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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
21.86 m
Wingspan
22.16 m
Weight
6192.43 kg
Genetics
Eldritch
Jaguar
Jaguar
Obsidian
Toxin
Toxin
Black
Crackle
Crackle
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Imperial
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
6
AGI
6
DEF
6
QCK
5
INT
8
VIT
8
MND
6
Lineage
Biography
metallic
alloy
stained
fear of cartoons
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 N A M E 
BARGHEST LORE AND LINEAGE PROJECT
GENERATION [FOUNDER'S NAME] LINE 
"Stories are wild creatures. When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?"
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. |
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There are many ways to summon spirits. Television is not generally considered one of them. But when the first TV sets were shown to the public, there were those who shied away for that exact reason. Even when the devices were dismantled and the dragons were shown the wires and tubes inside and given a patient explanation of how things worked, wary folks shook their heads. “It may work as intended,” they said, “but there’s no guarantee they won’t work as unintended either. Spirits,” they added darkly, “will always find ways to make their presence known.” Sornieth is a magical world, and it is rare for dragons to scoff “Superstition!” at each other. The engineers didn’t, but the disdainful expressions on their faces spoke louder than words. They really couldn’t see how a spirit would be able to manipulate their televisions; the machines would explode before things got out of hand. The televisions received the Stormcatcher’s stamp of approval, and mass production and retail began. Broadcasting stations were also put up to beam signals to the TV sets. The sets were of course sold to other Flights, quickly becoming a hot commodity as dragons recognized their use in entertainment and information. In those days, television signals weren’t the best. They could be erratic and unreliable; it was common for a broadcast to suddenly freeze and then get replaced by a still image that said “Please stand by” for several minutes. “The signal’s breaking up,” viewers would say when this happened. They didn’t know how right they were. One day, something broke through. Episode 1. This was in the days before colored television had been invented. Broadcasts were still in black-and-white; they typically showed harmless, wholesome shows such as gardening programs or song-and-dance hours. There were also cartoons for children, usually not lasting more than ten minutes, for this was when animation was in its infancy, and was rough and unrefined. The interruption happened during a cartoon show. The picture froze, centered on a black-and-white dog with floppy ears. Groans erupted through countless lairs as the viewers realized what was going on, and sure enough, the dreaded “Please stand by” image flickered into view. The children were most displeased, the adults more optimistic. Many hatchling caretakers soothed their young wards, encouraging them to “Go outside and play.” Some of these children began to turn away...and that was when they saw it. Out of the corner of their eye, the TV screen flickered for a brief instant, the innocuous sign replaced by an ink-black form with rows of grinning teeth...and then in another flicker, the cartoon was back on, showing the floppy-eared dog bounding across endless hills. “It was only there for a split-second! I didn’t even see it!” the caretakers said, trying to soothe their now-weeping charges. But perhaps that was why it was so terrifying: seeing something for such a brief instant, and then not knowing where it was....A swift movement, a change in an eye-blink. It could be anywhere; you didn’t know when you’d next see it... Episode 2 happened some weeks later. More viewers saw it this time, during an educational show. With the help of a friendly-looking cartoon qiriq, the presenter was sharing “Fun Forest Facts” with the viewers, couching it in easy-to-understand language for the children. “Many incredible creatures live in the forest!” she declared, gesturing grandly to the bamboo groves in the background...just as something dark and thin and towering tottered out from among the trees. It walked on two legs, crossing the screen from left to right, and as it was standing on a rise, it was clearly outlined against the pale sky. “What is it?” the viewers asked, squinting at it. It was dark, so dark....The presenter rattled merrily on, showing flowers to the camera while the painted-on qiriq pranced around her. She frequently turned to glance at the landscape in the background, but said nothing about the creature. It was as if she couldn’t see it— But suddenly, viewers realized with a chill, it could see them. It turned in the direction of the camera, and even at this distance, they could see its gleaming grin, its staring saucer eyes. The broadcast station