Oh boy I have so many headcanons
the gods don’t actually eat physical food. They might try some offerings, to be polite, but for the most part, the gods are just a manifestation of the magical energies present in their domains and act like a constant feedback loop? So magical power flows into them from the element and back out into their element again. They might feel "hungry" if their power is waning - like the Gladekeeper during winter - or "full" if their power is stronger - the Lightweaver during the summer months in the northern(? - wherever the light realm is located globe-wise) hemisphere. For the most part, it's really not analogous to draconic experiences - they're gods/goddesses and it works differently.
Dragon Reproduction
The first four breeds were born into a much harsher world - dragons were not the dominant species then, and then after most of the rabid creatures created by the birth of the Arcanist and the War of Mutation were defeated, they turned to war among themselves. Lots of children, quickly, were necessary for the survival of the clans.
Subsequent breeds were born into less and less harsh worlds, ones where the strain of large dragon populations on the land were becoming apparent, and thus produce offspring far less frequently, i.e. Coatls and Wildclaws.
The Imperials and Nocturnes were special cases. Imperials originally had much faster reproductive systems and shorter times before they could produce another clutch, but this was altered, by either the Imperials themselves, the Lightweaver or the other Gods shortly after their Emporer issue was discovered.
The Nocturnes have slower reproductive systems to make their periodical hibernations easier.
There are small packs of mirrors that roam the same area year after year - it's actually the members that switch out. This began to develop as more and more clans lay claim to territory outside their dens. Routs, as they're called, tend to have an understanding with the dragon clans whose land they run on.
While all dragon breeds may sense the magic of others, only mirrors can see it. Most dragons have a sixth-sense organ in their brain that allows them to interpret magic via their four senses - usually some combination of touch, scent, taste, with sound appearing rarely. In Mirrors, this organ is significantly underdeveloped, often only half the size of normal organs of a similar scale. Instead, their heat-seeking eyes also see magic, providing Mirrors with three distinct ranges of vision.
Fae are actually the best long-distance fliers - a fairly even wing-to-body ratio and tiny size makes them able to get up very, very high into the air and glide. Kinda like hummingbirds, actually. (If you haven't heard about that before, it's rather neat - the birds weigh between 2-5 grams and the longest recorded migration was 3,530 miles)
Small Fae will eat Maiden's Blush for the intoxicating effects of the mild poison. This has the interesting side effect of making them flush bright red.
If a Guardian’s Charge dies or is destroyed before their birth, then those dragons simply… wander. Their Search stretches on for as long as the dragon lives, an endless journey with no destination or purpose.
A group of Guardians is called a pod.
Elemental deities can influence the subject of a Guardian's charge. They've been known to "assign" another charge to particularly favored or devote Guardians if theirs is lost, dulling the pain. (Unfortunately, this doesn't always work like the gods intended, and may actually drive some Guardians deeper into despair.)
Skydancers have two sets of flight feathers - an underside wing set and an overside wing set. The upper ones are much thinner but an almost exact pattern match to those below.
When Skydancers are resting, they curl up the little claws at the end of their wings.
Crystal Skydancers have their effective sensing range almost doubled. The medulla walls inside each individual hair are lined with minuscule crystals that reverberate with the emphatic gem embedded in their skull.
Most Skydancers believe that the souls of their dead rest inside their gem after their body has passed on. They hold special ceremonies in which the dragon closest to the deceased grinds their gem into dust and sets it free on the wind. This makes the underground trade in them all the more horrifying.
I deal with magic by stealing bits and pieces of the rules from a bunch of other games/books and lumping them together. XD.
Headcannon - All dragons have a magical "core" inside their minds. It can be seen as a wellspring of magic - when it's full, the dragon doesn't produce more until they use some. Some cores are larger than others. Part of it is the breed of the dragon - Faes have much larger magical reserves because they are so tiny they need them to survive against the other dragons - but part of it is just the individual dragon's capability.
My system of magic has two parts. There are the spells - brief to cast, and can be almost anything. Battle magic, healing, etcetera, that all falls under the category of spells. They are sometimes defined as magic that performs the effects now. A spell cannot be cast and then take start doing whatever it was meant to be doing an hour later. Spells also draw directly from the users magical core. If the mage doing the casting runs low on magic without canceling the spell, it can literally drain them dry, emptying their core and killing them. Spells never last beyond the lifetime of their caster. If the caster dies in the middle of sustaining an organ-damaging spell, the spell will stop damaging the target's organs, but the damage done before they died will remain.
