Eranth

BY GHOSTCHOMPS MY FRIEND GO LOOK AT HIS ART!!!!!!!!!!!!!


BY SNEJ GOOD LORD YOU HAVE TALENT EVERYBODY GO BUY ART FROM THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Early life
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Eranth was born in Fire territory but grew up in Lacrosa, a semiurban developing desert town on the very edge of the Thundering Expanse, bordering the Ashfall Wastes. He is the only child of Terren and Namini, a lightning wildclaw and fire coatl respectively. Commerce and advancement between the two elemental territories was extremely abundant, and their strong economic relationship lent a lot of travel, cultural osmosis, and good connections with populations across the regions. Lacrosa was no exception to this, a town built primarily to house up-and-coming tycoons, engineers, and tourists. It did not have one single identity as a clan, but rather as a general boiling pot for fire and lightning of which dragons were constantly moving in and out. The more permanent residents were typically either well-off or rising entrepreneurs looking for new and highly experimental job opportunities.

Eranth’s family was rather unconventional for the time. With a mother teaching as a professor of architecture across the Expanse and Sunbeam Ruins - a job that kept her very busy for most of the year, both with work and with arguments amongst her parents - Terren, the weird uncle of his family, did most of the raising. He was one of the rising entrepreneurs seeking to take advantage of radio technology for entertainment purposes, a work-at-home self-employed job that had varying results but left him with much time to interact with his son. Eranth spent a lot of time learning about mathematics, geology, biology, ecology, astronomy, economics, and the arts of which Terren was so enraptured with. During off-seasons from teaching, which lasted only a month and a half out of the whole year, Namini would crack down hard on having Eranth learn about his fire roots, the history of his family, the Flamecaller, and the cuisine and practices of his “real” home land. This also involved regular trips back to the Ashfall Wastes to visit where he was born and his mother’s side of the family. Here he also took various lessons in forgesmithery and creating weapons, although he never became very proficient with it beyond the basics. For the rest of the year, Terren would only off-handedly tell him about his lightning or fire roots and some local history, but he was sure excited to teach him how to cook some of the Expanse’s best dishes.

All of this input of information was incredibly good at keeping Eranth busy, as he was very curious ever since at a young age to learn about the world around him, easily entranced by very mundane things. He spent a lot of time wandering around the surrounding deserts observing endemic life, weather, and the stars. Indeed Eranth did have quite a bit of influence from lightning and growing up within its borders, for he was incredibly resourceful, clever, and quick to devise schemes and machines only with what he could get his claws onto. He grew up with a passion for science and robotics, frequently taking apart mechanical toys or radios to learn how they worked.

He had a small group of friends his age growing up who had similar family situations; parents seeking business opportunities, and spending most of their time away from home as a result. Many were left to their own devices to entertain themselves through each other, or other older dragons would be tasked to loosely keep an eye on them and make sure they ate at some point. But even amongst them, Eranth was a bit on the fringe, not being super interested in socializing all the time and displaying early characteristics of ADHD which nobody at the time really understood or had a name to it in that area. As a result, although he was a welcome member of the group, he was often the butt end of jokes related to his distractibility, fidgeting, repetitiveness, missing social cues, and extremely long-winded tangents, leaving him reluctant to spend much time with them even when they asked.

Lots of stupid dares were done in this era, and lots of hanging out in the wilderness of the desert, finding animals, lightning, trinkets, garbage, and rocks. Eranth was easily transfixed by them, spending time together and alone just collecting or arranging them into new figures. Terren encouraged this as he would often do the same.

Eranth had two cousins from fire who would sometimes do this with him and quite a few lightning cousins who were starkly different in personality, being more self-interested, oblivious to his humor, rigid, and narrow. Some were more sociable like Jophie (bogsneak), who was younger and sweet, and was baby-sat a lot by Terren at their residence. Eranth connected more with her personally than the others, both being a bit odd, introspective, curious, and aware. Eranth also has an uncle on his mother's side named Maragon, who was hearty, encouraging, passionate, and good-humored, the same person who taught him forgesmithery.

Several Beastclan groups were on tentatively good relations with Lacrosa, and ever since a young age Eranth often spent time hanging out with them in the later hours to hear them tell stories and help with various tasks..

Terren was not nearly as devout to the Stormcatcher as Namini was to the Flamecaller, and because Eranth spent more time around him, his attitude at a young age about the gods had been semented as fairly non-serious and emotionally detached. That being said, at this point in time, he did believe them to exist and generally held some reverence for the both of them, although he knew very little about them or their roles in the world at large.

