Oh, those groups? What do you want to know about those misfits and recluses, anyways?
Welcome to my den's lore, in proper and full! This thread, I'll be honest, will probably be a WIP forever. But as a writer with unlimited imagination and much less than unlimited time, I still think it's worth it to record as much of my brain as I can for people to enjoy! Here's some context before the lore starts, and a key:
- All of my permas, in an ideal world, will receive a full bio summarizing their past and part in my factions, bio coding, an individual story clip here, and a part in at least one world event.
- Yes, there are labels in the thread that are blank right now; many of them. I have a lot of work ahead of me! They'll fill in with time, and I'll link everything back to the main post for convenience.
- An Individual Story, also called a story clip, are third-person stories of an event in the dragon's present life. Usually encompassing their internal monologue, these stories may be daily life, or small events that affect them primarily. These clips will be from 1k to 2k words long, and will link back to the central post (this one!) as a directory under the dragon's faction section.
- A World Event is a multi-dragon event that will range from 2k to 5k words long (I'm not crazy, you're crazy) and be a vital part of the present day lore of all the dragons involved, if not all dragons in my lair. Currently, I have several planned but unwritten, noted in this directory post in chronological order.
- Special eyes have particular meanings:
*Primal eyed dragons are magnified in their greatest strengths and weaknesses tenfold. They are truly primal, usually being so polar as to almost seem feral or on a different level than the rest of society. They are extremely powerful, due to the magnification of their strengths. Primals have unique interactions with their element in the wild, but have no particular powers to control said element unless that is their strength.
*Faceted eyed dragons have innate non-elemental magics, and tend to be incredibly magically strong. This does affect their vision and physical form, though- faceted eyed dragons degrade over time, their magic eating at their bodies and vision. Before a decade is out, they're totally blind. A couple more, and they will likely need outside help to move around. But their magic grows so strong, they can find ways around these issues themselves...
*Goat eyed dragons are immortal! Goat eyes are purely for gods, demigods, and other immortal beings. Deities in my lore are tethered to a separate plane from reality, where souls and magic itself are visible and touchable. Not all immortals are deities, but many will be.
*Multigaze is an unnatural effect, usually from tampering with the soul or possession. Think like the uncanny valley effect; other dragons are instinctively avoidant or hostile. The alterations that caused the eyes to appear may grant the dragon extra powers. No dragon has these eyes for no reason, or were simply born with them.
*Pastel, swirl, and bright eyes have no extra effect.
- If there's a particular dragon you like who doesn't have their bio or individual story done, tell me that you want to see them get completed! I'll prioritize them! Yes, even if it's a dragon I bought from you.
- If you take interest in this writing, I can add you to any kind of pinglist you want. It'd make my day if you were interested enough to be pinged for when more comes out!
Thread Rules:
- You may chat in here, fine by me; I'm subbed, so you'll never have to ping me. Please don't ping me! I don't want the double spam :)
- Please don't ask me to take in a dragon of yours. On the same note, don't ask me to write lore for your dragon; That's what my lore shop is for!
- Please don't copy-paste this elsewhere on the site or take clips for your own dragons. I know that's incredibly unlikely, but it would make me vastly upset if someone did that.
- That's all; have fun with the stories!
The Fractallian Tundra is a seemingly arbitrarily named section of the terrible, useless wastes of ice and ice and more ice in the Reclaimer's Glacier. Nothing lives out so far; animals, plants, beastclan folks... Nothing can survive for more time than just transit, right? Not when there is never fresh water, never living food, never warmth, barely even sun?
Well, dragons find a way! Adaptations to the cold, ice heritage or workarounds, treasured fabric scraps and clothes, but most importantly a little bit of magical help keeps a small collection of dragons warm enough to not have to leave, and water themselves off of the ice. Strangely, this area on the map also holds a high amount of prey animals; specifically, ones adapted to live in burrows underground. The handful of dragons that call this desolate land home have not yet cared to check where that food comes from...
World Event: The First, The Second, The Third?