Being drained of magical energy to the point of near death causes horrific headaches, general ennui, and lack of energy. Unfortunately, it can also deaden nerves as the energy used to transmit signals between them is culled for use in the spell - and thus kill hunger pangs. A dragon who doesn't eat after casting to near-empty will kill themselves by accident, not noticing that they need to eat. Lightheadedness, dizziness and fainting are also symptoms.
The second part is runes, or runic magic. Runic magic is essentially a mage carving certain shapes/powerful "words" (seperate from the regular Sornieth alphabet) that then preform different magical works based on which runes they chose. Runes also draw from a seperate wellspring of power that mages create after setting up the runic array - like a battery. This makes them somewhat safer to work with when compared to spells. With an empty "battery" the array goes dormant. But if the mage or mages made a mistake with the runic array, like miscarving a symbol or switching the spots of two of them, all of the power in the battery feeds in on itself and implodes. Depending on the size of the battery, this could wipe out an entire clan. Needless to say, my dragons are very, very careful. Runic arrays also survive past the death of the origional carver, and can be maintained, altered or recharged by any mage with a knowledge of runes. My clan boasts a centuries-old set of War Wards with a very, very powerful charge that sit dormant most of the time, and a set of permanently active monitoring wards.
Dragons cannot use spells that deal with the energies of another element, though there are some universal "neutral" spells, like clobber and meditate (meditate is essentially concentrating to absorb the natural magic of the area for a brief power boost. The mage is the conduit - magic feeds straight into the spell) Runic arrays have two settings - aligned and neutral. Aligned batteries only incorporate magic of one element, and implode if a mage tries to feed in a different kind of magic. Neutral arrays need a special set of runes to allow them to "clean" incoming magic and be able to incorporate it.
Aaannnd that's my magic headcannon.
The time component of a runic array is actually a distance component.
Teleportation is magically impossible - it requires far too much power, even for advanced runic arrays.
A spell is cast by a "leader" or blot of "activation energy" being thrown at the spell target. The leader has a long thread or rope like piece of magic that connects into the core of the dragon and feeds energy into the target to accomplish the goal.
The only way to stop a spell once started is to break the connection - this results in the magic remaining on the side of the thread closest to the core snapping back in. The backlash of magical power into a core can have varying consequences, depending on a variety of variables. The elemental alignment of the dragon, the size of the core, the amount of magic remaining in the core, the amount of power in the spell, the length of the "leader" and the number of times a dragon has experienced backlash before are all factors. A Wind dragon with a nearly full and very large core, the target of the very weak spell right next to them who has never experienced backlash before would suffer very little.
The consequences of a backlash vary. A very minor case would probably be an inability to work magic for a couple hours or days and a lowgrade headache. As the severity increases, so does the time spent unable to cast magic and the pain from mild headache to full body ache. In the most severe cases, dragons have lived with chronic pain and an inability to work magic or death as their body can no longer produce the energy needed to work internal organs and the brain.
Of course, magic is much more subtly nuanced than merely runic and spells, and indeed stretches out its branches for far more than the two most basic of the possible divisions.
One of these sub-catagories is called curses. They are surprisingly organic structures, and interestingly enough nature dragons are slightly better at casting them than their closest relatives, plague. Curses fall under the broad term of spells, though they take a considerably greater amount of time, energy and concentration to place, and have a permanence usually associated with runes.
Curses act like spells that affect only their unfortunate and involuntary wielders. A curse burrows into the magical core of a dragon, sapping at their strength and using the magic uniquely tuned to their own body against it.
Breed change scrolls may be written by dragons. They simply require a lot of magical energy to activate, and must be specifically tailored to the individual dragon, their previous breed, the breed of their parents, their parent's magic and their own magic. One scroll can be the result of years of painstaking research into the dragon's genealogy, magic and the chemistry of similar members of their desired species. That explains their high cost.
Some changes are easier than others, of course. A genetically dominant breed is much easier to change a dragon into, hence lower prices - and the exact same logic and research goes into gene changes.