was flooded with transmissions from concerned viewers. “There’s nothing there,” the broadcasters objected; they played the reels again. There was, indeed, nothing there. The film was examined by experts who confirmed that nothing had ever been there. Only the presenter, her cartoon companion, the forests and the hills... The viewers were not comforted, and when many of them went to sleep that night, they swore they could see the same tall creature, but unnervingly close this time, looming over them out of the darkness. In particularly severe cases, some dragons even became unable to look at the horizon, afraid that they would see the creature outlined against the sky. This was around the time that the Stormcatcher’s underlings started taking an interest in things; after all, the television had been invented by Lightning dragons. They started compiling reports, later termed episodes, of the so-called “Cartoon Dog”. While the episodes were at first numbered chronologically, as time went on and more incidents occurred, they were numbered according to when they’d been reported instead. And they increased as the years went on. Episode 56. Color television had been invented by this time. Two editors were previewing some footage: a cartoon segment of waves rolling against a shore. Golden porpoises and Maren danced together, frolicking in the tropical lagoon. “This part’s boring. Maybe we ought to reduce the duration in half?” they asked. And as they turned towards the waves again, they saw something break through. Something dark, that lengthened grotesquely as they watched. It turned towards the camera even as they said, “Wait, that wasn’t there earlier,” and its inky face split crosswise to reveal needle-sharp teeth. It surged towards the camera, towards the editors, arcing above the silent waves. They caught a glimpse of over-large hands encased in floppy white gloves, and for a moment, they swore the thing bulged through the screen— The lights went out as a bulb exploded, showering sparks onto them. There was the smell of burning plastic. Cursing and screaming, the editors bumbled around in the dark, groping for the door. That was when the remaining lights came back on. The editors froze, wings and tails nearly tangled together in their mad flight towards the door, and looked back warily. All was normal in the room, but some of the sparks had fallen onto the projector and damaged the film reel. The plastic dissolved as they watched, black wisps of smoke dissipating into the air. Episode 83. A garden, with a smiling sun shining in a bright blue sky. Giant flowers swaying together, singing a peppy song. They began to dance more energetically, shaking their leaves and spinning—and then as one of them turned, it revealed that nightmare face with stark, black-and-white eyes and silver teeth. In a split-second, the face had filled the whole screen, its eyes and mouth twitching crazily as though it were trying to chew its way through, and the song was distorted into an unpleasantly looping melody, overlaid by panicked children’s screams. The “Please stand by” sign popped up again, but it flickered on and off, and in between, that face remained, growing larger and larger until the children swore they heard the screen beginning to crack... Children’s cartoons gained popularity as the years passed, and sightings of the Cartoon Dog increased as well. Black-and-white or color, it didn’t matter; the Cartoon Dog made appearances wherever, whenever, it pleased. Encountering it was upsetting, certainly, but it didn’t seem to cause more harm than just mentally scarring children (and some adults) for life, so that they never scoffed at another cartoon again—never, in fact, wanted to see another cartoon again. Those who were hardest hit developed a debilitating phobia of cartoons, reduced to blubbering, trembling wrecks whenever animated characters appeared on the TV screen. “But as long as it’s confined to scaring people while onscreen,” the investigators said, “it’s not a significant matter.” They put their files away, and that was the end of it— Until they realized the Cartoon Dog wasn’t confined to the screen, and wasn’t content with merely scaring people. Episode 104. A nursery caretaker put on a cartoon program for the youngsters. One of the hatchlings, dissatisfied with this, wandered away from the group. She originally intended to read in the library, but soon climbed out the window and went into the brush, following music only she could hear. She came back screaming, bleeding from one foreleg, saying a strange creature had attacked her. Under the prodding of her caretakers, she drew her interpretation of it. They initially thought it was a Shade fragment. It was only when she added the large, staring eyes and floppy ears that they realized what it was. Episode 139. Another hatchling, but this one was nearly grown. He stormed out of the den after arguing with his siblings about what to watch. “Don’t like those stupid cartoons of