Although exaltation was not very common in Lacrosa, it did happen occasionally with some of the older members and even his peers, which became a huge celebratory hubbub with preparation sometimes stretching weeks in advance. Although it was considered an honorable thing, the process meant that the unexalted never got to see or hear from them again. This upsetted Eranth greatly even since he was a kid, as he never understood it and took it a lot harder emotionally than the others. Why willingly go no contact with your family and friends? Isn't that scary? It was basically death in his eyes. Of all the things he was told about the deities, exaltation never sat well with him, and he was left very confused and curious as to what exactly it meant for the dragons being exalted. What did they do? Why would they want to leave? Was it a punishment? Permanent job? Would they die eventually, or be doomed to serve the deity forever?

As Eranth grew older, he incessantly asked more and more questions of this nature, which both of his parents were short on answers for and occasionally got frustrated with him over. It wasn’t all supposed to make sense; you just felt it. This did not resonate with him at all. He had never felt any attachment or connection to the deities for this to make sense to him. So he turned to asking his peers, other members of the town, and even random strangers, to no real avail of new or helpful information.

At this point he was deemed old enough by the neighborhood Beastclans to be able to handle the truth of dragonkind’s horrendous conquest against their kind, something both of his parents had failed to tell him about in very much detail. These revelations of violence shocked and disgusted Eranth, who couldn’t comprehend why anyone would do something so selfish and inhumane. When he was told it was influenced by the will of the gods, his attitudes began to turn more and more sour. These gods did not really seem as benevolent and worthy of respect as Namini had made them out to be.

This perspective would be further semented when Rubin, a young runaway prince just a year younger than him, secretly took refuge in the sandy outskirts of the town. Eranth stumbled upon him by accident and was the only person who knew he was there. Rubin made him promise to not tell anyone, and he agreed. Over the weeks as he would regularly drop by to give food and news, Rubin, an earth dragon with a wealth of knowledge about the history of the world thanks both to the archives of his element and of the access he had to literature at his high standing, spilled all sorts of dirty secrets and ancient events to Eranth for hours on end that exposed the true extent of the cruelty of the Eleven.

Eranth had always been impulsive and confrontational with a very strong drive for justice - sometimes picking fights with his own friends for doing something cruel or mean - but this would be pushed more and more with these continuous additions.

Eranth began to question other areas of life considered hard limits or obscene once past the age of 13. What was wrong with dressing a little edgy? Adopting atheism against notions of entities which had literally never been seen or heard from by anyone he knew? Or even just talking about the atrocities of the deities? Although bones were commonplace adornments in the deserts, Eranth’s other avenues of self-exploration were quickly met with disgruntled confusion and attempts to shut it down. This only increased his rebelliousness and distrust of authority figures. There was no logical reason to cling to things without evidence, and with his growing frustration with nobody else (except for Rubin) understanding him to any degree, he further isolated himself from everyone else, physically and emotionally.

It was especially disappointing for Namini, a professor, to be the one to cling so blindly to baseless notions of serving a eugenicist goddess. Mother and son engaged in very long arguments about the subject for weeks on end. Although Terren rarely partook in these sorts of conversations and somewhat took Eranth’s side on the matter, he perceived this only as an edgy pre-teenager phase that he would grow out of, not something to be taking seriously in the long run. Coming from someone Eranth used to trust and feel comfortable around talking and asking about anything, this was a huge patronizing blow.

His acts of rebellion would escalate and cause more tension - refusing to perform any religious rituals, skipping out on trips to the Wastes, destroying any of his own personal belongings that bore the image of the Flamecaller - to the point of declaring he would move out of the house to travel on his own when he was 15. His mother was incredulous at the idea and insisted he’s not allowed to leave - Terren was ambivalent, and he ended up the last family member to speak to him in this time period.

"I can't tell you how to live your life, son," he said in the dead hour of the night. "And if you really have your mind set on this, then I know neither I nor Namini can change it, even if we wanted to. But whatever you do, wherever you go, try to keep in touch. We still care about you."

Eranth, saying nothing, left. He met up with Rubin on the outskirts, carrying only some of his most favored possessions, a bag of treasure, and some other sacks of food and basic medical supplies. The two of them were young, jaded, and seeking truth in the world, and with that, they set off to traverse the Shifting Expanse to Light territory - the largest hub of knowledge on the planet.

Eranth and Rubin lived as nomads, eating what they could find and keeping their heads low wherever they went. They tended to sleep in the wilderness far away from civilization, or in tucked away corners that nobody would notice them in. Each was the other person’s only trusted individual in their life.

