Winter

Wendigo (Plague/Ice Subspecies)

Wendigo are Bloodstained Ice Dragons blessed by the Plaguebringer to have the power to survive at all costs, even in the farthest reaches and darkened edges of the Southern Icefield. These dangerous dragons are prone to bouts of madness and cannibalistic behavior.

Lore
Conception - The First Wendigo
These cursed dragons were created long ago. It began when a band of Plague dragons were captured by Servants of the Ice Warden. This band had worked tirelessly in service to the Plaguebringer, charged with the task of spreading disease across his frozen domain. The captives were amassed together and sealed in ice, to prevent the spread of their infection - or so it was thought. Then they were hidden away among the peaks of the Cloudscrape Crags. It was there they would remain forevermore.

A legend of these dragons grew and spread like its own disease. Stories told that, should they be freed from their prison, the Plaguebringer would usher in a new age of plenty - for those dragons were her key to pushing back the Ice Warden. Legend had it she would offer blessings on those who freed them.

So it was a group of Tundra dragons, long-suffering nomads who’d had their fill of nothing to eat but ice and snow, who thought they might make the search for these dragons. The collective decision was made to ensure their own survival, the rest of the continent be damned... for that was the Plaguebringer's creed - survival. Thus, they made their way to the mountains and began their search.

They found nothing but ice and doom. Though they departed in the spring, they searched long into winter and found nothing. Many of them starved, and as their numbers dwindled, they cried out prayers to whoever might listen. To the Ice Warden for forgiveness, that he might let abate the ice and cold. Failing that, they called to the Plaguebringer, that she might provide for them a means for their survival. It seemed then, the Plaguebringer answered, sending them a blessing... Or perhaps the Ice Warden answered, and he sent them a curse. In any case, they survived.

In the darkest hour of an eternal night, there came upon them a spirit of hunger and ferocity. It was that spirit which drove them to do the unthinkable, what they could not have done themselves. It turned them on the weakest of their band and had them lay into flesh for sustenance. They did this until the cold of winter finally receded and those that survived could leave those mountains. Coming down back to the Snowsquall Tundra, these pure white dragons were covered in the blood of their peers. Though they had returned to a land more bountiful than the mountains, the spirit did not leave them, and they remained forever hungry.

These few Tundra taken by the Spirit during their search for those of the stories were the first Wendigo. They became legendary monsters; stalkers of the ice and snow, testing weaker dragons for the glory of the Plaguebringer… and those that failed could never be enough to satiate the Wendigo's hunger.

Conception - Perpetuation of the Wendigo
The first Wendigo became the subject of old fears with newer legends, but their true nature was not revealed until one of these, after long terrorizing a group of local clans, was hunted down and slain. This released the spirit that was bound to it, and set that hungry spirit wandering, until it found another, suitably desperate dragon to inhabit. These Progenitor Spirits keep themselves to the wilds of the Icefields.

Some of these first Wendigo found pause in their hunting long enough to lie with other dragons (typically other Wendigo, when they crossed paths, and found each other receptive), to produce offspring. These offspring were often abandoned or cannibalized soon after. None of the parents could take the time to look at them and wonder how their coats become bloodstained even before the eggs were hatched.

The offspring of the Wendigo were not subject to the constant, driving hunger of their parents. At least, not at first. Those that survived would find in time that they were prone to bouts of irrational behaviour, sometimes even killing and eating those they were close to. Thus, they were often driven out of populated areas. Dragons with their markings became mistrusted. Later generations were less susceptible to this onset of madness, and it would sometimes skip several generations before coming out again in a handful of dragons.

Occasionally dragons in the Icefield and Scarred Wasteland are subject to a strange sort of "spontaneous" possession by a Wendigo spirit. Though if it is caused by a true wendigo spirit, or is simply an outbreak of madness, is often hard to know.

Types of Wendigo
Progenitor Spirit Wendigo
These are the original Wendigo, and also include tundra dragons possessed by the spirit of a slain Wendigo - though they are virtually indistinguishable from one another. They are the legendary monsters that roam the Southern Icefields, rumored to be Tundra dragons whose size rivals that of a mighty Imperial, covered in white fur that is matted down to their half-frozen, skeletal bodies with layers and layers of blood.

These dragons are sometimes viewed as lesser deities by some beast clan cultures. To dragons they are often viewed as an extension of their deity's will. Though whether they serve the Ice Warden or the Plaguebringer is debated; His ultimate Wardens - protecting places where no creature should walk… or her mighty tools, to cull the weak and reinforce survival of the strong.

