon into a venue 10 levels or more above it, the day will switch to Easy mode. The randomized newbie dragon must fight, but the rest of the team composition and venue are free choice. This may or may not apply to death streaks; we'll see how that goes.

5. The Pinkerlocke challenge will be considered won if I can get to five level 25 dragons (with any number of others remaining) and lost if every dragon dies, but if the story comes to a logical conclusion at some other point, I reserve the right to end the storyline and the challenge.

Let's see how this goes!

[b]Pinglist[/b] Weredogalism velvetpaws [b]Cast[/b] [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=49132289] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/491323/49132289_350.png[/img] [/url] Liberty (Wind Skydancer): the leader of the group. Optimistic. Pushy. [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=49169779] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/491698/49169779_350.png[/img] [/url] Davion (Ice Bogsneak): Nervous, defensive hoarder and quartermaster. [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=49158744] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/491588/49158744_350.png[/img] [/url] Cadogan (Plague Ridgeback): Laconic, thoughtful, uncommonly brutal in combat. [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=49365586] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/493656/49365586_350.png[/img] [/url] Palatine (Lightning Ridgeback): Possible mystical-destiny-haver. Strange tastes. [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=49865679] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/498657/49865679_350.png[/img] [/url] Kiyohiko (Ice Spiral): Hotblooded. Keeps secrets. Fond of snakey things.

[b]Day 0: Introducing Our Dragons[/b] I decided to start this Pinkerlocke with full randomness: generating three random breeds, per the chart in the rules, and buying the cheapest dragon in the AH for each of them. This is what the RNG spit out for me: [img]https://i.imgur.com/vS9G5PV.png[/img] Skydancer, Bogsneak, and Ridgeback? All right! A quick trip to the AH and 12000 or so treasure later, I had our intrepid crew of abandoned hatchlings! First up is [b]Liberty:[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/XY2WQ9u.png[/img] (female, Ginger Crystal/Rose Alloy/Yellow Lace, Wind Common eyes) [i]The oldest of the hatchlings, Liberty has the carefree personality of a true daughter of the Windswept Plateau. She isn't exactly sure how she ended up here, but she's sure her parents will be back for her; obviously they just forgot! She's fearless and a touch bossy when she gets a mind to it, which has made her the natural leader of the hatchling group. Her familiar is [b]Alwyn[/b], an ambitious Longneck Wanderer. Born to a dispossessed subclan of criminals and exiles, Alwyn has always dreamed of a homeland for his people... ideally, on his own terms. He likes the hatchlings better than he expected to, but in his mind, they're tools first and foremost.[/i] Next is the Bogsneak, [b]Davion[/b]: [img]https://i.imgur.com/ik1bvKi.png[/img] (female, Peacock Skink/Abyss Spinner/Avocado Spines, Ice Common eyes) [i]The youngest of the three, and the wariest. Davion knows full well she was unwanted and abandoned, and while she largely trusts those around her, she tries her hardest to stay "safe." That means hoarding food and valuables, mostly, and insisting that others rest when they're ill, doing their share of the work of survival. Davion has a nervous temperament and sometimes gets into arguments with Liberty, although she's usually cowed by the Skydancer's superior charisma. Davion's familiar is [b]Ofydd[/b], a Longneck Hunter and seasoned survivalist. He authentically cares for Davion, seeing her as a protege of sorts, and is very focused on teaching her hunting and cold-weather survival. He's aware of Alwyn's ambitions and broadly supports them, but he's not willing to sacrifice the lives of his people to them, and he considers Davion and her adopted clan his people these days.[/i] Finally, our Ridgeback, [b]Cadogan[/b]: [img]https://i.imgur.com/oXTptXB.png[/img] (Male, Obsidian Metallic/Obsidian Bee/Twilight Opal, Plague Common eyes) [i]Cadogan remembers nothing of where he came from, save that it must have been the Wyrmwound. When he was found by the Longneck patrol, he was starving and feverish, and he rested on death's door for days before he finally began to recover some strength. He's naturally quiet and thoughtful, and he has the most regard for the Longneck of the three hatchlings, treating his Longneck companion as his mother. He's begun to develop the kleptomaniac tendencies natural to Ridgebacks, but he does his best to control them -- especially around Davion, who can fly into a panic if something's missing from her stockpile. Cadogan's familiar is [b]Myfanwy,[/b] a Longneck Magi. While not gifted in the healing arts, she nursed Cadogan through his fever and siphoned away the excess Plague mana of the infection, both saving his life and using him as a test subject in her ongoing experiments into the nature of draconic magic. She realizes how deeply Cadogan cares for her, and tries to return his affection, but it's not easy for her to relate to dragons as thinking creatures rather than objects of simultaneous terror and fascination.[/i] [b]Day 1: Coming of Age[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/c8R4VBm.png[/img] [s]CALLED IT[/s] I didn't bother flipping a coin, because I decided to start things off with a bang, so 10 matches in the Training Fields for our freshly-minted level 1 adults it was! Shockingly, it actually went pretty well. There were a few close calls (Cadogan was at 7 HP at one point), but lots of potions use and relatively predictable fights meant the whole team got to level 3 safely. A few notes on my Coliseum strategy for this challenge: [LIST] [*] I'm doing stat growth a little more conservatively than I would a regular glass-cannon-y coli team, with a 3:2:2 ratio of attack stat:Quickness:Vitality instead of my standard 4:2:1. [*] I switched out Davion's starting Anticipate for Scratch, for more reliable damage. Anticitanking is fun and all, and I may move someone to an Anticipate/Guard tank build later in the challenge when level 1s will need bodyguards in higher-level zones, but for now I just need offensive capability. [*] At level 3, Liberty got Aid and Davion and Cadogan both got Sap. MORE HEALS MORE HEALS MORE HEALS [/LIST]

