Dragon

## **Biology**

**Purity:** 5-15%

Dragons are quadrupedal reptilian creatures. They’re completely covered in hard armoured scales and they commonly have horns or spikes. Their scales can be almost any colour, but red, white, and yellow are most common. Being the largest pure creatures, Dragons stand at a towering height range of 30 to 95 feet. Many have been known to grow larger than this, although most don’t live long enough to reach such sizes. The vast majority of dragons have wings, which act as one of the main identifiers when trying to distinguish them from the closely related Drake.

Dragons are known for their resilience and adaptability. They’re some of the few creatures of Mirror Domain that have taken residence in the oceans of oil. If an environment exists, there’s a Dragon that’s adapted to it. That being said, Dragons are not a common sight. Their colossal size makes survival in large numbers difficult. Most Dragons are solitary creatures. If you happen to see more than one in an area, it’s most likely a father with its young; as male dragons are in charge of raising younglings.

## **Personality**

Not only are dragons intelligent, but they’re one of the most intelligent beings in all of Mirror Domain. The only reason they don’t completely dominate the pure world is due to their solitary nature. Dragons tend to be very territorial. A defining feature of Dragons is their tendency to hoard things. It’s a compulsion that they can’t seem to shake, even with their intelligence. This trait causes many to look at them as greedy, but their hoards don’t stem from greed. Kleptomania is a better comparison, although even that isn’t exactly accurate. What a Dragon hoards depends on personal preference, and the need to hoard things varies by the individual. Some only occasionally collect things, while others devote their entire life to their hoards.

Due to the historical views on Dragons, many of them view everyone as the enemy. In the past they were hunted for fear of them being terrifying fire-breathing beasts. Dragons are also known to attack each other in order to either claim their territory or their hoard. Many dragons have a me vs them mentality. Other creatures can’t be trusted, generally speaking. This doesn’t mean they’re violent, though. More so standoffish or careful. Dragons are commonly reserved and quiet around large groups of other beings, regardless of purity.

## **Civilization/Culture**

Generally speaking dragons do not form the same sorts of society that most creatures do. They’re far too large and territorial to come together as a species and cooperate with each other. It’s difficult for any environment to sustain a large population of creatures of their size. So, instead of forming civilizations of dragons, they form mini-societies of smaller creatures. If you happen to stumble upon a dragon’s home it’ll usually be one large, central building where the dragon resides alongside its hoard. Around it will be small villages or towns of whatever kind of creature that particular dragon has access to. The dragon will be the dominating figure of the town, and the other creatures will work under them; usually building structures, acting as bodyguards, or collecting items for their hoards.

Dragons are one of the oldest living species in Mirror domain. They’re one of three pure races that existed all the way in the Before Times, and they were one of the first species to gain access to magic upon its introduction into the world. As such, they’re very magically inclined creatures. It’s not uncommon for them to loan out their magic to the creatures under them in their hierarchy, effectively creating villages full of Warlocks. Dragons are so magical that the ambiance of their territory typically shifts to whatever their preferred colour is.

While most dragons are solitary, there is a single dragon city within Mirror Domain known as Ryuscent Hide. It was founded shortly after the Demon Infestation started when the Great Dragon Halcyon began rallying dragons together in mass in order to combat the demon infestation. Ryuscent Hide was originally a military base. It’s proximity to the mountain range was made in the hopes of driving the demons further up into the mountains and having a line of defense that’d keep them up there. After the war was over and tensions died down a bit the base shifted from military to a place for dragons wounded by the war to go and recover. Since then Ryuscent Hide has been known as a dragon sanctuary. It’s a place where smaller, weaker, or overall less powerful dragons can go and live amongst each other.

## **Relations**

In general the world has a bad view of dragons. They weren’t accepted as pure beings until the year 0, and the only reason they were added to the purity scale at all was because of their involvement in the Demon Infestation. Without the Great Dragon Halcyon the world may not have won the war. Most dragons didn’t necessarily care about being added to the scale, but being protected under mortal law against being slaughtered has been beneficial.

Seeing as Dragons are a Keystone Species they have several races that were created as a result of hybridization. These races are Lesser Dragons and Drexel. Dragons conquering human villages and towns eventually resulted in the birth of Lesser Dragons. Lesser Dragons continuing to cross breed with humans created Drexel.

## **History**

Dragons have populated Mirror Domain since the very beginning. They’re one of the oldest races, as stated above, so they’ve been around for just about every major historical event even during the Before Times. That being said, while they existed for all this time, they haven’t been all too prominent in Mirror Domain’s history until after the Demon infestation.