What the scrolls actually do, though, is re-write a dragon on a genetic level. They patch the desired breed onto and over the parent's contributed genome. They also "search" through the fragmented bits of DNA for an ancestor that shared the desired breed, using that information to help smooth over the parent's DNA and aid in the transition. If one of the parents is the sought after breed, then that makes the scroll much more likely to succeed. Ditto for genes.
Scrolls will always work better if, say, a lightning dragon is transitioning to a Ridgeback, etcetra, and seem to not work as well or affect as much of the dragon if said dragon is transitioning to a breed created by the deity with the magic opposing their own core. Arcane dragons are lucky in this respect - they can turn into any of the breeds, as their core doesn't have an opposing element. Some minor or not so minor things don't get changed, but what hasn't depends on the individual dragon.
Rewriting the genetics of a dragon changes their brain chemistry as well, resulting in slight personality alterations and different tastes.
Those are the scrolls bought on the auction house from other users.
The Deities also make scrolls - only the scrolls pertaining to their particular created breed or breeds - and scatter them throughout each of the eleven flights on irregular intervals. The mechanics are exactly the same, except that the Deities have a much better understanding of draconian genetics and a lot more power to throw around.
Their transitions are smoother, less painful and less dangerous to the dragons.
Those are the scrolls bought in the marketplace.
It's theorized by many that the deities started this as game of oneupmanship, a precursor to the Dominance Wars of today, trying to convince dragons of other flights to convert to their own breeds. They also transported scrolls to the territories of their favored, giving those born into the clan an opportunity to change to the "superior" breed.
The first mages to get a hold of these scrolls immediately set about copying them, resulting in the clumsy, trial by error clan made scrolls.
Money Headcanons
We know they can't be really tiny (aka, Fae sized) but neither can they be huge for guardian (that would be dinner-plate sized for Fae) Maybe a couple inches across and just thick enough that they wouldn't be badly damaged if a ridgeback sat on them? Also, would the flights have variations in their currency? Like, us shadybutts consider it a mark of pride to fool people with our counterfeits? Everyone checks our currency very carefully ;) maybe the earth coins are purer and thus worth more, etcetra.
I actually see the monetary system in Sornieth as a barter/trading thing most of the time. Gold is clunky. The large clans have coffers, as do most of the small ones, but individual dragons, wanderers and traders are more likely to carry something small, light and valuable maybe gems (unless they're traveling with a Guardian :).
Maybe water has kinda tarnished or salt resistant coins so they don't react to the water? And for fire - making coins is the apprentice training thing (kinda like nails) so you have anything from really sloppy beginner ones to the intricate, perfectly formed and patterned ones of almost-journey-dragons.
And the blacksmiths of each territory, usually with some kind of fire parent or ancestry, are the ones who "water proof" the blanks in water flight, or purify them in earth flight or something.
So gold from dragonhome + various other, smaller mines across Sornieth goes to the fire flight (everyone keeps track of their gold carefully [maybe older coins are also sent in after some time, eventually contaminants are picked up = earth dragons coins are purer because they have the new gold]) fire flight forges the blank, round circles of gold, which are then sent back to be element proofed + have the flight symbol ingraved in them (fire of course, keeps some from every batch for themselves as payment). Coin values are fluid. If someone is doing more trading with wind flight than those coins are more valuable than a comparative number of say, ice coins.
Making coin blanks is a time-honored task given to the young apprentices, similar to how making nails was the job of actual blacksmith apprentices.
Lightning coins also have higher conductivity due to a special blend of metals Stormbosslightning tells the clan to add to each outgoing shipment. (If you're missing a wire, then a storm coin will fill in nicely)
And nobody is entirely certain why the arcane coins seem to be... squirming.
(Shadow also never, ever trades any of the coins back, so their hoards are filled with this mismatched hodgepodge of pre-system coins, coins made last year, earth coins, arcane coins, wind coins, anything, you name it.)
It could be that the forgotten cave is actually a very large cave system that stretches from the outer edges of the crystal spine reaches (it might predate the explosion that formed them, and thus has very few entrances over there - most were fused or melted in slag), underneath the scarred wasteland - where a ton of shattered serpents end up falling through the rotting membrane into the bedrock and below it - and then finishes up near the bottom of the Greatwyrm's Breach - there are rumors that it connects to the Cairnstone rest as well, but nobody want to find out, and those foolhardy enough to delve deeper into the darkness are never heard from again.