World Event: Taiga Bloom
Population: 16
Individual Story:
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Notable features:
- The Crag is the only natural landmark of the Fractallian planes, being a rather... Underwhelming hill. The western side, one of the long sides of the oblong shape, has many caves and pockets worn into it. Most Fractallians den inside The Crag's holes, making small nests and doors out of debris. The bottom layer of caves is sunk into the ground a few feet, and their floors are solid ice for at least several feet more. There are metal trinkets imbedded deep inside this ice, for reasons unknown by the Fractallians themselves. Most of them simply don't care to look into it.
- Matir, the nature-flight spiral with far too much magical power to properly contain, was one of the first dragons to move into the Fractallian Plains. Her extended presence in one place causes plant growth to accelerate and practically pop out of nowhere, and even the icy flat is no exception. Sustained by magic, a small patch of massive evergreen trees has allowed a small natural population of creatures to settle into the Fractallian land, and the trees are a beacon to lost or weary travelers. The Taiga is still small; not even a mile in diameter, the circular patch is merely a byproduct of the eclectic members of the Fractallians.
- If you dig through the snow deep enough, you don't hit dirt. You hit solid, thick ice, several feet thick at the least. Matir's trees seem unaffected... But inside the ice are more glimmers of metal, trinkets stuck frozen in time. What is the history of this barren land? How far under would you have to go to find out?
The Subterrainian
Well, the answer to that question is about 10 feet down before you hit Sky again.
The Sky, not the sky- capital S. The Fractiallian Plains weren't always so flat, glittery, and icy; once upon a time ago, they were the site of an dragon's kingdom and large clan population. Legends, likely lost to all but the most desperately academic or lucky, state a guardian dragon once declared himself a king over the region due to high volumes of gemstones and precious metals under the snow.
Now, this history is true, just outdated by several millennium. Since the castle and gem mine are long gone, repurposed. A catastrophic cave-in left the entire castle, built almost on top of the mine at the demands of the greedy king, inside of the mine's mouth in shambles. In the past, it collapsed on top of the miner's camps and homes, taking living dragons along for the landslide. Most dragons who lived in the clan died in the event due to rubble and the following starvation and anarchy. But...
Most isn't all, and the survivors- mostly miners who dug themselves out of the rubble- quickly found themselves to be far safer and warmer inside the caves rather than out. Settling underground, the castle rubble was left at the surface as the dragons moved deep inside to feed on the mosses and mycelium to make up for the lack of animal life on the surface. The rubble of the castle froze over, sealing the major openings (though smaller side tunnels and animal burrows are often open to the surface). Dragons stopped leaving the tunnels, as the ecosystem grew stronger and stronger with magical cultivation and the systematic increase in available biomass from dragons' life cycles. Over the centuries and generations, they had forgotten about the surface entirely, their elders deeming the underground to be their only future and refusing to pass on the stories of the old days. The castle rubble has long since been dismantled to use for construction, but the thick ice remains as a minorly unstable plug to the only major exit of the Subterrainian. Their ancestors had named this ice The Sky, but not a soul below the earth knows what that means anymore...
The forgetting was aided by the high turnover rate of life below the surface. The tunnels are not quite stable after so many years and have to be reinforced constantly. Monster populations are just as plentiful as the normal surface world, perhaps even more so due to the isolation preventing them from leaving and spreading out. What's more, the creatures below seem to have a high rate of individual mutations, but from what source is unknown.
Survival comes from strict teamwork and routines, all the dragons working on their specialties to keep their home afloat. Things can turn for the worse at any moment, so hypervigilance is key for the good of the clan, as well as exploiting the particular strengths of every dragon without mercy. Adondis and Pherion are the leaders of the clan, which they dubbed the Subterrainian once they came to power. Some may call them tyrants who take over all the other dragon's lives and works them to death; some call them harsh, but only as needed to make sure everyone stays safe. Opinion fluctuates, and Pherion usually tries to stifle the negative speakers in any way she can...