[b]Day 2: Back to Training[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/7QOuGqf.png[/img] 20 uneventful fights in the Training Fields later, everyone is level 4. Technically by "medium" rules, they should be staying in TF until level 7, but I figure next fighting day they're going to Woodland Path for more challenge/XP. -- [i]"Alwyn," said Liberty, "what exactly[/i] is [i]a mith?" Alwyn grunted. Really, the biggest problem with his draconic charge is that she was a thinker. The others were refreshingly practical; even now, he watched from the sentry ledge as the big one sorted the spoils of the day's hunting and the other carefully watched Ofydd show her how to clean a Dwarf Faun. Practical. Not like this flighty, loud, always-thinking thing. "Nobody knows," Alwyn answered, which was not quite a lie. The mith clans were the allies of the Longneck, at least in name, but they met with the other Beastclans rarely and only on their own terms. "They keep to their own lands and their own doings. Shame you ran into them." "They didn't seem like they really wanted to hurt us," said Liberty, her antennae twitching a bit as she spoke. "Or maybe they just weren't very good at it. It... it didn't really seem right to fight them, after a while." And that was the problem with all dragons, wasn't it? They grew too fast. It seemed like Alwyn and his companions had stumbled upon these things as screeching whelps only days ago, and now even Liberty, the smallest of them, was his height and half again. Their first foray into mith territory, they'd limped home, and now they thought it was all beneath them. Alwyn had to swallow down old, reflexive terror. These beasts were children, unaware of their own power. "Well," he replied. "There are other hunting grounds. More monsters, fewer gardeners. There are other places for you, if you're tired of this..."[/i]

[b]Day 3: A New Arrival[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/JoPLwwF.png[/img] Breeding time! Nobody is even close to RTB yet, unfortunately, so I'm going to call an audible and go to the familiar result instead, determining a breed by RPG and buying the cheapest dragon of that breed in the AH. The RNG gives me... [img]https://i.imgur.com/CNI7uL7.png[/img] ... another Ridgeback? Well, let's go with it. Meet [b]Palatine:[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/1gj9dOb.png[/img] (male, Fog Starmap/Cobalt Current/Moon Basic, Lightning Common eyes) [i]It was Davion who found the hatchling: an outsized, gangly thing, longer than her or Liberty, sprawled out in a sleeping pile, breathing evenly. The Bogsneak blinked, then padded closer, only to hear a harsh hiss from a broadly Longneck-shaped pile of fur in the sleeping Ridgeback's shadow. "Let him rest, dragon! He has a great destiny." "He does? Who is he? And who are you?" "His name is Palatine. He has journeyed here on his own, and I am but his guide. My name is Gwawr. The spirits tell me that there is one named Alwyn who leads you?" "Y-yes, I guess so," Davion replied. "He's that way." She pointed one claw at the Longneck dugout, then began to slink away before the disheveled Longneck noticed her departure. Something caught her eye, though: a bright glint of metal in the pile of scrub that the Ridgeback hatchling had dug up as a nest. She snatched it up in one claw. They were some sort of... boots? Sized for a Ridgeback -- too large for her, or even for the hatchling -- but perhaps they'd fit Cadogan?[/i] [img]https://i.imgur.com/gpg12G8.png[/img] In other news, check out Cadogan's sweet spats!