Several side branches near the dragonhome break off to the right, veering under the sunken ruins of the Tangled Wood. The tunnels here are dark and claustrophobic, with low, crumbling ceilings and caved-in walls. Things skitter away into the dark from the faint echo of light that makes its way through the miles of twisted vines above it. Be wary, because sinkholes will open with the slightest tap of claws on stone to swallow a dragon whole.
Some of the tunnels begin to slope even further downward, condensation gathering on the walls and beading down them to pool in small, stale puddles over algae covered rock. Venture even further, and a sound becomes apparent - the hiss and slap of water against stone. Some of the caves open up onto spectacular cliff side views of the Sea of a Thousand Currents swirling far below. Others lead straight into the water, towards caves with riptides strong enough to drag nearly anything far beneath the surface and crush it against the sea floor.
Many have theorized that the Leviathan Trench is the remnants of a cave whose roof collapsed under the cataclysmic weight of millions of gallons of water. No one really knows though, because nothing has ever reached the bottom.
Given the dangers of the place, it is perhaps less suprising than it may first appear to know that this cave system was forgotten.
The Foxfire Bramble: it's hundreds of feet deep, with winding twisting tunnels formed by briars on all sides - both below and above as well as to the sides. There are places the sun has not reached in a hundred thousand years, where the vines grow as thick as the gladekeeper's trees and the animals live with small pale eyes. Think of the vines from sleeping beauty, I guess? Only a lot deeper - the ghostlight ruins used to be a tower - and the walls still go deep into the vines, but they're mostly held there by them, old corridors choked by them - tunnels within tunnels, a maze trapped within a maze. As they wind up and up into the light, they grow less dense, sparse and looping with space for whole clans to fly between, but less stable. Go down far enough, and they form living roads, solid as the earth, woven and maintained by the shadow clans.
Traditionally, hatchlings are fed their first meal alive - it might be legless, bleeding heavily, and flopping around, but it will still be alive. Tradition states that doing so makes a hatchling more likely to survive the hazards of growing up, and more powerfully magically.
the gods don’t actually eat physical food. They might try some offerings, to be polite, but for the most part, the gods are just a manifestation of the magical energies present in their domains and act like a constant feedback loop? So magical power flows into them from the element and back out into their element again. They might feel "hungry" if their power is waning - like the Gladekeeper during winter - or "full" if their power is stronger - the Lightweaver during the summer months in the northern(? - wherever the light realm is located globe-wise) hemisphere. For the most part, it's really not analogous to draconic experiences - they're gods/goddesses and it works differently.
Dragon Reproduction
The first four breeds were born into a much harsher world - dragons were not the dominant species then, and then after most of the rabid creatures created by the birth of the Arcanist and the War of Mutation were defeated, they turned to war among themselves. Lots of children, quickly, were necessary for the survival of the clans.
Subsequent breeds were born into less and less harsh worlds, ones where the strain of large dragon populations on the land were becoming apparent, and thus produce offspring far less frequently, i.e. Coatls and Wildclaws.
The Imperials and Nocturnes were special cases. Imperials originally had much faster reproductive systems and shorter times before they could produce another clutch, but this was altered, by either the Imperials themselves, the Lightweaver or the other Gods shortly after their Emporer issue was discovered.
The Nocturnes have slower reproductive systems to make their periodical hibernations easier.
There are small packs of mirrors that roam the same area year after year - it's actually the members that switch out. This began to develop as more and more clans lay claim to territory outside their dens. Routs, as they're called, tend to have an understanding with the dragon clans whose land they run on.
While all dragon breeds may sense the magic of others, only mirrors can see it. Most dragons have a sixth-sense organ in their brain that allows them to interpret magic via their four senses - usually some combination of touch, scent, taste, with sound appearing rarely. In Mirrors, this organ is significantly underdeveloped, often only half the size of normal organs of a similar scale. Instead, their heat-seeking eyes also see magic, providing Mirrors with three distinct ranges of vision.