World Event: Two Gaolers With a Son
Population: 11
Individual Story:
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Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
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Notable features:
- The central living space for dragon kind is a quarter of a mile below the surface, through winding tunnels that make the distance feel quite long and easy to get lost in. This hub of tunnels that the dragons live inside is a winding and wide cavern, which the dragons have carved as much as they can to make it livable. True construction techniques are long gone in the memories of the cave dwellers, but nests are carved into the walls like roosting birds and storage facilities are laid out on the ground below. The cave's diameter is around 800 feet and twice that in height, stretching even father, making the hub quite large- even to host so many large dragons.
- The Pitdeep is one of the features near the clan's cavern, being a tunnel entrance straight down into the floor a short glide away. Jagged and sharp walls along with sudden diagonal bends following a mostly straight path make the tunnel incredibly difficult to traverse, not to mention the heavy toxic gasses that accumulate in the deeper tunnels of the mines. The dangers inside mean that the actual length of this tunnel is unknown. Why is such a useless tunnel not plugged up, since it's so close the central hub? Because it's far too deep to fill with rocks, and it's the perfect place to dump all garbage, rubble, and scrap. The bottom is filled with the slowly rotting waste of decades of draconic activity. Even corpses are tossed down there, no religious rites or last wishes preserved through the ages...
- All of the branching unstable tunnels in the mine accumulate into too much distance and danger, meaning that no Subterrainian dragon has ever fully explored them. Anyone who wants to get out from under the tyrants/emperors can usually find a tunnel and fly as far as they can into it, and never be seen again. This is dangerous because of monsters and cave-ins, but it is always an option to the many Subterrainian dissidents. Tiny pocket communities pop up because of this fleeing, sustaining themselves like small villages, but usually don't last long until they return to the only true safety of the Subterrainian clan, are killed by monsters, or find some other terrible means of dying of which there is no short supply.
The Tale of a new Horizon
The Fractallians and Subterrainians, both with isolation built into their very homes, never knew of the other dragons lifting just below their feet or above their wings. The mystery of the trinkets embedded in the floor, and the icy Sky at the top cavern of the Subterrainian were left alone in favor of simply trying to survive. But up on the surface, a new dragon joined the Fractallians for investigative purposes...
Horizon, a skydancer archeologist, caught wind of the trinkets below the ice from the travelling offspring of some of the Fractallian members. Curious as to what artifacts might be sealed into the deadly plains, he arrived to find two surprises: the rumors were true in greater amounts that he thought, and he wasn't going to be surviving alone off the land because of the whole clan of dragons that could somehow live out there! After some introductions and permission to dig from Tumi on behalf of Tarmeux and Vercada, he picked one of The Crag's bottom caves and started carving the floor apart, very carefully...
Not carefully enough to prevent some key structural damage to the unsupported sheet of ice, though!
He bored a hole into the cave floor, which collapsed the entire floor into a tunnel below, open to the Subterrainian's highest cavern, the one with the Sky. However, this collapse also cracked the entire Sky, sending a massive echo through the tunnels that alerted all of the denizens of the changes up above. Scouts were sent to investigate, and met with Horizon who'd wriggled into the large chamber with a fascinated excitement, turning to confusion and a small dose of fear for the dragons that came up from below.
He mentioned the surface world, and they turned their heads to the side. What world? What surface? He described it, and they didn't know a thing. So he showed them. This was true terror to the underground creatures, seeing sun for the first time in their lives. News spread through both clans of the massive new space, and tentative contact was made by the bravest of both sides... But what would become of this odd meeting? Both side's leaders were already distrusting on principle after learning of the whole new world. What could go right from such paranoia?
But Outside of the Clans?
Not every dragon in the unique ecosystem of surface and underground are embroiled and burdened with the conflict between the clans. Smaller factions of particular species exist in the borders between snow and rock, usually isolationists who came to the empty plains for emptiness; or are outcasted from one clan or another. Their stories are no less crucial to understanding the complex life of the two major clans.
Ancient Isolation: Gaolerian Recluses
In a small, hand-carved set of burrows tunneling reaching from a concealed hole on the back side of The Crag to a moss-covered crack in the antechamber of the Sky, one family is happy in the quiet. Two gaolers, Itri and Gala, stay in comfortable hiding with each other and their children, having escaped both clans' gazes. Their familial lineage, however, is quite involved in the clans' affairs...