Before the Infestation Dragons were viewed as monsters. Not much was known about them, and more often than not people believed that Dragons, Drakes, and Wyverns were the same species. Because of this other Pure races would band together to make Dragon Hunting Guilds, which specialized in tracking down and exterminating dragons in mass. Of course, because dragons are intelligent beings they quickly learned to avoid human and kodin settlements. They were more or less pushed into the shadows; forced to live in remote caves and forests by themselves.

It wasn’t until the Demon Infestation when Dragons themselves started caring about the interworking society of Mirror Domain. They were almost completely unaffected by the Abrupt Demise, none of them had any real involvement with the Arkan Renaissance, and the rise and fall of prominent historical figures such as Lykan or the Ministry of Demons was of no concern to them. But when the infestation hit they suddenly became targets. Not only did demons want them dead, but they were willing to die in order to achieve their goal of total extermination. This got the dragons riled up and caused them to take action.

Dragons slowly began emerging from the shadows in order to defend their territories and drive the demon infestation out of their homes. Other pure beings began taking notice, and they promptly began recruiting dragons into their armies as a means of one upping the demon threat. For the first time in history dragons were being welcomed into society with open arms, and now they were forced into the inner workings of society as a whole. Of course, now that they were part of pure society, they needed an ambassador. This is where the Great Dragon Halcyon came into play. Halcyon acted as not only a war general, but he also acted as a diplomat and ambassador for his species. He acted as a mediator; getting dragons and pure beings to play nice and focus on the larger threat at hand. Halcyon broke the barrier between dragons and pure beings. He helped pave the way for them to eventually be accepted as sapient creatures and added to the purity scale.

After the infestation Dragons largely went back to their solitary way of living, but many of the higher ranking officials from the war remained in pure settlements and acted more or less as guard dogs against demon kind. Nowadays dragon ran cities still exist, but it’s often under a more diplomatic and mutually beneficial agreement. Dragons will live in a town, protecting it from demons or other outside threats, and in return they’re paid with additions to their hoard or a steady supply of food.

## **Religion**

While dragons do have a god, the Great Dragon, the vast majority of them are not religious. Seeing as religion is created as a result of social bonding, they really have no reason for it. Dragons simply aren’t social enough to create folklore, worship gods, or make traditions.

## **Languages**

Dragons speak the language Bellows; named after the loud thunderous roar it tends to sound like to those who cannot understand it. It’s not uncommon for a dragon to be multilingual, as their high intelligence and incredible adaptability allows them to pick up new languages with relative ease

## **Names**

While most creatures get their name from their parents, dragons are known for naming themselves. Seeing as they’re solitary beings they have no real ties to lineage or jobs to base their name off of. More often than not a dragon will name itself based off of whatever obsession it may have. Those who hoard gold or gemstones may name themselves after a favoured gem. One who really likes diamonds may decide to go by the name Diamond, for example. It’s not common for a dragon to have a last name. If they have anything in addition to their first name it’s either a nickname or a title. That being said, both of these usually end up getting tacked on to the end of a dragons name the same way a last name would be.

## **Adventures**

As stated above, if there’s an environment for a dragon to live there’s one adapted to it. While they do have higher populations in certain areas of the world, chances are you’ll be able to find at least one just about anywhere devoid of a large pure population. They live in the mountains, oil oceans, water oceans, deserts. That being said, when taking their size into account they really only wander so far in order to sustain themselves. Large creatures need a lot of food. Food which quickly deplete if they stay in the same place for too long. Most dragon related exploration is during their hunt for food.

On occasion a dragon will decide to go out in search of items to add to its hoard, although doing so is a gamble. If a dragon leaves its hoard there’s a chance either another dragon or a pure being will come along and take the riches for themselves. More often than not a dragon will employ the help of another creature to go and adventure for them.

## **Abilities**

Dragons are extremely magical creatures. The larger a creature’s body, the larger it’s base mana pool is. That being said, while they do have access to very powerful magic it isn’t common for a dragon to study or expand on its abilities in magic. They have so much raw power on their own that they see no real need to become Wizards or other variants of mage.

One peculiar thing about dragons is their Dragon’s Breath. The fire breath a dragon is known for is created by a gland in the back of their throat. This gland secretes a thick, sticky substance that catches fire when exposed to oxygen. A dragon is able to “spit” this substance at threats, which then sticks to their skin or fur and makes it extremely difficult to extinguish. More often than not the only way to extinguish Dragon’s Breath is just to let it burn itself out, but by then it may be too late for a living creature. While fire is the most common form of Dragon’s Breath, there’s a variant of it for just about any environment. Some use it to heat up water, allowing them to have a scalding hot “water breath”, while others use it to burn toxic plants to create a “poison breath”.