Fae are actually the best long-distance fliers - a fairly even wing-to-body ratio and tiny size makes them able to get up very, very high into the air and glide. Kinda like hummingbirds, actually. (If you haven't heard about that before, it's rather neat - the birds weigh between 2-5 grams and the longest recorded migration was 3,530 miles)
Small Fae will eat Maiden's Blush for the intoxicating effects of the mild poison. This has the interesting side effect of making them flush bright red.
If a Guardian’s Charge dies or is destroyed before their birth, then those dragons simply… wander. Their Search stretches on for as long as the dragon lives, an endless journey with no destination or purpose.
A group of Guardians is called a pod.
Elemental deities can influence the subject of a Guardian's charge. They've been known to "assign" another charge to particularly favored or devote Guardians if theirs is lost, dulling the pain. (Unfortunately, this doesn't always work like the gods intended, and may actually drive some Guardians deeper into despair.)
Skydancers have two sets of flight feathers - an underside wing set and an overside wing set. The upper ones are much thinner but an almost exact pattern match to those below.
When Skydancers are resting, they curl up the little claws at the end of their wings.
Crystal Skydancers have their effective sensing range almost doubled. The medulla walls inside each individual hair are lined with minuscule crystals that reverberate with the emphatic gem embedded in their skull.
Most Skydancers believe that the souls of their dead rest inside their gem after their body has passed on. They hold special ceremonies in which the dragon closest to the deceased grinds their gem into dust and sets it free on the wind. This makes the underground trade in them all the more horrifying.
I deal with magic by stealing bits and pieces of the rules from a bunch of other games/books and lumping them together. XD.
Headcannon - All dragons have a magical "core" inside their minds. It can be seen as a wellspring of magic - when it's full, the dragon doesn't produce more until they use some. Some cores are larger than others. Part of it is the breed of the dragon - Faes have much larger magical reserves because they are so tiny they need them to survive against the other dragons - but part of it is just the individual dragon's capability.
My system of magic has two parts. There are the spells - brief to cast, and can be almost anything. Battle magic, healing, etcetera, that all falls under the category of spells. They are sometimes defined as magic that performs the effects now. A spell cannot be cast and then take start doing whatever it was meant to be doing an hour later. Spells also draw directly from the users magical core. If the mage doing the casting runs low on magic without canceling the spell, it can literally drain them dry, emptying their core and killing them. Spells never last beyond the lifetime of their caster. If the caster dies in the middle of sustaining an organ-damaging spell, the spell will stop damaging the target's organs, but the damage done before they died will remain.
Being drained of magical energy to the point of near death causes horrific headaches, general ennui, and lack of energy. Unfortunately, it can also deaden nerves as the energy used to transmit signals between them is culled for use in the spell - and thus kill hunger pangs. A dragon who doesn't eat after casting to near-empty will kill themselves by accident, not noticing that they need to eat. Lightheadedness, dizziness and fainting are also symptoms.
The second part is runes, or runic magic. Runic magic is essentially a mage carving certain shapes/powerful "words" (seperate from the regular Sornieth alphabet) that then preform different magical works based on which runes they chose. Runes also draw from a seperate wellspring of power that mages create after setting up the runic array - like a battery. This makes them somewhat safer to work with when compared to spells. With an empty "battery" the array goes dormant. But if the mage or mages made a mistake with the runic array, like miscarving a symbol or switching the spots of two of them, all of the power in the battery feeds in on itself and implodes. Depending on the size of the battery, this could wipe out an entire clan. Needless to say, my dragons are very, very careful. Runic arrays also survive past the death of the origional carver, and can be maintained, altered or recharged by any mage with a knowledge of runes. My clan boasts a centuries-old set of War Wards with a very, very powerful charge that sit dormant most of the time, and a set of permanently active monitoring wards.
Dragons cannot use spells that deal with the energies of another element, though there are some universal "neutral" spells, like clobber and meditate (meditate is essentially concentrating to absorb the natural magic of the area for a brief power boost. The mage is the conduit - magic feeds straight into the spell) Runic arrays have two settings - aligned and neutral. Aligned batteries only incorporate magic of one element, and implode if a mage tries to feed in a different kind of magic. Neutral arrays need a special set of runes to allow them to "clean" incoming magic and be able to incorporate it.
Aaannnd that's my magic headcannon.
The time component of a runic array is actually a distance component.
Teleportation is magically impossible - it requires far too much power, even for advanced runic arrays.
