Obsidian

CALCIFER (Plague/Fire/Light Subspecies)
The ungodly spawn of fire and death, their creation was quite an accident. It is said that long ago, when the Wyrmwound was new and the Flamecaller still stoking her forges, the Plaguebringer decided to experiment with the materials she had at hand. She sent the Flamecaller a gift, an egg that contained some of the contaminated slime from the Wyrmwound. The Flamecaller, incubating the gift as she did all eggs from the fiery lands, dropped it into a pool of lava. Its shell broke apart from the heat, and the poisonous sludge inside quickly spread across the molten surface, glowing a radioactive green as it worked its magic. Enraged, the Flamecaller scooped up the contamination and threw it into the sea, believing that it would be destroyed by the sudden cooling. Instead, as the castoffs solidified, fierce dragons took shape in the volcanic rock, dragons with skin of basalt and veins of lava. They crawled out of the ocean and took up residence at the Ashfall Waste, where now the majority of their numbers stay, a permanent infestation upon the lands. The first Calcifers were mirrors but they have since diversified.

BEHAVIOR
The factors involved in their creation have given them a very unique disposition. They have a direct tie to the Wyrmwound, and by extension, the Plaguebringer. Because they were also quickened by the Flamecaller’s lava, a deity associated with passion and anger, they tend to directly channel the Plaguebringer’s more violent emotions. Whenever she is feeling particularly rancorous, the Calcifers swarm in response, and lay waste to all around them.


ENVIRONMENT
Since their successful creation, most of the Calcifers stay in the Fire lands, where the hot temperatures and easily accessed lava keeps them sustained. However, because the Calcifer’s are directly tied to the Plaguebringer’s emotions, she can call them up in swarms to attack areas she hates, most often the Viridian Labyrinth. There, the fire elementals are highly effective, and can destroy acres upon acres of forest. Unfortunately, after the ordeal, most are too expended to return, and promptly die.

It is lucky, then, that few choose to leave the Ashfall Waste. Being fire elementals, their tantrums rarely affect the Fire Flight’s residents, and they are seen as more of an inconvenience than a danger. The Calcifers are a spiteful race; most would like to cause more damage, but they need constant access to fire and lava, and a splash of water or a light rainfall would seriously injure them. This restricts them to territories that are fiery and dry, and it would be impossible for them to live in a land they can destroy, as that type of climate would be just as damaging to them. The few that do leave trek to the Scarred Wasteland. The few that survive the trip find instant comfort in the Wasteland’s dry, desert habitat.


SOCIAL INTERACTION
Calcifers are social creatures within themselves. They keep to their own kind, and often claim a swathe of territory for their clan. For this reason, young fire dragons are advised to stay away from certain areas of the lava flows, because it is known that Calcifers will protect their territory from outsiders at all costs. One can usually find them relaxing on volcanic rocks or swimming through lava pools, although they may be hard to discern from the general background amidst the earthy projections and molten tides . They are masters of camouflage in their acclaimed lands.

Their reaction to strong negative emotions also has an unusual side effect. When a particularly heated argument breaks out, Calcifers usually gather around the scene, as they can feed off the negative energies generated and grow stronger. This makes the hot-heads of the Fire Flight ideal hosts, and is another reason why the Calcifers are unlikely to ever leave. Calcifers live solely through this pessimistic vigor, in addition to the energy they gain from natural heat sources, though negative energy is a more powerful resource. They bathe in lava frequently to keep their strength up, but dragons that are particularly powerful can last longer without being submerged in flames. The lava they use to refuel themselves does not have to be nest material, and fire or strong sunlight serves as a suitable energy source when lava is not available.



BIRTH AND REINCARNATION
Physical destruction for this subspecies is not necessarily permanent, but it does require a system of carefully executed steps. Creation of a Calcifer, either through remains or detached body parts of another, must be carried out in a Fire dragon's lava nest. This is the only place where the elemental fire energies are strong enough to animate an inorganic pile of rocks. No fire dragon would willingly lend their nests, so Calcifers strive to push resident clans out of their nesting sites and incorporate these areas into their territory. This is when they are truly dangerous to the native population.

Because they are essentially rock animated through fire and hate, breeding is a difficult process. As a species, they strive to salvage as many destroyed Calcifers as they can, but in order to retain or increase their numbers, they have to literally tear off their limbs in a lava nest. The limb will re-grow on the original, and grow a new Calcifer from the detached one. In order to this, the Calcifers are "bedridden", and must sit in nest lava until the long process is complete. The new Calcifer will always be the breed of the original. This is very tedious and exhausting, so few would elect to do it.

When a Calcifer dies, all the negative emotions it has collected will be released at once, and absorbed into any living thing near it. Calcifers will often gather around a dying comrade and collect its energies, and this is seen as a form of reincarnation. While that individual Calcifer's "soul" is not passed on to other Calcifers, any who gain the energy will experience flashes of emotions and memory for a short period after. When a Calcifer’s energies are expended, what remains will collapse into ash and rock. If these remains are thrown into the lava of a nest, the Calcifer will eventually reform. The new Calcifer will take on the breed of one of the nest's natural born hatchlings, current or past, but it will have no recollection of its former life. Therefore dying is dying, and the Calcifers do not actually regenerate with their prior spiritual beings intact, so they still retain a strong instinct for self-preservation. If the remains are thrown into the Wyrmwound, the Calcifer will become a Wyrmwound variant.


COMBAT
Calcifers mainly rely on physical attacks, and can cause various burns and heat strokes. Their bodies are so hot, any scratch or bite would be instantly cauterized. Anything burnable that comes in contact with them would burst into flames, which is why their main task in the Viridian Labyrinth is to just touch everything. Some of the more powerful ones can convert their energy into fire and lava breath weapons. However, a particularly strong Calcifer, that has saved up a lot of negative energies from several arguments, could release all of that in one huge wave and affect the emotions and judgments of everyone in range. Best friends will be at each other's throats, mothers will kill hatchlings, and the most passive of dragons will become addicted to gore. Some wars have begun simply because a Calcifer decided to let off steam. The effects will run out eventually, depending on the strength of the attack, but the memories of those involved will not be erased and afterward they can be more emotionally devastating than the actual attack. After releasing so much energy, the Calcifer has to be immediately submerged in lava or run the risk of perishing.

Calcifers will rarely release such an onslaught, because they will almost certainly die in the process. However, such an attack will greatly benefit the rest of the clan, because war and hate will always breed more war and hate. If a Calcifer decides to become a martyr just for the benefit of their clan, the Plaguebringer will send one of her attendants to escort the remains to the Wyrmwound to be reborn.