Rhiri

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⌈ Rhiri ⌋ Effluvial Crow Standoffish • Proud • Wild ━━━━ POSSESSIONS ━━━━ Blackberry Plant Though they're not really addictive, some dragons become very dependent on Blackberries. 25 3 Deeprealm Runestone Trinkets It is not known who created these runestones and grew the massive hunters that carry them. 325

Rhiri is from a proud and ancient race of crows. She settled here due to the presence of necromancers, hoping to hone her plague powers under their tutelage so far from the scarred wasteland. She stays for the additional power of the Pox Consulate. She considers herself the best dragon in the lair, and does not associate much with anyone. She chitters rather than speaking, and loves to fight. Coli Build: Kelp Beds Trainer

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You will never hear Rhiri say a word. She has no use for Common Draconic, or any other flavor of the language, not when her mandibles carry every click and whistle to the ears she most needs to hear it. Perhaps if the circumstances surrounding her hatching had been different, she would be like every other dragon in Sornieth, but the past has already been set in stone, and Rhiri's path set along with it. She has never considered herself a dragon, and at this point, never will.

Her egg was laid in the sweltering summer heat, a time when many Plague dragons try to avoid rearing new nests. The high temperatures discourage bacteria and viruses from making themselves at home, and as a result, hatchlings are often born without immunities that are critical to surviving the Scarred Wasteland past their first years. In defiance of death, though, determined to best the odds, there are always dragons who attempt to raise hearty, hale young in spite of the summer heat, Rhiri's parents among them.

They were lucky, all things considered. Three eggs laid in the summer is no small heat, and two even appeared capable of outlasting the season. The third, though, they abandoned. It was too small, the shell too frail, and they had no interest in trying to rescue a hatchling doomed to sickness and an early death. Their other two eggs required every ounce of attention they could offer, and the third was left behind to wither and rot.

Yet Rhiri hatched from it not long after being cast off. She wriggled out of her shell, croaking and crying, only to tumble back down the funnel of Serthis coils that had been protecting her egg. If the Serthis clan that rescued her had meant to use her as a tool, as an in-road with their draconic targets, that changed in an instant. Rhiri was no longer a resource. She was kin.

They raised her like they would a Serthis of their own flesh and blood, teaching her how to concoct poisons and sneak about even in barren scrublands. And like them, she learned to communicate in clicks and chitters. At first, it was a mangled effort, her Wildclaw features simply not built for such vocalizations. With time in the Scarred Wasteland, and many excursions near the Rotrock Rim, though, things began to change.

At first, it was Rhiri's movements. It was a source of great alarm when she fell behind the Serthis one day, staggering along in their rippling tracks with all her might. Where movement had once been fluid and simple, her limbs began to lock up, refusing to move in the ways she was accustomed. By the time her family brought her back to the clan as a whole, a glossy scarlet sheen had crossed Rhiri's scales, so hard not even the sharpest of Serthis weapons could free her.

She did not need to be freed, though, because soon after, she emerged from her chrysalis in a comfortable new skin. Blessed with a shiny, unyielding carapace, her hide was stronger than ever, even if it forced her movements into a stiffer set of motions. More than that, though, she developed mandibles strong enough to snap bone, and with that, she began to speak the Serthis language like she'd been born with it on her tongue.

With these changes, Rhiri's willingness to interact with dragons dropped even further, and these days, she keeps almost exclusively to her Serthis kin. They understand every clatter of her mandibles, from frustration to elation, and they do not patronize her when they speak, knowing her a capable creature. She cannot say the same of the dragons she has occasionally met, the ones who talk down to her as if she is some unintelligent beast in need of coddling or rescue from the horrors of the wild wastes. They make no effort to understand her, even though she understands them, and as a result, she refuses to offer them her presence.

Her Serthis kin are more than enough companionship for this world. She may finally understand that they are not her family by blood, but nonetheless, they are family by choice, something that has proved far more valuable since long before Rhiri first broke through her shell. It is no exaggeration to say that she owes them her life, and that she would be glad to repay that debt should the need arise.

Still, she can only hope for years to come alongside the Serthis. This is the Scarred Wasteland, a realm of unpredictable, ruthless change. Whatever she becomes next, she hopes it brings power and prosperity to her clan above all.

Bio by Tues.

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-Abandoned as an egg for being the smallest, and therefore weakest of the clutch.
-She was found by neighboring Beastclans, and hatched and raised by a Clan of Serthis (Serthi?)
-She can't speak Dragon, but she can understand it.
-She communicates in chitters and clicking noises.
-Feral.
-When agitated, she clicks the mandibles(?) together.

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