A spell is cast by a "leader" or blot of "activation energy" being thrown at the spell target. The leader has a long thread or rope like piece of magic that connects into the core of the dragon and feeds energy into the target to accomplish the goal.
The only way to stop a spell once started is to break the connection - this results in the magic remaining on the side of the thread closest to the core snapping back in. The backlash of magical power into a core can have varying consequences, depending on a variety of variables. The elemental alignment of the dragon, the size of the core, the amount of magic remaining in the core, the amount of power in the spell, the length of the "leader" and the number of times a dragon has experienced backlash before are all factors. A Wind dragon with a nearly full and very large core, the target of the very weak spell right next to them who has never experienced backlash before would suffer very little.
The consequences of a backlash vary. A very minor case would probably be an inability to work magic for a couple hours or days and a lowgrade headache. As the severity increases, so does the time spent unable to cast magic and the pain from mild headache to full body ache. In the most severe cases, dragons have lived with chronic pain and an inability to work magic or death as their body can no longer produce the energy needed to work internal organs and the brain.
Of course, magic is much more subtly nuanced than merely runic and spells, and indeed stretches out its branches for far more than the two most basic of the possible divisions.
One of these sub-catagories is called curses. They are surprisingly organic structures, and interestingly enough nature dragons are slightly better at casting them than their closest relatives, plague. Curses fall under the broad term of spells, though they take a considerably greater amount of time, energy and concentration to place, and have a permanence usually associated with runes.
Curses act like spells that affect only their unfortunate and involuntary wielders. A curse burrows into the magical core of a dragon, sapping at their strength and using the magic uniquely tuned to their own body against it.
Breed change scrolls may be written by dragons. They simply require a lot of magical energy to activate, and must be specifically tailored to the individual dragon, their previous breed, the breed of their parents, their parent's magic and their own magic. One scroll can be the result of years of painstaking research into the dragon's genealogy, magic and the chemistry of similar members of their desired species. That explains their high cost.
Some changes are easier than others, of course. A genetically dominant breed is much easier to change a dragon into, hence lower prices - and the exact same logic and research goes into gene changes.
What the scrolls actually do, though, is re-write a dragon on a genetic level. They patch the desired breed onto and over the parent's contributed genome. They also "search" through the fragmented bits of DNA for an ancestor that shared the desired breed, using that information to help smooth over the parent's DNA and aid in the transition. If one of the parents is the sought after breed, then that makes the scroll much more likely to succeed. Ditto for genes.
Scrolls will always work better if, say, a lightning dragon is transitioning to a Ridgeback, etcetra, and seem to not work as well or affect as much of the dragon if said dragon is transitioning to a breed created by the deity with the magic opposing their own core. Arcane dragons are lucky in this respect - they can turn into any of the breeds, as their core doesn't have an opposing element. Some minor or not so minor things don't get changed, but what hasn't depends on the individual dragon.
Rewriting the genetics of a dragon changes their brain chemistry as well, resulting in slight personality alterations and different tastes.
Those are the scrolls bought on the auction house from other users.
The Deities also make scrolls - only the scrolls pertaining to their particular created breed or breeds - and scatter them throughout each of the eleven flights on irregular intervals. The mechanics are exactly the same, except that the Deities have a much better understanding of draconian genetics and a lot more power to throw around.
Their transitions are smoother, less painful and less dangerous to the dragons.
Those are the scrolls bought in the marketplace.
It's theorized by many that the deities started this as game of oneupmanship, a precursor to the Dominance Wars of today, trying to convince dragons of other flights to convert to their own breeds. They also transported scrolls to the territories of their favored, giving those born into the clan an opportunity to change to the "superior" breed.
The first mages to get a hold of these scrolls immediately set about copying them, resulting in the clumsy, trial by error clan made scrolls.
Money Headcanons
We know they can't be really tiny (aka, Fae sized) but neither can they be huge for guardian (that would be dinner-plate sized for Fae) Maybe a couple inches across and just thick enough that they wouldn't be badly damaged if a ridgeback sat on them? Also, would the flights have variations in their currency? Like, us shadybutts consider it a mark of pride to fool people with our counterfeits? Everyone checks our currency very carefully ;) maybe the earth coins are purer and thus worth more, etcetra.