[b]Day 4: Into the Woods[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/zT5tOkq.png[/img] 30 fights in Woodland Path it is! These went fairly well, although I had to fight very cautiously (all the Basilisk-type enemies are total beasts). It's interesting, after spending so much of my coli time in this game with level 25 glass cannons grinding for loot or training fodder, to be fighting very mindfully and worrying about KOs again. I'm burning through a lot of potions. This might be cheating? Anyway, 30 fights in Woodland Path got the team to level 5, very nearly 6. There were only two interesting drops: [item=Grouse Basilisk] [item=Pestilent Slash] The Grouse Basilisk will go back to the lair, to be tended by the Longneck in hopes of getting a steady egg supply, and the Pestilent Slash will be held onto for Cadogan later, if/when he reaches level 11. Sap is just too good to replace right now.

[b]Day 5: And Out of the Woods[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/LKz7oMH.png[/img] The adult dragons of the makeshift clan spend a long day (40 fights!) honing their skills in the Woodland Path. While no notable treasures are found, they grow steadily in strength, reaching level 7. Soon, they may have to face the Scorched Forest that rests at the outskirts of the now-familiar woodland. Meanwhile, at the lair, the Longnecks discuss the new arrival... [i]"Now, then," said Myfanwy. "The dragons are gone. Tell me what you mean by 'destiny.'" Gwawr pushed her fur out of her face, revealing a rather hangdog look. "Well," she began. "It's half-true. I knew this whelp's parents. They... weren't kind. I may have exaggerated a bit to keep the mother from throwing him out herself. But he's got a real destiny, too. The mana -- can't you feel it?" Myfanwy hadn't been focusing before, but once she tried, she could feel what Gwawr meant: a mote of Lightning-elemental power, sharp enough to sting. Even gripped by the overwhelming mana of his sickness, there hadn't been anything like this in Cadogan's heart. She didn't have the experience to say how truly unusual this was, but she couldn't deny it was worth noting. "Is that why he's so frail, do you think? This overload? Be handy if we had a mender." "It may be," replied Gwawr. "Never knew much about mending myself, either. But this one's going to be a mage, mark my words." "If he lives." "... if he lives. True enough."[/i]

[b]Days 6 and 7: Prelude to a Scorching[/b] (Guess who forgot about this yesterday? Oops...) Day 6: [img]https://i.imgur.com/eicIYY3.png[/img] [i]"Dear diary," scratched out Liberty onto a page of her new journal, and then paused to flex her claws. Keeping a firm grip on the little quill Myfanwy had given her was proving difficult, and the low light of twilight was making reading a struggle in and of itself, but she did her best to persevere. It was shameful, really -- a grown dragon like her, a warrior and a hunter, who couldn't even write? Before she'd been lost here, her parents had taught her the basic runic syllables of written Draconic. None of the Longneck knew enough to teach her more, but it was sufficing for spelling out words, just barely. This would get easier, she was certain. It had to. She was a grown dragon, after all, and... reasonably smart, she was sure... And she had to be a fully-fledged dragon. One day, she'd meet her own kind again outside of this little lair, she knew it.[/i] Day 7: [img]https://i.imgur.com/ZHDpjBT.png[/img] Welp. Off to the Scorched Forest with these guys! At least Palatine isn't old enough to fight yet, although tomorrow he'll be in the pool with the rest of them. With a lot of conservative fighting (lots of Aid and potions, some Sapping when the physical fighters had breath for it), 10 nonstop fights in the Scorched Forest went okay, and the team ended up halfway to level 8. The loot was unimpressive, although the Forest does seem to have a lot of journals and books, so Liberty has the materials to cajole the rest of the clan into her little literacy project. They're going to need some bigger quills.

Could you add me to your pinglist? I'd like to keep up with this.
I really like the idea of every dragon starting with a sentient familiar.

Was there a particular reason you used longnecks?
Can't wait for more.

@Weredogalism Sure, I'll add you! And I just went with Longnecks because I like them and they're thematic for Dragonhome, not really any other reason. Thanks for reading!