Threnody Dragons

The most powerful species of dragon encountered by modern Avernus humans thus far are the Threnody Dragons, or True Dragons as they call themselves. These rare creatures are gigantic, with young adults easily standing taller than Dominus-class Knights while the largest can match the size of an Imperator Titan, and are capable of breathing fire and flying, as is normal for dragons. They are extremely resistant to direct psychic alteration, making powers such as Spontaneous Combustion and Enfeeble effectively useless against them. Their greatest strengths by far, however, are their great psychic power and their intelligence. Threnody Dragons are sapient and, like many of the other xenos races of Avernus, have their own signature way of using psychic power. In their case, it is through the incantations of Words of Power.

Some are willing to offer their services in wars against the forces of Chaos in exchange for great wealth, with each dragon preferring said wealth in a different form.

## Physiology

Threnody Dragons are in many ways an example of how far normal biology can be pushed without using Warp biology, with their flight, strength and toughness being entirely mundane, although their muscular system and skeleton have more in common with advanced engineering then biology, and they make use of multiple highly advanced metallic alloys in their basic biology. In fact, according to Archmagos Maximal, Threnody Dragons seem to be a living machine as much as anything else.

Impressive as their makeup is, it pales before the sheer level of resistance that it provides their bodies against direct Warp effects, which is strong enough for Threnody Dragons to survive being entirely immersed in pure Warp energies without mutation or even any negative effects. This means that a Threnody Dragon is quite likely capable of surviving in the Warp totally unprotected for a period, even without using its powers.

While a Threnody Dragon's alteration resistance is immensely useful, it comes with a very significant downside: beneficial effects are also resisted without discrimination. Only the mightiest Dragons are able to heal themselves of wounds, diseases, or poisons, and even then only minor ones (they face similar difficulty when it comes to buffing themselves). It also prevents their great natural power from extending their lifespan by more than a few decades - a paltry sum compared to the seven hundred and fifty rough years that their biology gives them. There are, however, rumours of older Dragons who have found ways around these limitations.

The most powerful living Threnody Dragons known to exist are ancients between the ages of 900 and 1000 years old - a testament to their incredible psychic strength. A Threnody Dragon's power never wanes, so even though age has withered their bodies to the point where they can barely move, ancients are still beings of incredible power.

## Powers

Threnody Dragons' level of psychic power are hard to read due to their Warp resistant nature, but are believed to be incredibly high, due to their effects. According to several Threnody Dragons that Archmagos Maximal has talked to, the only way in which they use their powers is via what they call "the Voice", which is speaking "Words of Power" of incredible effect. These Words of Power seem to be able to almost rewrite the Warp itself to an extent, and therefore reality, and using them seems to trigger a backlash of incredible strength from the Warp. Feats that Archmagos Maximal has seen from words of power include the creation of what seems to be Conceptual Fire, creating Warp Portals for teleportation, permanent transmutation of matter and similar. While many Psykers can pull of similar feats what stands out about the Words of Power of Threnody Dragon’s is how utterly they override other psychic effects. Archmagos Biologis Maximal believes that while it is almost certainly impossible for humans to use Threnody Dragon’s Words of Power, studying them may still prove worthwhile.

### Words of Power

The idea of Words of Power has been with humanity since its primitive age - special words that have great inherent importance, supposedly capable of supernatural effects. Their existence has long been confirmed to be a fact, with the Imperium knowing of them and making use of them on occasion, such as with the Thunderclap power of the Space Wolves' Rune Priests. The Words known to the Threnody Dragons are more powerful and in great quantity - there are so many, in fact, that corrupted versions of the Words form the basis of their language. Of course, just as the many normal words in existence are split between different languages, so too are Words of Power. The words in the Threnody Dragons' lexicon are greatly different than the ones known to the Imperium and, just like different languages, operate under different rules.

Each individual Word requires a minimum level of raw power and familiarity with the spell for it to be spoken with effect, and the greater the power of the Word's effects, the more difficult it is to speak. Lacking power, familiarity, or both when speaking a Word results in nothing. It requires successful incantations of a Word to gain the instinctual familiarity to speak it, which one may realise is something that would prevent the learning of a Word at all. Dragons get around this by splitting up a Word into its component "Letters"\*, each one its own word, and incanting them in sequence. Doing this decreases the familiarity requirement to zero, meaning a Dragon merely needs to reach the sufficient level of power to incant the Word, and then incant the Word's Letters in sequence. This builds familiarity with the Word, and as the Dragon gains familiarity, they're able to drop more and more Letters (starting from the beginning and moving in sequence) until they reach the last Letter of the Word, which is always the Word itself. The more Letters a Word has, the more powerful it is.
\*"Letters" don't operate as normal letters in a normal word. They're symbolic in nature and have nothing to do with a Word's phonetic pronunciation. A Word can have fifty Letters but only three letters in phonetic pronunciation.

Words of Power are very much a power-oriented way of using psychic powers, with little requirements for control and no real flexibility. More complex effects are achieved by incanting the right Word or Words. This simplicity, while easy to learn, does come with a price, however, even beyond requiring the user to have large amounts of raw psychic might: backlash. Each and every Word is guaranteed to cause physical damage to their speaker when they're successfully incanted, with the damage dealt by a Word tied to the Word's level of power. Threnody Dragons can handle it because of their inherent resistant to psychic alteration and because they are dragons. Weaker creatures without their resistance will find it much more difficult to withstand the backlash of using a Word, if they can at all.

## Culture

Threnody Dragons are incredibly territorial beings, with every adult having a territory of which it is incredibly possessive. Entering a dragons territory without an explicit invitation is considered to be a hostile act, and one that is usually met with immediate attack. Despite this seemingly primitive attitude they posses a rich and complex culture, one that they are willing to share with others.

Deep within their territory each Threnody Dragon will have a hoard, a collection of useful, precious and beautiful items that it has gathered over its life. The hoard is a central part of draconic culture, with many of their traditions resolving about protecting and showing off their hoard, which is among other things used to attract mates.

Threnody Dragons lack any form of large scale society, instead being held together by a network of individual relationships and a unified culture. There are however some dragons that due to a combination of age, skill, connections and reputation can act as their leaders, unifying the usually scattered dragons for a common purpose. Most often war with Chaos.