Flight Rising Discussion

If you have your own lore, how do breed / gene changes happen in your lore? If you follow Flight Rising's lore, how do you think breed / gene changes work?

I've always had dragons changing their appearance via potions in my lore; carefully crafted by an alchemist with a specific mix of ingredients, this will allow a dragon to morph into their desired breed / gain their desired genes within anywhere from hours to weeks, depending on the alchemist's skill and ingredients used.

After a conversation with my brother today, I started thinking about a sneaky dragon selling potions for rare / sought after breeds or genes and scamming those who buy the potions.

"Hey, you wanna become an Imperial, right? Have I got the potion just for you!"

"Sweet, now I can be an Imperial! I'm so excited."

*gets turned into an Aether instead*

">:("

Or selling a potion of Opal, only for the dragon to end up with Keel instead. And by the time they've realized that they've been scammed, the trickster is long gone.

It also makes me think about potentially causing weird side effects, and getting a permanent mesh between two breeds if an alchemist screws up the potion badly enough. I need to write more about this tomorrow after my test/errands.

This is my personal interpretation of genes and breed changes.

I use it rarely, like when I turned an Imperial into a Banescale so he would be more in tune with the Element of Fire and fly more easily with his Familiar, Fawks and Phoenix.

For me it depends on the circumstance and backstory of the dragon I guess! For some it might be like some sort of eldritch mutation while others could've been cursed/changed via adaptation.

In short the easiest way to describe any breed change that doesn't fit under that umbrella is "magic" and that's totally fine :D

For my more scifi lore the gene scrolls are instead proprietary chips that're used in special injectors and sold by specific companies, nothing can go wrong with that, totally... breed changes are more nebulous, sometimes the result of experiments or other lore happenings (and genes can vary for lore reasons too)

They're not a thing in my lore. The dragon canonically exists in whatever final state I put it in and has always been that way. The exception kinda being Bogsneaks, because my lore acknowledges that the mutagen was a thing that caused Bogsneaks to exist - though it is regarded as something that happened in the past and isn't something that the dragons in my clan actively need to be concerned about. My Boggies were all born that way.

It's just like in game with breed change scrolls. But they're very rare and expensive. Most dragons will go their whole lives without even considering it.

There's a case in my lair where a breed change scroll was used to save a life, but it turned the banescale into a Gaoler. He has no way to change back so now it's his life's mission to find a way to turn back.

I've not written it properly, but I have a dragon who used to be a pearlcatcher but changed her genes and breedchanged to a snapper to be less recognisable to the authorities after committing a crime (and so she doesn't have to sleep, meaning if someone comes for her in the night she can escape)

Most of my dragons that I give breed changes to were born that breed in my lore.

There are some exceptions: at least a couple of my dragons canonly breed-changed into Pearlcatchers from a previous breed. A couple more examples is that one of my dragons was a Spiral who was breed-changed into an Undertide to save her life, and another was a Nocturne who changed into a Ridgeback to hopefully throw off the beings who are hunting her. And then I have a handful of dragons who changed into Obelisks after it was known that the Earthshaker made them to help protect Sornieth, so they could have the same advantages.

Breed changing just takes a scroll, crafted by the experienced, nothing special. Other than Imperial scrolls, which don't seem to exist and no one has been able to successfully make one in centuries.... (it also seems the deities can influence someone to change breeds, but that is a rare event indeed)

Gene changes are the same way, most of them had the genes since birth and those have scrolls as well. Prices probably depend entirely on components and how hard they are to get, so a Crystal scroll would be harder to make than a Jaguar scroll (this would probably go for breeds too... though obviously cycling out doesn't exist so WC scrolls can be made anytime).

There's one dragon that canonly breed-changed that I didn't mention yet. Because actually, his change is well, a "permanent mesh between two breeds" because something went wrong during changing. He went from a Nocturne to a Skydancer, and due to the issues with the breed-changing, kept a decent amount of Nocturne traits, like the neck frill thing, making him look like a minor hybrid.

In my lore it's pretty commonly known as a curse - it changes you right down to your tastes and food preferences, if not changing your diet entirely. It can make your life easier, technically, if you're not afraid to suddenly feel alienated from everyone and everything you once knew like second nature. And it can be life saving - a Tundra being breed changed to a Mirror during a bad harvest or crops decaying too quick, while fish and meat are still plentiful. They're no longer constantly hungry, but now they're suffering socially and culturally.

Nobody would look at them and see the Tundra they once were, they'd see the dragon they are now. And they'd act differently to match. It's strange for a Mirror to not have close packmates, but not for a Tundra... And now they're a Mirror.

They're fundamentally changed and can never go back mentally. Even if their body is changed back, it's noticable. After all, why would a Tundra ever crave a meat and seafood dish? They should be fine to just have these delicious plants!