Duarga
(#1818855)
I will end her, I swear it.
Lotus
Plague Sprite
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Energy: 48/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Plague.
Female Imperial
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
24.03 m
Wingspan
23.92 m
Weight
9173.47 kg
Genetics
White
Iridescent
Iridescent
Crimson
Shimmer
Shimmer
Violet
Smoke
Smoke
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 25 Imperial
Max Level
STR
129
AGI
9
DEF
6
QCK
50
INT
8
VIT
9
MND
6
Biography
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  DUARGA   Warrior | Scout | Carrier  "There are curses among the Plaguebringer's blessings." _______________________________________________________ Duarga's presence in the clan can be explained simply as 'irregular'. While most dragons settle into the clan or quickly move on after their business is done, she does neither. The Imperial is gone for weeks at a time to places no one can guess, and when she finally does return she's anything between furious, stoic, and depressed. The only mood no one ever claims to see her in is 'happy', if they manage to spot her at all before she ventures away to her small claim of territory on the Refuge's outskirts, far from anyone else.A few of the more common opinions about Duarga mention how she never gets close to anyone but Zarim--and that's meant literally--and how no one has ever seen her without that huge ruby amulet, not even when she comes back wounded and bruised with the chain bloodstained and obviously rubbing something raw. More than a few claim to have overheard Duarga arguing with the Fae about it when she has injuries that need tending, but the second Duarga gets a scent of them she goes silent and dragons get a sense of danger that quickly sends them running. Only the oldest of the clan are aware of Duarga's personal vendetta yet to be settled, and even fewer know the importance of her amulet. If merchants wish to think it's a gem, she'll let them. If the travelers think she avoids them out of dislike, so be it. After all this clan has done for her, even if no one can truly fix what she's been cursed to carry, even if they will only see a sullen, angry fighter when they look at her, she owes them her protection. That they'll never know the full extent of what she's protecting them from is a blessing, for them and for herself. |
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The clans of the Rotrock Rim have long since grown strong and sturdy. At the Wyrmwound’s edge they test themselves against their deity’s masterworks, and those that fail these tests find their diseased and feeble bodies cast out before their last breaths escape them. Among the outcasts, those who return are looked upon as an omen. Whether the omen is welcome depends on the clan and which stories are told around their flames at feasting hours.In Duarga’s clan, such omens meant ill fates. Dragons not yet strong enough to prove they deserved survival, but strong enough to ensure their weakness infected others before they inevitably perished from Plaguebringer’s tests. Her father had been cast out in such a way, and none in the clan had given her family more than brief condolences as they passed in the markets. Her mother was distraught, growing weak as she refused meals and found sleep escaping her each night. |
She and her siblings joined the ranks of the warriors to earn their stay. Her brothers leaned more toward hunts, while her sisters fought off rival clans. Duarga herself wasn’t nearly so interested in fighting, so instead she took to exploring the outskirts of their territory, scouting as much as she was warding off potential aggressors. Her wings could be seen for leagues in any direction when she had need to stretch, and although her fanciful colors were more attractive than some of the other faces in the clan, the massive size of an Imperial donned in bone armor was no less intimidating.
The years came and went, and Duarga’s siblings gradually parted ways to raise clutches of their own, her own suitors briefly humored but ultimately Duarga always returned to exploration. She knew the Boneyard’s skeletal landmarks as well as her own scales by now, called on as a guide by allied clans making pilgrimage to the Wyrmwound. It was upon coming home from such a trek that she first encountered the young dragon known only as Runt.
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Runt was a sickly little Ridgeback, pallid flesh with discolored blotches already marring her yellowed scales and thick veins leaving wriggling lines of red visible along her wings. Anyone could look at her and know instantly she was unwell, but to have made it this far into the Scarred Wasteland alone, she must have had some sort of strength under her scales.
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Duarga knew something was amiss, but she was never able to pin her claw on it, and eventually Runt began returning looking no more unwell than usual. Looking back, the Imperial wonders how she didn’t realize sooner how strange it was that a dragon barely into adolescence would wander so close to the Wyrmwound. Even stranger that with each visit, her health only improved.
| As it is want to do, time passed for Duarga’s clan. Runt began to outgrow her small secluded cave, venturing closer to the clan that had over the past few years come to think her appearance was some odd benign condition rather than any sort of disease. The Ridgeback was healthy enough, even taking to flight with relative ease though her haggard half-starved form never truly filled out. |
No more than a year had passed since she’d come to dwell in the central parts of the clan. She’d gone to their shaman as an apprentice, almost obsessed with the lessons of Plaguebringer. The aged Guardian was the first struck suddenly by one of Plaguebringer’s blessings. It surprised them all because of every dragon in the clan, he had been the most resolute, never so much as sneezing even when the rest of them were suffering from whatever the winds brought down to them. The sudden onset took his sight, then his sense of smell, and within only a few days they had his pyre burning high into the night sky after his lungs gave out.