yours! They’re dumb and they stink!” he shouted, before stomping off to the edge of the lair, muttering angrily all the while. As he passed the outer wall, something plopped wetly onto his head. He wiped it off: It was dark, sticky goop, and at first he thought it was ink. But as he rubbed it between his claws, it left a reddish smear. That was when he heard the music. It was jaunty, peppy, and slightly scratchy, as if it were being piped through an old-timey gramophone. It seemed to come from a long way away, but got steadily closer...until he realized it was coming from above him. He looked up—and there it was, the Cartoon Dog, clinging to the wall like a nightmare lizard. “It’s too far away!” the young Ridgeback thought through the sudden spike of terror— And then with a horrendous clack-clack-claaaacking noise, the Cartoon Dog’s neck lengthened. One second it was a dozen meters above him, the next its face was inches away from his, and getting closer all the while. Its eyes gleamed like endless pools of ink, and more horribly, he could make out the faint reddish stains on its teeth. It took some time to pry the details of this episode from the wreckage of the Ridgeback’s mind, because when he was found, he was in incoherent shambles, and his body was in a similar state: scratched and bleeding, with awful bite marks on his limbs. “The eyes, the eyes!” he moaned. His clan couldn’t figure out what’d attacked him at first—until the day his younger siblings tuned the TV to a cartoon broadcast. Then he went wild, shrieking in shrill terror, demolishing the screen and the room around him. That particular incident convinced the investigators that the Cartoon Dog was malevolent. Like a wild animal that’d grown accustomed to being fed, it had become bolder, more curious. Unfortunately, in this case, it looked as though the food it wanted was other dragons. “What if we halted all broadcasts?” they asked. The Cartoon Dog was now appearing on the physical plane, but the reports of it so far had all been tied to televisions in some way; it was reasonable to assume it would stop appearing once all the broadcasts were halted and the sets destroyed. It hadn’t manifested before television was invented; dragons could find their entertainment elsewhere, use radios and attuned crystals to communicate with each other. Then one of the investigators unearthed an old case, which they subsequently branded Episode 172. An Earth clan, far up in the mountains of Dragonhome. Far from any electronic broadcasts; no televisions, only books and games... The clan leaders had awoken, found their two children missing. They followed the trail outside. One child hadn’t gotten very far, most likely because he walked with a bad limp. He was apparently sleepwalking, but awakened at his parents’ touch, and could only point into the wizened trees. It was nearly dawn by then, and the missing daughter’s trail was soon found. Searchers followed it to the foot of a towering tree. They looked up, saw nothing—save for what seemed to be a colorful handkerchief fluttering in the breeze. Only when one of the searchers glided up to inspect it did they realize it was a piece of the missing child’s patchwork skin, still warm and bloody on one side. Of the missing child, no more trace of her was ever found. “The song, we had to follow the song,” her brother said later on, when asked what had lured them into the woods. “It was a black thing with floppy ears. It was singing and dancing. It took its head off, rolled it around like a ball. It looked like fun....It said it would teach us how to take off our own heads too, but not in the lair, because then we would laugh so loudly.... “It had white hands, had big, round eyes. Bright white eyes, like paper. I could see them even though it was still nighttime....It had really long, sharp, shiny teeth, too.” The same creature? Too many details matched up, and the investigators considered the unpleasant possibility that there might be more than one of those things out there. But more unpleasant still was the realization that this thing no longer needed to be near any electronics to manifest, didn’t even need to be invoked or spoken of beforehand. It seemed it now appeared wherever and whenever it liked, and now the investigators had to wonder how many other unexplained disappearances, sudden deaths and outbursts, were actually the work of this accursed thing. How many more of these unaired episodes were waiting to be uncovered. They wondered where exactly this thing had come from—and were the televisions entirely to blame for its finding a way into Sornieth? Perhaps there were other cases, predating television, that could be tied to this creature...but it didn’t seem helpful to dig through all those old files now. The best they could do, they decided, was to tune in...and wait for the next episode. ~ written by Disillusionist (254672) all edits by other users
Layout and artwork by awaicu
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