Population: 2
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Ancient Isolation: Veilspun's Living Hoard
Matir's taiga put down deep roots to reach actual earth, and the only reason it was able to root at all was because it bordered the western edge of the Sky, where no tunnels stretched. The old castle once sat where her trees grew, on the remains of the foundation of packed earth that is now crisscrossed with small tunnels. The tree roots provide structural support to a complicated anthill made by Vendetta and her fostered collection of critters and creatures which would normally be prey or familiars to the larger dragon species. To the veilspun, these creatures are neighbors or very large pets depending on intelligence level. Not all of them chose to live with the dragon though... Some are begrudgingly bribed to stay by the care the veilspun provides, like a tiny little magical landlord.
Population: 1 dragon, many familiars.
Individual Story:
Point of Mutation: The Pitdeep Dreams of Living
The Pitdeep was supposed to be the end of everything. The half-mile shaft, jagged and crooked but almost straight down on the large scale, was meant to be barren and dead. Methane, Chlorine, rot, and durable molds who could take the lack of air should have been the end. But... the Icewarden isn't the only god who finds himself an alter in the wasteland. The built-up slime and slow, slow decay aided by a scheming goddess in the bottom of the pit made contact with durable living creatures; two gaolers with a son left behind, tossed down to die and finding only rage with their failures, reaching for anything they could in their dying minds.
They were reborn of that passion, and of the rabid strains of parasitic fungi and reanimating viruses, their bodies merged and changed beyond recognition. Their two minds shoved into one body. An aberration of massive proportions and strength, built on their desire to reform the above world and modified to wish to coat the Subterrainian with pus and mold, creating a plagueland outpost in the icy world as both vengeance and a higher purpose to their second life.
World Event: The First Invasion
After the First Invasion, the spores of revenge were seeded into the bodies of the fallen... More would grow from the pit. As long as it still exists, more will always grow from the pit. Rage, boiling from below within the cesspool, is a new and constant threat to the Subterrainian, keeping them in panicked check while the Fractallians take note of the newly weakened neighbors with both concern and pleasure, depending on who is asked. Well- until a particular goddess decided her champion needed some help...
World Event: The Second Invasion
Part of their influence on the caves around them is how the disease is slowly spreading through deep-dwelling creatures via infected food left out by the zombies as bait. The living infected tend to mutate as the virus hijacks cells and twists their growth and purpose. These mutations cause fatal defects in the organ systems of the hosts, and the resulting bodies are dragged down by the zombies into the Pitdeep. They are why the caves get more and more dangerous as you go deeper, since the mutants are more often than not rabid and dangerous while they still live.
Population: 6
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The Past Lives Again: The Divine Awake from Sleep
Not everything that looks draconic really is. Legends such as the world serpent, creatures like Emperors, the Hydras of the fire domains' hottest reaches, and ghosts and spirits in draconic forms all exist across Sonerith. Where magic, dragons, and the volatile world combine, new things can be born, exalted above mortality, even above reality. The strange reason that dragons can survive the cold with little to help them, in this specific place and this place only? The influence of two twin gods, one male and one female, bound to this plane from the days before when chapels or even civilization existed in the cold. Their power is directly based on how many dragons reside in their domains; as the clans grow, life becomes exponentially easier as the gods tend to their charges. After all, taking care of all the mortals also takes care of themselves...
They are gods, but they are ghosts. The only way to see the spiritual form of Valanush, the god of the Fractallians, and Teleresh, the goddess of the Subterrainian, is through devotion in prayer in specific to the god, requiring knowledge of both their names and their history as the god of frozen abundance. A complex ritual for sure; meaning only the priests of the Subterrainian and Fractallian worlds can see these gods, or even claim to know what they really are. Summoning these gods increases their connection to the physical world, and as thanks for the priest preforming such a favor, they are granted boons and gifts. Said priests are also sworn enemies, cautious of ever revealing the existence of their deities and how to contact them in case of one dragon suddenly having both gods at their beck and call. Such a thing could raise a dragon to the power of a demigod and must be avoided at all costs.