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Duarga was not the only one to witness Runt take up his place before the embers cooled, nor did it escape their notice how pilgrimage to the Wyrmwound became a weekly occurrence despite fewer dragons wishing to make the journey. The thought crossed their minds, looks passed over feast fires when the Ridgeback was absent, and whispered theories spread like a wildfire. Though she now called herself Pestilence, only one word echoed among the clan. |
" C a r r i e r "
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Duarga’s clan had stories about Carriers. Not the dragons who simply spread their ailments without knowledge or care, not those carrying ills most could ignore, nor whose disease spread slow and forced all around to adapt and become stronger. No, these dragons were curses in their own right, a perversion of Plaguebringer’s teachings, disease meant only to kill, never to strengthen, never to test. Duarga had heard of one in a clan to the south, who had sought out a gathering of Imperials, not many, but enough. The four headed Emperor that appeared in the Carrier’s wake took many clans and many deaths to finally put down. The clan knew the dangers even a fledgling Carrier could bring upon them. 'Pestilence' indeed. |
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Duarga was the first to volunteer to follow the Ridgeback to the Wyrmwound to confirm their suspicions, having made the trip numerous times, but the other gathered parties shushed her, citing her size and vibrant colors as far too obvious to travel subtly. Her features twisted and a few scuffles broke out, but eventually she acknowledged their point. One of the Mirrors offered to be their scout, his scales the color of ashy red ground and the same off-white as bone. He could easily hide, being camouflaged and so much smaller than Duarga was.They sent him off a few hours after Pestilence left for her next pilgrimage. Typically she would return within a week, a fortnight at most, but this time she was back within the day, and their scout pointedly absent.
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He never returned to the clan. The meetings became more sparse as they lost more dragons to illness the likes of which they’d never imagined in their worst nightmares. Of course Duarga believed such blessings were meant to weed out the weakest among them, but not when half a dozen ailments struck at once, only a handful of them familiar, and even less lacking in lethality. She watched a whole nest of hatchlings fresh from their shells already wheezing and half encrusted with gembond, doomed before they took their first steps on dry ground. The eggtender had collapsed in shock, and the Imperial would never forget how their tender’s fever spiked and burnt him from within after Pestilence visited on pretense of ‘offering condolences’. The clan avoided the cursed Ridgeback at every turn, if they were well enough to still walk. Any that could had long since flown away to some other territory, but Duarga felt a duty to her home. This same clan had exiled her father to keep weakness from infecting their homes, and she would ensure this new weakness was not allowed to destroy what her father had been sacrificed to maintain. |
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There were only a handful of dragons healthy enough for battle by the time Duarga managed to organize what was left of the clan. Most of her siblings had been felled by disease, their families fled or perished with them, but her kin were not the only ones to number among the clan’s warriors.
The remainder of a once proud Mirror pack, from two dozen to only four.
A young Guardian clad in the bones of her former Charge, aching for vengeance.
Two Pearlcatchers both struck with affliction that turned their natural ichor to pure acid, their pearls deformed and claws burnt from trying to put a stop to the melting.
The last true mage of their clan, the poor Tundra stuck with a rage so unlike him.
And Duarga, white scales still gleaming, both pairs of wings as vibrant as they’d always been, and mind slowly coming to realize there was something wrong with that.
Pestilence returned from her pilgrimage to the sight of Duarga’s gathered warriors... and she left.They watched the Ridgeback fly off, they watched until they saw not even a hint of her yellowed hide, and they stationed a lookout all night afterwards.
| Duarga attempted to celebrate with the clan, though none of them were particularly set at ease knowing the Carrier was still out there. They hunted a massive boar, feasted, then all pretended to sleep peacefully the next fortnight. For the most part, Duarga kept her distance from the rest of her clanmates. The Imperial stayed in her quarters whenever possible, only poking her head out to eat and assure everyone ‘Yes, I’m fine’ when they began passing by to check in. |
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Maybe she could have, if only her visitors hadn’t fallen suspiciously ill after coming to see how she was.
Pestilence had been a Carrier, laden with whatever deadly ills and lethal viruses she could find on each pilgrimage to the Wyrmwound. In the wake of such a dragon, being a carrier was no less of a curse.
Before any of the others could be certain of what she already knew, Duarga declared she would hunt the Ridgeback down and end her once and for all. It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it felt very much like running away when she took flight from her clan with all she could carry.
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Exalting Duarga to the service of the Plaguebringer will remove them from your lair forever. They will leave behind a small sum of riches that they have accumulated. This action is irreversible.
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