Both of them grappled with their own respective issues. For Eranth, he became more and more unsettled by the prospect of what exactly would happen to an atheistic dragon like himself, both by society at large and if the gods ended up being real. Would he be killed? Ostracized for the rest of his life? Something in him felt lingering guilt due to what he had been raised believing for all his life. Was he really just being needlessly edgy? Either way, though, the gods had definitively done horrible things - he needed to find answers.

Along the way through the Shifting Expanse they had plenty of run-ins with Beastclans, some friendly, some hostile. They would camp here for a day or two at a time to converse with them and learn more about them, and miscellaneous advice that their hosts were willing to give when it came to travel. As they went on, they got a clearer and clearer picture of the true devastating extent of the tyranny of dragonkind, making them more and more bitter towards the state of the planet.

Eranth and Rubin eventually landed in the Sunbeam Ruins, an area most definitely chock-full of historical and academic texts which, even if they couldn't tell him direct first-hand accounts of the gods, could tell him more about the world at large and what this elemental dominance business really entailed, and how such religious systems might be playing into it. He was committed to studying about it hard.

Unfortunately, most larger, newer volumes belonged either only exclusively to certain clans/cities, or were locked behind prestigious academy libraries and archives with entry fees. They had to find a way to access these without drawing too much attention to themselves - and, lo and behold, they did. They ended up loosely befriending a budding student there named James, a sweet and caring fae aspiring to become a diplomat, with whom they ended up finding solace in discussing the state of the world. He secretly lent them books to read or copy down for reference later. Ironically, there were plenty of places to hide in the sprawling classical architecture of the children of Light. In their time there, they also discreetly attended a number of speeches, sermons, and public awareness campaigns to get an idea of the social and political climate.

As they grew closer to James, they started spending more time socializing than just diligently studying, going together to see fantastic museums, historical landmarks, and celebrations. They learned a lot about Sornieth and about the Sunbeam Ruins as a whole - and about dominance.

Eranth’s major gripe with the entire idea of conflicting elemental gods was the fact that they pitted their creations against each other endlessly to boost the influence of their element, even if only for a very short amount of time. Yet this was no different at all than what they had done before they created dragons, and no less horrifically destructive. They, ubiquitously all Eleven, were calling for genocide, of the total supremacy of a single element. But Sornieth was only as lush now as it was because every element was present. If any one of the gods really got what they wanted, it would mean innumerable deaths and total annihilation of the planet as they knew it - and all the fewer to be able to fight against the Shade, whom, in all honesty, were debatably drawn to the planet because of the squabbling, violent chaos of the early ages.

As time went on, Eranth felt more and more called to return to his homeland of his element, which aside from yearly trips he hadn’t really gotten to explore and experience very much of. He didn’t have much of an idea at all of what was happening over there at large. So he and Rubin started making plans to get there via boat across the Sea of a Thousand Currents, as flying that large of a distance themselves was out of the question. Although James couldn’t come with them due to his obligations to his studies, he promised to keep in touch with them.

They had scrapped up just enough money to afford a ferry there, with the journey taking a couple of days. They arrived fairly close to the Great Furnace, where there were tons of clans on the larger developing end and cities that dwarfed the size of Lacrosa, although with plenty of mixtures of both old and new architectural styles. Here they let themselves be exposed a lot more than back at the Sunbeam Ruins and talked to a lot of people, trying the cuisine, hot springs, exploring lava tubes, and observing (but not always joining in on) festivities. Allegiance to the Flamecaller ran very, very deep in these parts and were very exaltation-heavy communities.

As they travelled across the territory to more remote ends, it became clear that the level of available technology and resources between the top and bottom classes was extremely divided. Groups with more traditional clan structures, which littered far away from the Great Furnace, looked nothing like the cities they had seen. Many were impoverished and forced to barely make ends at grueling mining and forging jobs headed by massively rich tycoons. Others marketed their wares independently, desperately trying to find buyers and make a name for themselves, or work by commission. Those who extracted and shaped the various metals for export to other territories did not often get fair compensation for the labor-heavy, dangerous work they did, and this fact became more and more clear the longer they travelled. The Ashfall Wastes had become a proto-anarcho-capitalist nightmare; there was almost no consistent regulation, rights for workers, or any sort of system set in place to ensure even the quality of goods besides what various lightning-based companies forced them to agree to or prove in order to sell materials to them. With no single central authority, individual entrepreneurs and contractors made their own rules, courts, and word-of-mouth agreements and held the most power and influence over the populations through the means of money. The elite forgesmiths were of a similar position; very skilled individuals who, with their influence as cultural and occupational leaders, quite literally controlled whether or not dragons would be able to work within the Great Furnace. With no written word or law, however, their authority was purely through what they could physically establish and decide was best for the communities at large.