The First Invasion attracted particular attention to a certain hero... The details, still being collected.
World Event: Lineage of Tragedy
Population: 3
Individual Story:
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Welcome to my den's lore, in proper and full! This thread, I'll be honest, will probably be a WIP forever. But as a writer with unlimited imagination and much less than unlimited time, I still think it's worth it to record as much of my brain as I can for people to enjoy! Here's some context before the lore starts, and a key:
- All of my permas, in an ideal world, will receive a full bio summarizing their past and part in my factions, bio coding, an individual story clip here, and a part in at least one world event.
- Yes, there are labels in the thread that are blank right now; many of them. I have a lot of work ahead of me! They'll fill in with time, and I'll link everything back to the main post for convenience.
- An Individual Story, also called a story clip, are third-person stories of an event in the dragon's present life. Usually encompassing their internal monologue, these stories may be daily life, or small events that affect them primarily. These clips will be from 1k to 2k words long, and will link back to the central post (this one!) as a directory under the dragon's faction section.
- A World Event is a multi-dragon event that will range from 2k to 5k words long (I'm not crazy, you're crazy) and be a vital part of the present day lore of all the dragons involved, if not all dragons in my lair. Currently, I have several planned but unwritten, noted in this directory post in chronological order.
- Special eyes have particular meanings:
*Primal eyed dragons are magnified in their greatest strengths and weaknesses tenfold. They are truly primal, usually being so polar as to almost seem feral or on a different level than the rest of society. They are extremely powerful, due to the magnification of their strengths. Primals have unique interactions with their element in the wild, but have no particular powers to control said element unless that is their strength.
*Faceted eyed dragons have innate non-elemental magics, and tend to be incredibly magically strong. This does affect their vision and physical form, though- faceted eyed dragons degrade over time, their magic eating at their bodies and vision. Before a decade is out, they're totally blind. A couple more, and they will likely need outside help to move around. But their magic grows so strong, they can find ways around these issues themselves...
*Goat eyed dragons are immortal! Goat eyes are purely for gods, demigods, and other immortal beings. Deities in my lore are tethered to a separate plane from reality, where souls and magic itself are visible and touchable. Not all immortals are deities, but many will be.
*Multigaze is an unnatural effect, usually from tampering with the soul or possession. Think like the uncanny valley effect; other dragons are instinctively avoidant or hostile. The alterations that caused the eyes to appear may grant the dragon extra powers. No dragon has these eyes for no reason, or were simply born with them.
*Pastel, swirl, and bright eyes have no extra effect.
- If there's a particular dragon you like who doesn't have their bio or individual story done, tell me that you want to see them get completed! I'll prioritize them! Yes, even if it's a dragon I bought from you.
- If you take interest in this writing, I can add you to any kind of pinglist you want. It'd make my day if you were interested enough to be pinged for when more comes out!
Thread Rules:
- You may chat in here, fine by me; I'm subbed, so you'll never have to ping me. Please don't ping me! I don't want the double spam :)
- Please don't ask me to take in a dragon of yours. On the same note, don't ask me to write lore for your dragon; That's what my lore shop is for!
- Please don't copy-paste this elsewhere on the site or take clips for your own dragons. I know that's incredibly unlikely, but it would make me vastly upset if someone did that.
- That's all; have fun with the stories!
Well, dragons find a way! Adaptations to the cold, ice heritage or workarounds, treasured fabric scraps and clothes, but most importantly a little bit of magical help keeps a small collection of dragons warm enough to not have to leave, and water themselves off of the ice. Strangely, this area on the map also holds a high amount of prey animals; specifically, ones adapted to live in burrows underground. The handful of dragons that call this desolate land home have not yet cared to check where that food comes from...
World Event: The First, The Second, The Third?
World Event: Taiga Bloom
Population: 16
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Notable features:
- The Crag is the only natural landmark of the Fractallian planes, being a rather... Underwhelming hill. The western side, one of the long sides of the oblong shape, has many caves and pockets worn into it. Most Fractallians den inside The Crag's holes, making small nests and doors out of debris. The bottom layer of caves is sunk into the ground a few feet, and their floors are solid ice for at least several feet more. There are metal trinkets imbedded deep inside this ice, for reasons unknown by the Fractallians themselves. Most of them simply don't care to look into it.