Although the dragons themselves can be slain, there is no known way to destroy the Progenitor spirit. Some of the most powerful mages in the Icefields have devised a way of trapping a spirit under the right conditions and sealing it away in a prison of ice. But they always break free with time.

Hunting these creatures is a dangerous proposition undertaken only by the strongest and most prepared dragons… or the most desperate of dragons. Such hunters often wear charms to ward the spirit from inhabiting them in the event the mortal host is slain.

Brute Wendigo
These are the cannibalistic descendants and disciples of the original Wendigo. They may vary widely in disposition, but to be a Wendigo, they must have the Bloodstained mark, and be subject to brutal bouts of cannibalistic madness. The first time the Madness occurs is heralded first by several days of hunger, beyond a dragon's ability to satiate it with normal food.

Brute Wendigo are by far the most common of their kind.

Soulbound Wendigo
These are a stranger sort of Wendigo, and unlike the Brutes, they only occur in dragons who can trace their lineage back to a Progenitor Spirit. These dragons have inherited a powerful spirit of their own - a time-won refinement of their brutal ancestry. These dragons can draw on the life force of those around them, turning their victims cold and icy. This action feeds the Wendigo spirit within, without the need for partaking of dragonflesh themselves. In return they gain powerful magics. The most powerful Soulbound Wendigo bring with them a cloak of nightmares, disturbing the sleep of all creatures when they pass by - drawing on the energies of warmth and light from all they are near. They can wrap around themselves an illusory visage of the frightful Progenitor Spirit Wendigo. Soulbound Wendigo are also capable of driving other dragons to the same madness that affects their kin.

Culture
In Ice clans that are familiar with the Wendigo, or where there are frequent sightings, dragons take to wearing amulets and wards to protect themselves from the spirits and the madness they cause. The protections are sometimes successful.

Plague dragons became interested in these Wendigo, and their origins. Many endeavored to bring them to the Scarred Wasteland or made a trip to the Icefields to study them. Afflicted Wendigo would also sometimes make their way to the Scarred Wasteland, feeling that is where they belonged. Their viciousness was not so turned away there, and they were more welcomed there than elsewhere.

Many Wendigo came to embrace their monstrous side, even developed rituals and ceremonies to trigger it, making them into fearsome warriors and deadly weapons. Sometimes groups of Wendigo would gather and pit themselves against each other in a kind of ceremonial combat - testing the spirit of hunger in them to see who is strongest, and refine themselves. Such gatherings tend to happen infrequently, and specific dates are set on a lunar calendar. These gatherings grow more frequent during the Riot of Rot, and Wendigo can become dangerous in their revelry and worship.

While some Wendigo are able to live with and function inside clans or alongside other dragons, many are too wild and unpredictable to desire this, and more often form small bands with their own kind, or live solitary in the wild. A few Wendigo, more often Ice dragons, do their best to contain and deny the spirit and their violent nature, by either being hermits, or enlisting the aid of their clan. Few clans are up to the task of safely containing a Wendigo taken by Madness, however.

Symptoms
The most visible symptom is their perpetually bloodstained coat. Even when not suffering from madness, these dragons can never completely wash away the blood they have been covered in. This ‘Bloodstained Mark’ is a sign of a dragon being a Wendigo.

The main symptom is their persistent and insatiable hunger for dragonflesh. In the worst of cases, it is a hunger that remains with them all their lives, and drives them to madness. More often it comes and goes periodically, and rarely cumulates with them rampaging for several days.

More interesting are the symptoms these dragons can cause in others. Their mere presence will generally incite fear, as they have a uniquely unsettling aura. Sometimes dragons stricken by this fear can find themselves temporarily taken by Wendigo behaviour themselves, feeling a desire for dragonflesh or subject to a short period of madness. The Soulbound Wendigo can inflict of fear and madness far more readily than their other kin, in addition to causing nightmares and fatigue in nearby dragons.

Progenitor Spirits inflict the same symptoms to a far greater extent, and repeated attacks on a clan of dragons can quickly leave them fragmented and scattered in the wilderness with half the survivors mad and others out of their mind with fear. Their broken reports help to reinforce the legends of these creatures.

Regions
The influence of the Wendigo does not extend far beyond the Scarred Wasteland and Southern Icefields. The spirits seem bound to those regions, and spontaneous madness is far less likely to occur in dragons outside these areas. Though occasionally dragons of another element may succumb to this madness if they are in the Southern Icefields, it is believed they are not true Wendigo, but suffering an illness of the mind brought on by a Wendigo that might be nearby.