As Eranth dove down this rabbit hole, he became enraged with the state of his homeland. But what could he do to change it? He was just a kid (16 at this point in time) and didn’t have a lot of money to be able to help out his kin (although he did work/help for and buy various forged things from then when he could). He even tried directly approaching the contractors and tycoons about what they were doing if they reared their heads in the area, but nothing of words would sway them.

It was through this frustrating toil to figure out how to help that Eranth and Rubin met Igorrr and Chela, both of whom were several years older than them. Their bizarre interests and fashion more than resonated with them, and in their various encounters with these two attempted to coordinate and discuss what they could do. They needed a lot more resources than they physically had and some kind of long-distance communication technology to be able to do anything of a large scale. That, and the two were...a bit difficult to reach. They disappeared randomly for days on end with no way to track them.

All of this frustration started to boil over. Eranth tried to test the goddess of the land, yelling questions at her and demanding her to prove herself and appear in front of him if she truly existed. He wondered if there was just something that wasn't clicking, something he wasn't doing right, if the goddess just hated him and made him a broken dragon - that he was still a naive child and didn't know what he was getting into. He knew he would be hated at large for his opinions, so he just accepted the persona of a demon. He was lost and aggravated, and began acting more impulsively in accordance.

Most of his interactions with fire clans up to this point had been peaceful. However, now he intentionally put himself out there to argue with them, to prevent or sabotage exaltation, and attempt to spread the history of the deities through scattered parchments. Of course, this was met with a lot of hostility, some which ended up in physical fights and denouncements of being shade-influenced. Rubin, being a long-distance magical fighter, attempted to help, but Eranth, being young and untrained, was not adept at combat, and these left him with bad injuries. One of the skirmishes broke his leg and left him with several nasty burns across his face.

It was at this point that, for the first time, the fire within him faltered. Rubin helped him to escape, but the psychological damage had been done. He was on the brink of giving up.

And that's when they were discovered by Brea, who was there with Koakoft on a yearly visit to their homeland of the Wastes. Brea immediately took them under her wing upon seeing his injuries, and being a fairly experienced fighter helped to dress the wounds. Brea and Koakoft were far more compassionate and open-minded than the others the wandering teenagers had encountered thus far. Eranth did not speak for this time.

Upon realizing both of them were vagabonds, they offered to take them to Turano, their city of residence in Wind territory. This is how Eranth and Rubin met Juliette, Romeo, Undine, Elthaira, and many others. Once the four of them made the journey back (Eranth being assisted due to his broken leg), the wanderers were immediately welcomed in and given refuge.

Juliette visited the two during the following evening to formally welcome them. Juliette, being an equally fierce leader with strong convictions about the world, had a lot of empathy for Eranth. This is also where he learned of ADHD, as many dragons in the city had it as well and was a well-researched area of interest. The total openness to express allegiance to all sorts of elements was totally novel to them, lending them to learn a lot about other regions they hadn't yet visited. And although Juliette had a complicated relationship with her direct creator, finding him more personally honorable for his ingrained openness to travel and new experiences and general compassion, it still stood that he was ultimately contributing to the global struggle. She had zero stigma against other elements themselves and encouraged self-expression.







(WIP)

Physical Attributes
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Eranth has a perpetual expression of annoyance and intense concentration. There are bags under his eyes from countless nights spent fighting, working, traveling, trading, and training carried over from what he couldn't finish in the daytime or done better in the hours of the dark. Yet despite this, he never seems to lose any momentum; the inferno blazing in his soul seems to be enough to keep him going even for a full week without sleep, although he may further revitalize himself liberally with tea or coffee as needed.

The boundless energy he has never really dies no matter how exhausted he is. When he is focused on something, he either becomes utterly still, even statue-like, or is pacing, tapping his claws, bouncing his leg, flicking his tail, and otherwise moving around all over the place or seemingly more engaged with the objects around him than the center of attention; despite how it may look, though, whichever way he may behave has an equal amount of attentiveness towards the subject.

Rarely does he have the time or care to put much effort into keeping his feathers neat and tidy, giving him a very bedraggled appearance on top of his tattered clothes. He does frequent the bath house and hot springs fairly often, but only for short periods of time to wash out any ash, grime, debris, or blood that may have accumulated during his trips or fights so that he can get back to his duties as quickly as possible.