- Matir, the nature-flight spiral with far too much magical power to properly contain, was one of the first dragons to move into the Fractallian Plains. Her extended presence in one place causes plant growth to accelerate and practically pop out of nowhere, and even the icy flat is no exception. Sustained by magic, a small patch of massive evergreen trees has allowed a small natural population of creatures to settle into the Fractallian land, and the trees are a beacon to lost or weary travelers. The Taiga is still small; not even a mile in diameter, the circular patch is merely a byproduct of the eclectic members of the Fractallians.
- If you dig through the snow deep enough, you don't hit dirt. You hit solid, thick ice, several feet thick at the least. Matir's trees seem unaffected... But inside the ice are more glimmers of metal, trinkets stuck frozen in time. What is the history of this barren land? How far under would you have to go to find out?
The Subterrainian
Well, the answer to that question is about 10 feet down before you hit Sky again.
The Sky, not the sky- capital S. The Fractiallian Plains weren't always so flat, glittery, and icy; once upon a time ago, they were the site of an dragon's kingdom and large clan population. Legends, likely lost to all but the most desperately academic or lucky, state a guardian dragon once declared himself a king over the region due to high volumes of gemstones and precious metals under the snow.
Now, this history is true, just outdated by several millennium. Since the castle and gem mine are long gone, repurposed. A catastrophic cave-in left the entire castle, built almost on top of the mine at the demands of the greedy king, inside of the mine's mouth in shambles. In the past, it collapsed on top of the miner's camps and homes, taking living dragons along for the landslide. Most dragons who lived in the clan died in the event due to rubble and the following starvation and anarchy. But...
Most isn't all, and the survivors- mostly miners who dug themselves out of the rubble- quickly found themselves to be far safer and warmer inside the caves rather than out. Settling underground, the castle rubble was left at the surface as the dragons moved deep inside to feed on the mosses and mycelium to make up for the lack of animal life on the surface. The rubble of the castle froze over, sealing the major openings (though smaller side tunnels and animal burrows are often open to the surface). Dragons stopped leaving the tunnels, as the ecosystem grew stronger and stronger with magical cultivation and the systematic increase in available biomass from dragons' life cycles. Over the centuries and generations, they had forgotten about the surface entirely, their elders deeming the underground to be their only future and refusing to pass on the stories of the old days. The castle rubble has long since been dismantled to use for construction, but the thick ice remains as a minorly unstable plug to the only major exit of the Subterrainian. Their ancestors had named this ice The Sky, but not a soul below the earth knows what that means anymore...
The forgetting was aided by the high turnover rate of life below the surface. The tunnels are not quite stable after so many years and have to be reinforced constantly. Monster populations are just as plentiful as the normal surface world, perhaps even more so due to the isolation preventing them from leaving and spreading out. What's more, the creatures below seem to have a high rate of individual mutations, but from what source is unknown.
Survival comes from strict teamwork and routines, all the dragons working on their specialties to keep their home afloat. Things can turn for the worse at any moment, so hypervigilance is key for the good of the clan, as well as exploiting the particular strengths of every dragon without mercy. Adondis and Pherion are the leaders of the clan, which they dubbed the Subterrainian once they came to power. Some may call them tyrants who take over all the other dragon's lives and works them to death; some call them harsh, but only as needed to make sure everyone stays safe. Opinion fluctuates, and Pherion usually tries to stifle the negative speakers in any way she can...
World Event: Two Gaolers With a Son
Population: 11
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Individual Story:
Notable features:
- The central living space for dragon kind is a quarter of a mile below the surface, through winding tunnels that make the distance feel quite long and easy to get lost in. This hub of tunnels that the dragons live inside is a winding and wide cavern, which the dragons have carved as much as they can to make it livable. True construction techniques are long gone in the memories of the cave dwellers, but nests are carved into the walls like roosting birds and storage facilities are laid out on the ground below. The cave's diameter is around 800 feet and twice that in height, stretching even father, making the hub quite large- even to host so many large dragons.
