Pesanta
(#61173083)
Level 1 Imperial
Familiar
Scrapmetal Tracker
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 50/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Shadow.
Female Imperial
This dragon is hibernating.
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
29.03 m
Wingspan
19.91 m
Weight
7535.03 kg
Genetics
Coal
Slime
Slime
Blood
Sludge
Sludge
Watermelon
Firefly
Firefly
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Imperial
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
6
AGI
6
DEF
6
QCK
5
INT
8
VIT
8
MND
6
Biography
patterdale terrier?
black wolf cape
furious headdress
dented iron gauntlets
dented iron boots
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 PESANTA
BARGHEST LORE AND LINEAGE PROJECT
GENERATION IV MORGANA'S LINE 
"How do you wake up from a nightmare when you are not asleep?"
L ore summary. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, vix dicant consulatu patrioque at. Ea ius vidit paulo, usu iusto mandamus eu, mea cetero inermis urbanitas ex. Laudem mucius intellegat mel an, ut usu populo propriae probatus. Autem accusam legendos ex quo, duo id efficiantur neglegentur. Delectus platonem ut vis, vidisse impedit voluptua an sed. At eos quis laoreet omittam, sumo elit aliquando *** te. Per mundi alterum at. This is the tale of the Barghest, Pesanta. |
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Because of the way they’re built, most dragons sleep on their bellies or sides. Physicians tell them that these are the optimum sleeping positions; they discourage all breeds from sleeping on their backs. “It could damage your wings, cramp your back muscles, or result in difficulty breathing,” they explain. And most dragons are content to leave it at that— But there are some folk who explain that sleeping on one’s back has other dangers. “The Pesanta,” they whisper, making signs against evil. Scholars, studying these legends, will scoff at the superstition associated with them. These researchers will point out that when a dragon sleeps on their back, they expose their underbelly, making them vulnerable to most attacks. They explain that the myth was first recorded in the distant past, when squabbles among clans were more common, and incautious sleepers could suddenly awaken with enemy dragons’ talons sinking into their guts. To these scholars, the Pesanta is nothing more than a myth made to discourage incautious sleepers, to warn them not to sleep too lightly, not to readily trust those whom they share their lairs with. But there are those who say the Pesanta is real. And when asked how they know this, they whisper, “Because I have seen her before.” ~ ~ ~ Like many other monsters who prey upon the unwary, the Pesanta shuns the daylight hours, and stalks her prey at night. She usually comes in the small hours of the morning, in the dark gulf between midnight and dawn. One of the first signs of her arrival is a nightmare. It intrudes, subtly and insidiously, into whatever dreams the sleeper might be having. They could be taking tea in the Cloudsong or skipping along the mushroom-lit paths of the Tangled Wood... And then it happens—slowly at first, but with increasing intensity: a pressure upon the sleeper’s chest. It pushes them down, and they fall slowly backwards, sinking through the dream. Their claws clutch languidly, ineffectively, at passing wisps of cloud, brambles and fireflies. Forepaws fail to find purchase, feet lose their balance. The dreaming dragon sinks, going ever downward, through the layers of the dream. They may see trickling water, or even rocks and mud. The world around them gets darker, more viscous, the deeper down they go. And the entire time, the pressure upon their chest steadily increases. The dreamer struggles—feebly at first, and then with growing vehemence. It’s becoming more and more difficult to breathe. They become conscious of something soft and warm pressing against their back; a few may recognize this as the bedding of their nest. But for many, it feels horribly like quicksand, mud, or sludge. They sink into it. It creeps up over their scales, rising towards their nostrils, their eyes. The pressure upon their chest is crushing them now. It’s such a struggle to breathe. They know they should probably gulp down air, but they’re terrified to do so; the dark sludge will pour down their throat and smother them completely— Survival instincts briefly overrule fear, and the sleeper opens their mouth. They gulp down air. Wakefulness comes rushing back... The sleeper awakens in their room, flat on their back, wings crumpled beneath them. There is no more choking sludge; more often than not, it’s just blankets and bedding, tangled, perhaps even torn to bits by their earlier frantic struggles. But the struggle now abruptly ceases, for the sleeper finds themselves paralyzed, every part of their body frozen mid-struggle. They are unable to twitch even a talon or a tail tip, no matter how intense their fear. No matter how frightened they are of the massive creature now pressing down upon their chest. This is the Pesanta: like a cross between a great, monstrous dog and an Imperial. If the sleeper is a smaller dragon such as a Fae, she only has one paw on their chest; if they are a larger dragon such as a Guardian, her whole weight rests upon them. But always the sensation is the same—crushing pressure, squeezing the air out of the sleeper’s