Draconi

## Overview

The rare and endangered dragon-like people originally of Central European decent. They are a tall and intimidating people that were scattered and killed for the longest time by humans during the middle ages due to their overpowering stature and magical prowess, being so scattered they had no choice but to interbreed with humans over time to have children most in modern times are simply humans with the draconic attributes of their ancestors.

Most of the spurn towards them was due to their brutal and violent tendencies, which further was brought out due to their forced isolation which caused a majority of them to fall to banditry.

The few remaining pure blooded draconi are mostly isolated from society in small towns outside of civilization.

## Physical Attributes

The more pure blooded ones are incredibly tall most of the time being upwards of 7ft - 8ft tall, along with being very muscular. They have scales that come in colors from deep crimson to a regal purple color, some rare cases they can be a deep yellow green color. They have fairly large feet which have raptor-like claws with 4 forward facing toes and a large spur-like claw on the inner side of the feet. Their thighs are fairly muscular and usually have thick jagged scales on the outside but smoother more fine scales on the inside of their legs.

They have muscular arms with armor-like scales on their forearm and shoulders, and their hands are similar in their feet for their sharp claws but holds a more human-like appearance. Males have a fairly broad chest, while females have a more slender shaped chest but lack breasts due to egg laying. They have incredibly broad wings on their backs, which allows for limited flight; The wings are counted as extra appendages and are simply a genetic anomaly that was adapted into a useful adaptation.

Their heads are very reptile-like and have a large snout with sharp front teeth and more blunt back teeth. Their head has protruding horns that develop in their youth, the horns can be any shape and essentially boils down to genetics. The horns are the most common trait of human-hybrids, even the most distant hybrids usually still possess horns. They have piercing eyes that come in blood reds, bright ambers, and even deep greens; their eyesight is hindered in bright lights but excels at seeing in the dark. They can see in dark environments that other species would otherwise not be able to.

Their diet is best attuned to meats and they are able to easily digest raw meats without any issues, but its still overall better for them to still cook the meats. The most pure blooded can't properly digest vegetables and it usually results in illness in large amounts, but isn't an issue for seasonings or slight sides on meals mixed with meats.

Pure bloods give birth by laying a fairly large egg, which hatches an infant 9 months later. Much smaller than a human infant they grow incredibly fast their first 6 months to the size of an ordinary infant. Once they're around the age of 8 they begin growing their horns, which sometimes brackets have been used to direct the growth of the horns for aesthetic or ritualistic reasons. Once they hit puberty, they begin to grow incredibly fast from the ages of 12 to 14, and grow slowly from around 14 to 21. As they age, they keep their stature until they're later years, in which they quickly weaken and become more and more frail but maintain their magical prowess.

## Mystical Attributes

Their entire species, including the human-hybrids have incredible magical prowess. This is deeply imbued in their culture, which they have a long history of using magic for rituals or direct combat. Magic is so embedded in their bodies that their corpses have been disassembled for the alchemical properties of their bones and horns. This has been used to make potions or salves for ritualistic spells, which was another incentive for humans to hunt them. Given humanity's lack of magical ability, they have used parts of them to make potions or enact magical rituals.

Historically, they have been shown to have a natural aptitude towards the magical manipulation of souls and other supernatural elements. This has given them a bad reputation as being defilers of corpses and being witches, which has resulted in people viewing them essentially as demonic beasts.

Despite the human-hybrids being mostly human, they still possess their magical prowess due to humanity's curse not being carried over.

## Cultures and Races

### Verbraucher

The larger and historically much more aggressive draconi, they have a history of being brutal warlords and marauders. In the past they would raid entire villages in shockingly small groups of only 8, looting and burning the entire village. They would even kill the villagers and harvest their meat for consumption, even some mauling the villagers outright and feasting on their flesh in the middle of combat. The actions of this tribe was the main catalyst of many genocides against the species. These are almost entirely extinct with maybe tiny communities across portions of Europe.

### Waldmenschen

The peaceful naturalist draconi who live deep in the woods in small communities foraging for food and hunting. They were avid hunters and culturally enjoyed trophy hunting, they would decorate their horns with animal hides strewn across with artistic patterns dyed to the leather. They would also paint their bodies with dyes made from various fruits and berries. They were fantastic trappers and made incredibly complex traps, combining the physical mechanics with magical triggers. Most remaining pure blooded draconi are from this race.

### Geisterhalter

Being incredibly attuned to the supernatural, they have a history of being shamans and oracles. They lived high in the Alps and practiced many forms of soul magic along with more elemental forms of magic. They were incredibly isolated and rarely ever saw any humans, but once the genocides began in the middle ages, they were spread thin across the alps. Their communities used a network of oracles to communicate across long distances and this was used by humans by interrogation and torture to find the locations of other villages. The few remaining would live nomadically, and eventually left Europe entirely.

## History

Originating from Central Europe, they were overall mostly isolationist and kept to themselves all throughout history. Most were peaceful, but a tribe known as the Verbraucher fell to banditry towards the local human populations. This was further emboldened by a new chief shaman, a powerful warlord named "Brita Sol". She invigorated the tribe with ideas of their own strength and supremacy, the tribe had a whole new belief system that the world was weak and it was their destiny to kill all other peoples, and own the world.

They began to move from banditry, to direct organized raiding. The draconi would band together in small militias and sack entire villages, stealing their resources and murdering all the people. They soon began to see the humans as mere food, they began to capture and slaughter humans; some even directly mauling and feasting on the raw flesh of people mid-combat. They would hunt through the village covered in blood, slaughtering any humans they saw, sparing no one.

The brutality of these draconi was soon rumored around, and local kingdoms were put on high alert. They sent out scouts to inspect the ruins of the villages and find the tracks back to the draconi camps but no scouts would return. The kingdoms quickly banded together to send a legion, all armed to the teeth to hunt down the tribes.

The Verbraucher only found out when they saw the soldiers marching over the hills, all throughout their lives they were trained for combat and bred to kill. They charged head on with immense ferocity, ripping and tearing through soldiers. But it was in vain because the soldiers were too much for them, the entire tribe was slaughtered. Brita Sol was beheaded and her head was taken back as a trophy, their campsites and bunkhouses were burned and the legion reclaimed the stolen goods.

But the legion didn't stop there, they continued on hunting other draconi tribes. They slaughtered every tribe they came across, Verbraucher or not; The rampage didn't stop until there were no tribes left. The news spread across to almost every local draconi tribe, they began to flee and abandon their homes. The local kingdoms put bounties on the heads of all of the species, any and all were targets, this encouraged bounty hunters and mercenaries to kill as many as possible. And this effort was continued through military action, almost every draconi was wiped out all throughout Europe after 200 years.

The remaining few had no choice but to live nomadic lifestyles, fighting to survive and avoiding humans. They eventually would come across small human settlements that would let them stay temporarily, this eventually resulted in draconi interbreeding with humans. Their offspring would carry traits of both but still hold their magical prowess, the born would continue a lineage and soon develop into the modern human-draconi hybrids. Some small tribes of draconi still live, but most prefer a modern isolationist lifestyle.

## Modern Standing

The human-hybridized Draconi are rare but more common than their pure blooded cousins, the human hybrids are spread across the entire world living among societies all around. Theres still more stigma towards them compared to other non-human species due to their semi-demonic appearance, but this entirely depends on their location. The pure blooded Draconi are incredibly rare across the planet with an estimated population being around 2000 for the entire planet, which the majority of the known population is around Europe and Asia. But despite their troubled past, they're still very headstrong and hold on to their history and troubles with optimism for the future.