- The Pitdeep is one of the features near the clan's cavern, being a tunnel entrance straight down into the floor a short glide away. Jagged and sharp walls along with sudden diagonal bends following a mostly straight path make the tunnel incredibly difficult to traverse, not to mention the heavy toxic gasses that accumulate in the deeper tunnels of the mines. The dangers inside mean that the actual length of this tunnel is unknown. Why is such a useless tunnel not plugged up, since it's so close the central hub? Because it's far too deep to fill with rocks, and it's the perfect place to dump all garbage, rubble, and scrap. The bottom is filled with the slowly rotting waste of decades of draconic activity. Even corpses are tossed down there, no religious rites or last wishes preserved through the ages...
- All of the branching unstable tunnels in the mine accumulate into too much distance and danger, meaning that no Subterrainian dragon has ever fully explored them. Anyone who wants to get out from under the tyrants/emperors can usually find a tunnel and fly as far as they can into it, and never be seen again. This is dangerous because of monsters and cave-ins, but it is always an option to the many Subterrainian dissidents. Tiny pocket communities pop up because of this fleeing, sustaining themselves like small villages, but usually don't last long until they return to the only true safety of the Subterrainian clan, are killed by monsters, or find some other terrible means of dying of which there is no short supply.
The Tale of a new Horizon
The Fractallians and Subterrainians, both with isolation built into their very homes, never knew of the other dragons lifting just below their feet or above their wings. The mystery of the trinkets embedded in the floor, and the icy Sky at the top cavern of the Subterrainian were left alone in favor of simply trying to survive. But up on the surface, a new dragon joined the Fractallians for investigative purposes...
Horizon, a skydancer archeologist, caught wind of the trinkets below the ice from the travelling offspring of some of the Fractallian members. Curious as to what artifacts might be sealed into the deadly plains, he arrived to find two surprises: the rumors were true in greater amounts that he thought, and he wasn't going to be surviving alone off the land because of the whole clan of dragons that could somehow live out there! After some introductions and permission to dig from Tumi on behalf of Tarmeux and Vercada, he picked one of The Crag's bottom caves and started carving the floor apart, very carefully...
Not carefully enough to prevent some key structural damage to the unsupported sheet of ice, though!
He bored a hole into the cave floor, which collapsed the entire floor into a tunnel below, open to the Subterrainian's highest cavern, the one with the Sky. However, this collapse also cracked the entire Sky, sending a massive echo through the tunnels that alerted all of the denizens of the changes up above. Scouts were sent to investigate, and met with Horizon who'd wriggled into the large chamber with a fascinated excitement, turning to confusion and a small dose of fear for the dragons that came up from below.
He mentioned the surface world, and they turned their heads to the side. What world? What surface? He described it, and they didn't know a thing. So he showed them. This was true terror to the underground creatures, seeing sun for the first time in their lives. News spread through both clans of the massive new space, and tentative contact was made by the bravest of both sides... But what would become of this odd meeting? Both side's leaders were already distrusting on principle after learning of the whole new world. What could go right from such paranoia?
under a broken Sky, all that glimmers is laid bare...
But Outside of the Clans?
Not every dragon in the unique ecosystem of surface and underground are embroiled and burdened with the conflict between the clans. Smaller factions of particular species exist in the borders between snow and rock, usually isolationists who came to the empty plains for emptiness; or are outcasted from one clan or another. Their stories are no less crucial to understanding the complex life of the two major clans.
Ancient Isolation: Gaolerian Recluses
In a small, hand-carved set of burrows tunneling reaching from a concealed hole on the back side of The Crag to a moss-covered crack in the antechamber of the Sky, one family is happy in the quiet. Two gaolers, Itri and Gala, stay in comfortable hiding with each other and their children, having escaped both clans' gazes. Their familial lineage, however, is quite involved in the clans' affairs...