lungs. The viselike grip of supernatural paralysis, pressing in on all sides. The Pesanta’s eyes stare down at her victim, gleaming in the dark. The initial encounter never lasts long. Perhaps several seconds, and then she vanishes, and the dreadful pressure lifts from the sleeper’s chest. They suck in another great gasp of air, and at last their body moves. Some sleepers even grope for weapons, but this is a futile gesture; by now, the Pesanta is gone. “That’s it...It was a dream. Nothing but a horrible nightmare. I’m awake now; it won’t happen again....” Most sleepers think that at first: Surely the Pesanta was some figment of the imagination, and now that they’re awake, they won’t see her again. But they are sadly mistaken, for wakefulness does not bring relief. Wakefulness, when the Pesanta comes, is only the continuation of the nightmare. ~ ~ ~ That’s how it always begins: a brief nightmare, a fleeting encounter. The sleeper goes about their daily life, comforted by the thought that it was nothing more than a bad dream. They may notice a dark shadow out of the corners of their eyes, but again, they shrug it off. “It’s probably because I’m still tired....I didn’t get too much sleep last night, after all.” And so the days pass. The shadow may recede into the background and flicker in and out of view, but it—she—is always there. Like any good hunter, she is simply waiting for another chance to strike.... Another night, another nightmare. In their dream world, the dreamer sinks into darkness again. They feel the sludge creeping up over their throat, their nostrils— They awaken with a start, and again, there she is, pinning down the sleeper so that they cannot move: the Pesanta. “That’s it, it’s the same nightmare again. I’ll wake up soon...” Muscles clenched, breathing labored. The entire body unmoving, save only for the eyes—able to look sideways, but remaining forced open, unable to close against the spectral horror leaning down towards them. “I’ll wake up soon; I have to wake up soon! Wake up...” It becomes a silent plea, ringing over and over in the sleeper’s mind. “Wake up...!” The encounter lasts longer than the previous one. They all do. There are more nightmares, more nocturnal visits from the Pesanta. The dreamer sinking into dark, choking sludge, then waking up to that awful, crushing pressure, struggling to breathe, to scream. Sleep taken away in bursts, as the Pesanta awakens her victims and leaves them bleary-eyed in terror until dawn. “That’s it, that’s all I have to do. I just have to stay awake until daylight....” And so they do. They lose hours of sleep after each attack, and by the time daylight dawns, their heads are foggy, their movements clumsy. They’re practically zombies, starved of rest and peace. They go through the motions of the day, but even familiar routines and clanmates offer no relief, and the shadow in the corner of their eyes looms larger and nearer with every blurry day, every sleepless night, that passes. The Pesanta grows more aggressive in her attacks. The first encounters always take place in the middle of the night, some hours after the sleeper has gone to bed. But over time, as her visits become more frequent, the encounters become longer. There are times when the sleeper sinks, exhausted, into their nest—only to suddenly find themselves on their backs scant minutes later, with that dreadful face looming over them. Sleep becomes only a memory. Nothing remains of those once-peaceful hours; they have been completely replaced by the cold chill of paralysis and the Pesanta leering from the darkness. The fear of the Pesanta becomes immutably entangled with the fear of sleep, and those who are haunted by her eschew it altogether. They may doze for brief moments in the daytime, but quickly jerk themselves awake, looking about in terror for the shadow they know lurks nearby. As nightfall approaches, the shadow disappears, blending in with the gathering night. More naive sleepers might believe that the Pesanta has briefly gone away. Those who have been haunted by her for some time know better: She doesn’t disappear into the shadows—she actually grows into them. The night is her domain, and there will be no relief now. The sleepers have become insomniacs, struggling to remain awake for nights on end. Life has become a nightmare for them. Without sleep, day and night lose all meaning, and the mind’s idle musings spill over into reality. The Pesanta’s shadow is joined by figments mined from the dreams the insomniacs once had, spinning pinwheels and leaping sheep, automatons and paper cranes in various garish colors. It becomes impossible for the insomniacs to separate reality from their hallucinations. Small wonder, then, that many of them eventually go stark raving mad. These poor creatures are often separated from their clans, locked away for protection from themselves and from others. There is no hiding from the Pesanta, though. She follows the stink of nightmares leaking from her victims’ brains, and eventually finds them where they crouch, gibbering miserably in the darkness. She spreads her wings around them, and the sludge enfolds them once again...only this time, it does not stop. Dawn comes, at last, to the locked room—but there is no one left to greet it. The erstwhile sleeper is found on their back, dead and cold, claws curled stiffly as if in the throes of pain, and their red-rimmed eyes