I actually see the monetary system in Sornieth as a barter/trading thing most of the time. Gold is clunky. The large clans have coffers, as do most of the small ones, but individual dragons, wanderers and traders are more likely to carry something small, light and valuable maybe gems (unless they're traveling with a Guardian :).
Maybe water has kinda tarnished or salt resistant coins so they don't react to the water? And for fire - making coins is the apprentice training thing (kinda like nails) so you have anything from really sloppy beginner ones to the intricate, perfectly formed and patterned ones of almost-journey-dragons.
And the blacksmiths of each territory, usually with some kind of fire parent or ancestry, are the ones who "water proof" the blanks in water flight, or purify them in earth flight or something.
So gold from dragonhome + various other, smaller mines across Sornieth goes to the fire flight (everyone keeps track of their gold carefully [maybe older coins are also sent in after some time, eventually contaminants are picked up = earth dragons coins are purer because they have the new gold]) fire flight forges the blank, round circles of gold, which are then sent back to be element proofed + have the flight symbol ingraved in them (fire of course, keeps some from every batch for themselves as payment). Coin values are fluid. If someone is doing more trading with wind flight than those coins are more valuable than a comparative number of say, ice coins.
Making coin blanks is a time-honored task given to the young apprentices, similar to how making nails was the job of actual blacksmith apprentices.
Lightning coins also have higher conductivity due to a special blend of metals Stormbosslightning tells the clan to add to each outgoing shipment. (If you're missing a wire, then a storm coin will fill in nicely)
And nobody is entirely certain why the arcane coins seem to be... squirming.
(Shadow also never, ever trades any of the coins back, so their hoards are filled with this mismatched hodgepodge of pre-system coins, coins made last year, earth coins, arcane coins, wind coins, anything, you name it.)
It could be that the forgotten cave is actually a very large cave system that stretches from the outer edges of the crystal spine reaches (it might predate the explosion that formed them, and thus has very few entrances over there - most were fused or melted in slag), underneath the scarred wasteland - where a ton of shattered serpents end up falling through the rotting membrane into the bedrock and below it - and then finishes up near the bottom of the Greatwyrm's Breach - there are rumors that it connects to the Cairnstone rest as well, but nobody want to find out, and those foolhardy enough to delve deeper into the darkness are never heard from again.
Several side branches near the dragonhome break off to the right, veering under the sunken ruins of the Tangled Wood. The tunnels here are dark and claustrophobic, with low, crumbling ceilings and caved-in walls. Things skitter away into the dark from the faint echo of light that makes its way through the miles of twisted vines above it. Be wary, because sinkholes will open with the slightest tap of claws on stone to swallow a dragon whole.
Some of the tunnels begin to slope even further downward, condensation gathering on the walls and beading down them to pool in small, stale puddles over algae covered rock. Venture even further, and a sound becomes apparent - the hiss and slap of water against stone. Some of the caves open up onto spectacular cliff side views of the Sea of a Thousand Currents swirling far below. Others lead straight into the water, towards caves with riptides strong enough to drag nearly anything far beneath the surface and crush it against the sea floor.
Many have theorized that the Leviathan Trench is the remnants of a cave whose roof collapsed under the cataclysmic weight of millions of gallons of water. No one really knows though, because nothing has ever reached the bottom.
Given the dangers of the place, it is perhaps less suprising than it may first appear to know that this cave system was forgotten.
The Foxfire Bramble: it's hundreds of feet deep, with winding twisting tunnels formed by briars on all sides - both below and above as well as to the sides. There are places the sun has not reached in a hundred thousand years, where the vines grow as thick as the gladekeeper's trees and the animals live with small pale eyes. Think of the vines from sleeping beauty, I guess? Only a lot deeper - the ghostlight ruins used to be a tower - and the walls still go deep into the vines, but they're mostly held there by them, old corridors choked by them - tunnels within tunnels, a maze trapped within a maze. As they wind up and up into the light, they grow less dense, sparse and looping with space for whole clans to fly between, but less stable. Go down far enough, and they form living roads, solid as the earth, woven and maintained by the shadow clans.
Traditionally, hatchlings are fed their first meal alive - it might be legless, bleeding heavily, and flopping around, but it will still be alive. Tradition states that doing so makes a hatchling more likely to survive the hazards of growing up, and more powerfully magically.