Population: 2
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Ancient Isolation: Veilspun's Living Hoard
Matir's taiga put down deep roots to reach actual earth, and the only reason it was able to root at all was because it bordered the western edge of the Sky, where no tunnels stretched. The old castle once sat where her trees grew, on the remains of the foundation of packed earth that is now crisscrossed with small tunnels. The tree roots provide structural support to a complicated anthill made by Vendetta and her fostered collection of critters and creatures which would normally be prey or familiars to the larger dragon species. To the veilspun, these creatures are neighbors or very large pets depending on intelligence level. Not all of them chose to live with the dragon though... Some are begrudgingly bribed to stay by the care the veilspun provides, like a tiny little magical landlord.
Population: 1 dragon, many familiars.
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Point of Mutation: The Pitdeep Dreams of Living
The Pitdeep was supposed to be the end of everything. The half-mile shaft, jagged and crooked but almost straight down on the large scale, was meant to be barren and dead. Methane, Chlorine, rot, and durable molds who could take the lack of air should have been the end. But... the Icewarden isn't the only god who finds himself an alter in the wasteland. The built-up slime and slow, slow decay aided by a scheming goddess in the bottom of the pit made contact with durable living creatures; two gaolers with a son left behind, tossed down to die and finding only rage with their failures, reaching for anything they could in their dying minds.
They were reborn of that passion, and of the rabid strains of parasitic fungi and reanimating viruses, their bodies merged and changed beyond recognition. Their two minds shoved into one body. An aberration of massive proportions and strength, built on their desire to reform the above world and modified to wish to coat the Subterrainian with pus and mold, creating a plagueland outpost in the icy world as both vengeance and a higher purpose to their second life.
World Event: The First Invasion
After the First Invasion, the spores of revenge were seeded into the bodies of the fallen... More would grow from the pit. As long as it still exists, more will always grow from the pit. Rage, boiling from below within the cesspool, is a new and constant threat to the Subterrainian, keeping them in panicked check while the Fractallians take note of the newly weakened neighbors with both concern and pleasure, depending on who is asked. Well- until a particular goddess decided her champion needed some help...
World Event: The Second Invasion
Part of their influence on the caves around them is how the disease is slowly spreading through deep-dwelling creatures via infected food left out by the zombies as bait. The living infected tend to mutate as the virus hijacks cells and twists their growth and purpose. These mutations cause fatal defects in the organ systems of the hosts, and the resulting bodies are dragged down by the zombies into the Pitdeep. They are why the caves get more and more dangerous as you go deeper, since the mutants are more often than not rabid and dangerous while they still live.
Population: 6
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The Past Lives Again: The Divine Awake from Sleep
Not everything that looks draconic really is. Legends such as the world serpent, creatures like Emperors, the Hydras of the fire domains' hottest reaches, and ghosts and spirits in draconic forms all exist across Sonerith. Where magic, dragons, and the volatile world combine, new things can be born, exalted above mortality, even above reality. The strange reason that dragons can survive the cold with little to help them, in this specific place and this place only? The influence of two twin gods, one male and one female, bound to this plane from the days before when chapels or even civilization existed in the cold. Their power is directly based on how many dragons reside in their domains; as the clans grow, life becomes exponentially easier as the gods tend to their charges. After all, taking care of all the mortals also takes care of themselves...
They are gods, but they are ghosts. The only way to see the spiritual form of Valanush, the god of the Fractallians, and Teleresh, the goddess of the Subterrainian, is through devotion in prayer in specific to the god, requiring knowledge of both their names and their history as the god of frozen abundance. A complex ritual for sure; meaning only the priests of the Subterrainian and Fractallian worlds can see these gods, or even claim to know what they really are. Summoning these gods increases their connection to the physical world, and as thanks for the priest preforming such a favor, they are granted boons and gifts. Said priests are also sworn enemies, cautious of ever revealing the existence of their deities and how to contact them in case of one dragon suddenly having both gods at their beck and call. Such a thing could raise a dragon to the power of a demigod and must be avoided at all costs.
The First Invasion attracted particular attention to a certain hero... The details, still being collected.
World Event: Lineage of Tragedy
Population: 3
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