beginning to cloud over. Sometimes, around them, investigators might detect traces of dark sludge, but not everybody can see these, and they shrivel quickly in the morning light and are soon completely gone. ~ ~ ~ With all the dragons she attacks, it’s inevitable that the Pesanta would eventually run into someone who would look into fighting off her magic. There have been attempts to study this creature and concoct remedies against her invasions. Descriptions of her exist, and they are all surprisingly consistent: a great Imperial; dim, purplish-red like a bruise; eyes smoldering like hot coals over a ghastly, mocking grin. Some accounts mention eerie points of light moving over her body. Others tell of the sticky sensation of her scales, her wings enfolding horrified sleepers in a tide of dark, choking sludge. One of her most distinct features is her paws. From the sludgy flesh of her legs, they emerge: wrought of gleaming steel, talons stiffly curling, with great holes punched through where the pads should be. These paws are always ice-cold, no matter how warm the rest of the room is, and they leave an icy chill, and a distinctive bruise with a pale circle in the middle, when the Pesanta is gone. “The mark of the Pesanta,” this is called—and it is often the surest sign that the victim isn’t suffering from sleep paralysis, but has instead been marked for doom by this nocturnal demon. There are many things sufferers can try in order to shake the beast’s pursuit. The simplest tactic is to have someone else stay awake nearby, keeping watch against the creature. The Pesanta comes to feed, not to fight, and the threat of attack by a competent warrior can deter her from further victimizing a sleeper. The guard must always be vigilant, though, and be prepared for several sleepless nights themselves. Even if the Pesanta does not switch her attention to them next, if they fall asleep even briefly, she might take advantage of this lapse and return to her original victim. The victim is likelier to perish this time—the meal might be poorer than one that has been properly marinated in madness and fear, but the Pesanta has learned that a poor meal is better than none...and of course, a successful attack such as this makes it easier to cultivate new nightmares. There are spells and charms that can be emplaced to ward her off. They include various amulets, crystals, incantations, and potions. Sleepers should take care in choosing which items to trust: Some of these are efficacious, others are not. But even the most effective defenses will erode over time, and the Pesanta will always be lurking nearby, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Another strategy is to seek aid from the gods. They are perhaps the most powerful beings on Sornieth, and their magic always deters the Pesanta. It is not always easy to access aid from the gods, though...or to accept it. Intention is a large part of divine sorcery, and if a victim places no faith in the priests’ instructions, then, no matter how desperate they are, the Pesanta will still find them and continue preying upon their fears. A guaranteed defense against the Pesanta has not yet been discerned, largely because she and her depredations are quite difficult to study. One reason for this is that many believe she simply doesn’t exist; it’s too easy to attribute her attacks to other things, such as nightmares, stress, or hallucinations conjured by an over-stimulated mind. For those who do take her seriously, her attacks are unpredictable. She is a wily creature, and has been known to leave victims alone for years at a time...only to suddenly reappear when they believe she is gone for good and have let their guard down completely. She delights in proving these hopefuls wrong. They rarely, if ever, get a second chance to escape her. Rarer still are those who are completely freed of her curse, who live out the rest of their lives in relative peace and restfulness. Some might ask them what secrets they used to repel the Pesanta. Their answers are oftentimes vague and unsatisfying; there are so many conflicting accounts. “I don’t know,” they answer. “It all seems like a bad dream now....” And indeed, to these lucky few, the Pesanta really is just a bad dream. The answer is a lot more prosaic: the Pesanta simply has moments when she decides to stop stalking an individual. Perhaps their defenses really are effective...or perhaps she has just become bored of them. Indeed, why should there be some great, significant reason for her to break off a chase? It is no great loss to her. There are so many other dragons out there, so many other minds to invade and erode and devour. The night is an endless feast for the Pesanta, and no matter how many chases she breaks off, how many dragons escape her fangs, she will never find herself wanting for victims and prey. Everybody needs to sleep sometime. And the Pesanta will be there, watching and waiting, just at the edge of the dream. ~ written by Disillusionist (254672) all edits by other users
Layout and artwork by awaicu
Banners by PoisonedPaper
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black wolf cape
furious headdress
dented iron boots
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Exalting Pesanta to the service of the Shadowbinder 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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