Fester

Fester
The Adviser

“There is always room to improve oneself. Never let anyone tell you that fate, nature, or the deities themselves have limited you. You may find yourself outsmarted, outmaneuvered, outperformed… but all it takes is a willingness to change to turn the tables and come out on top. If you are willing, I can bring about that change for you.”

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Who is Fester?

Fester is a stern and analytic dragon. He sees learning opportunities in every experience, and can often appear absent-minded or contemplative when one interacts with him due to his tendency to be distracted by this thoughts. When one does manage to have his full attention, he is stoic in manner and curt in phrasing. He communicates far more through body language than words, saving his ability to enunciate for dire circumstances or to ensure a point is completely clarified.

Although he is rarely rattled and can do almost anything with his neutral, vaguely disgruntled expression, within him burns a passion that seems to make him incapable of making light of things. He has little patience for joviality or idleness, and there is an intensity to everything he does that ranges from serious to fanatical. This is most apparent when he is performing alchemical experiments, or interacting with his mate, Nox. Those who have caught him in a rare moment of investment see a dragon on the edge of madness, unable to control or regulate the emotions he usually keeps thoroughly contained. He is an all-or-nothing creature, and once the metaphorical genie is out of the bottle, it takes another drastic occurrence to clear the slate.

As the head of the research and development branches of the clan, Fester’s hobbies include the study of alchemy and combat training. The former sates his obsession with mutagens, while the latter aids in the defense of his laboratory, himself, and most importantly Nox.


Designation

Fester’s role within the clan is twofold. First, he serves as Adviser to the Lead Administrator, effectively making him second-in-command. When the clan’s positions of leadership are called to council, his words carry more weight than others. He is tasked with aiding the Lead Ambassador in choosing the best course of action in any given situation, with regard to the input of his fellow leaders.

Second, and perhaps his preferred position within the clan, Fester serves as the Head Alchemist. When not called to council, he oversees the studies and experiments of the clan’s alchemists. Naturally, he also conducts his own, having personally formulated most of the clan’s mutagenic serums. Given that most of the clan’s alchemical research involves mutating dragons with the intent to improve them, his role and accomplishments have earned him much respect within the clan.

Assimilation

Nox and Fester are the beginning of the clan, in every sense of the word. Even before the clan changed names to Catalyst, and even before the Night Parade could truly be called a caravan, Fester was there. Exiled from his birth clan due to a feeble constitution and diminutive stature, he hunted the wilds around the Seedscar with the hope that the Nature energy would grant him a bit of robustness–or at the very least stave off the worst infections. Whether or not that was actually the case he may never know, as a few years into his plight he met with the young Nox. Freshly evicted from her own clan, the two of them joined forces to wander the wastes in search of a clan that would take them. Their wanderings led them to discover a dwindling subspecies of Nocturne, and in their efforts to aid their survival, they formed a haphazard little clan. Upon meeting a small caravan of Coatl merchants, they gained the idea of traveling the wastes, bringing knowledge of the rare and unique Nocturnes to all while fostering a place they could procreate.

Such a simple life was not to last, however, with Fester’s ravenous mind at work. Free from the struggles of survival, he was still left with a sense of weakness. While they had found a way to help the Nocturnes, he could not truly protect them in any way beyond providing them a place to stay. When the caravan was faced with threats, the best he could do was hide or alert someone who could help. It instilled within him a deep self-loathing and desperation that manifested when he discovered how to create serums and scrolls to alter a dragon’s form. His first test subject was himself, which resulted in his metamorphosis into a Ridgeback. From that point on he was ceaseless in his experimentation, going so far as to mutate the very Nocturnes he and Nox had originally attempted to protect. Their rationale–their realization–was that in order to preserve the individual dragons, they all needed to change and become something new.


Elemental Components

Although one would expect Fester’s innate Plague magic to deal with mutation in some way, what makes it unique is its reciprocating properties. Whereas Nox–and most other members of the clan–prefer to get the first strike on their opponents, Fester makes his presence known on the battlefield… and then waits. He braces himself and allows himself to be struck, his large Ridgeback wingspan allowing him to shield himself and allies easily. As he takes damage, his focus sharpens and his energy concentrates until every sharp edge of his spiny body is coated with virulent ichor. Then, he simply lets loose in physical combat until the magical energy runs dry and the process begins again.

While it wouldn’t seem that such magic would have use outside of combat, Fester uses it as one of his primary sources of strains to test and create new reagents for his mutagenic serums. Additionally, when latent, his magic turns inward and makes him a carrier of all sorts of nasty bugs. One of his favorite parlor tricks is to use that trait to sicken himself out of unfavorable tasks, only to be right as rain some hours later.

In addition to his born magical ability, Fester spends most of his waking hours within the confines of his study. Within the confines of the pestilent cavern is his cauldron, which is crafted from the flesh and bone that grows from the Scarred Wasteland like foliage. It is built and treated to resemble a miniature Wyrmwound, roiling with pestilence and highly mutagenic properties. From this cauldron he devises everything from body-warping serums and ink for scrolls of change to abominable familiars and chemically-treated apparel.


Mutation



Originally, Fester came to the clan as a small and somewhat feeble Fae. He spent most of his time hiding away from the larger members of the clan, studying alchemy and living in fear that he would be seen as an unfit disappointment of a Plague dragon. Although he was still fiercely devoted to and protective of Nox, he could do very little to aid her beyond squeeze into tight spaces and keep an eye out for threats. Thus, he felt he could be a much better guard with a physical prowess to match that of his magical, and began to study ways to change one breed of dragon into another. Baptizing himself in his cauldron of volatile bile, he emerged as a Ridgeback and donned his striking orange armor proudly.

Since becoming a Ridgeback, Fester has grown simultaneously more stoic and more emotional. While he rarely shows expression on his face, the rest of his body language has become much more animated, and his bursts of emotion during fits of passion are much more fanatic. While most dragons of the clan tend to avoid him due to his off-putting demeanor, those who learn how to read him find that few things make him truly as irritable as he seems. Things that do manage to get under his scales, however, turn his dial from zero to a hundred in an instant.


Familiarized

Paradise Zalis

Familiar

These creatures subsist on a diet of fruit. Their ability to spread seeds across a range is vital to their jungle ecosystems.

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Bismuth is Fester’s one and only familiar, and can typically be found perched upon the Ridgeback’s shoulder or faithfully carrying the end of his cape as they move. The Zalis is every bit as quiet and calculating as his master, though when in his cage in Fester's study he is known to sing a soft–some say sorrowful–tune. This leads many to believe that the bird misses his freedom, but the truth of the matter is that Bismuth is one of the most loyal familiars of the clan.