His hands, especially at the claws, can become super-heated in a moment's notice and leave nasty marks on whatever it touches. Wounds from these are especially painful. He can do this similarly with his teeth, or spout a fireball as he's biting something. Firing these in rapid succession as is his trademark attack will result in severe damage to most any kind of living creature.

Intricate tattoos cover a large part of his body that signify the fire element, his clan, the new island, and the rebellion. He also has others from different flights, such as Wind and Lightning.

No matter where he goes, he always has his sword on him. This has on multiple occasions proven to be a lifesaver.

Residence
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Eranth spends a majority of his time within Newforge or the land just outside of it. Despite being the "clan's" leader, he has a very small space for himself - just one hexagon-shaped room crudely carved into the side of a lava tube, with a sleeping mat, boxes inside shelves hollowed out from the walls full of various but neatly organized items and papers, a closet, and insignias and flags covering the walls. A few torches light up the interior. Other similarly shaped single-rooms of varying sizes also line the walls of the lava tube, and each has a door in the back that leads to a larger common room that has desks, carpets, food, a furnace, a large table for meals, a pedestal for making announcements, and more.

Personality
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There is something about his endless determination that has a pronounced effect on the dragons he meets. There's a reason he's become known as "the Juggernaut" and "the Judicator" across the land; his inner momentum is quite literally impossible to slow down once he's set on something, even in the face of death.

Eranth, while mostly a strange mix of unfettering seriousness and a more laid-back nature on the surface and with quite an abundant sense of humor, is deeply grounded in a complex moral code and sense of justice. Greediness, cruelty, ignorance, carelessness, and manipulation of any kind is quick to flare his disgust and anger. On the other end he has an equally rigid selflessness and benevolence, even to those who seemingly don't deserve it (and those who he definitely doesn't like). His strongest principle is to never repay evil for evil, kill anyone (if he can help it, unless it is in self-defense), or treat them cruelly. One of his most important duties is to aid those in need and care for the innocents and the injured in the wake of the explosively destructive rebellion.

That being said, there are certain people who, even though they could change their ways, willingly choose not to in favor of harming those around them; in such cases is where Eranth's uninhibited, coldly calculated fierceness and rock solid resolve shows itself. When compromise and discussion cannot convince them, or their actions alone are evident enough of their true position, he makes sure that their twisted goals and beliefs backfire on them via sabotaging them or watching as the ramifications of their actions start to pile up against them.
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His outward behavior and mood can flip like a coin - relaxing one moment, but immediately up and rushing outside as soon as someone says "emergency". He can turn from mellow-voiced and laid back to yelling with a pound of his fist on the table in the blink of an eye, and then back to mellow-voiced again, making him extremely unpredictable and unnerving for others if he wants to be, such as in the presence of his enemies to keep them on their toes either to get their attention and/or obfuscate what he's really intending on doing.

Eranth is, of course, a far more interesting fellow for anyone else; very open-minded to other ideas, styles, arts, and philosophies, and with an insatiable curiosity for the world around them as well as the dragons who live in it. His musical tastes could best be described as diverse, enjoying - and desiring to learn how to play - the instruments and tunes from other regions. Where some Fire dragons would consider bizarre, Eranth would consider just another style from another element deserving to be learned.

This is the ultimate peculiarity of Newforge's leader; he has no desire for the Fire element, or any other element for that matter, to "dominate" the realm. He believes all elements are necessary for maintaining any order in the world. Furthermore, to dominate would mean erasing the histories and experiences of the other flights...and, well, seizing their land and everything they hold dear. While this belief causes friction with some of the other elders, he is not swayed by any nationalism and actively welcomes in anyone regardless of the flight they hail from. That being said, that is not to say he isn't devoted to the fire element; everyone needs to play their part in the web of life, and he is one of them.

Occupation
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As the group's unofficial leader, Eranth has many duties which consume almost all of his time. He actively goes out to fight the invading forces of the elite, destroy or obstruct their resources and communication lines, and rob their tools. When he's not battling, he's out on rescue missions or lookout to save injured, stranded, or captured dragons, training other fighters back at the islands, trading and sending messages to clans over the Wind border, and organizing groups to carry out any one of these jobs or more. He has a close ring of allies whom help him with his efforts or accompany him on his missions, such as Elthaira, Undine, Chela, Igorrr, and Juliette, given that his workload is so high.

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