Darkers

The **darkers**, also known as **dark dragons**, are creatures descended from Pure Darkness. While the essence and purpose of a creature descended from Pure Light is to bring life, protect it and be alive, darkers exist to take it. Their “life” revolves around destroying life and bring death.

Their origin is unknown; they started to appear after Spyro became evil and freed Malefor.

## Appearance

While most dragons all walk on 4 paws with two wings and are all around the same size, dark dragons differ. They can take almost any form, from an eastern dragon to a wyvern. Even strange and impossible forms are common. However, no Darker has more than one head, and those that do seem to have two heads or more are either conjoined twins or have fake heads.

There's not as much variety in size. Though some can become quite large and others rather small, but unlike the various forms, there are no extreme cases.

Darkers and dragons DO NOT have feathered avian wings ever.

All of them have yellow slitted eyes, except for artificial darkers.

Their blood is yellow.

### Class

Darkers are divided into 2 classes: monster and dragon darkers.

Dragon darkers resemble western dragons in some sense (1 head, 4 limbs, 2 wings, 1 tail) (for example, Medusa, Poisonbeak); other variations are considered to be a monster class (wyverns, wyrms, etc. for example, Chimero).

*Monster class is now more common, but when the 3rd Dark War just started dragon darkers dominated.*

### Colors

There are two colors that do not exist among normal darkers: purple (for obvious reasons) and white (no exceptions, albino's do not exist, nor among the dragon race itself).
Usually, they have dark colors. As they hate light colors, they will attack darkers with these shades.

### Scars

Just like any other creature, darkers can have scars. However, the colors of their scars are different from typical red/pink/white.

Fresh scars are dark yellow due to the damage of blood vessels (and darker's blood being yellow).

Older scars tighten up and change its color to lighter shades of the body (for example, grey scars on a black darker, light blue on blue, etc).

## Behavior

The easiest way of understanding a darker's behavior is by comparing them to zombies. They are feral, chaotic and will attack anytime disregarding their own safety. A darker will always attack a dragon without question. They will not cooperate with them. Not even if they could gain something from it. They will not bow for torture, as they don't feel pain or have a fear of dying anyway.

## Intelligence

While the typical behavior of darkers is described above, the intelligence level of a darker also influence their habits. All darkers are born "stupid" by default and can get more intelligent with more experience/age.

There are 3 levels of intelligence:

### Low

Aka "stupid". Such darkers are very animalistic and have no interests in anything, they just kill and destroy. Also they can never talk.

### Average

While some darkers of this level can still be animalistic, they can gain some personality traits. For example they can start acting as some animals (cats, dogs, crocodiles, birds, etc) and may even develop a rough draft of a personality. They may even learn how to talk.

### High

These darkers are the oldest and the wisest. They have a well-developed personality with defined traits and habits and can talk. Also, that makes them the hardest to kill.

## Types

### Normal

The majority of the darker army consists of this type.

Examples: Poisonbeak, Tatterwing, Puppeteer

### Parasite

These Darkers can feed themselves with more than just dark energy. They can feed on another beings emotions. They do not need this in order to survive, but can get a boost of power with it. They can be recognized by their flaming/glowing body parts.

Examples: Chimero, Guillotinesis, Ehrkann

### Cursed

Cursed Darkers aren't really “cursed”, but it defines the way they use their element. Usually these darkers are from the earth branch.

They have the ability to petrify their targets into, not just stone, but also gold, crystal, metal, etc. with their element or just by touching them. They are immune to physical attacks, because their bodies are so closely connected to their element.

The term cursed was given to them due to the fact that there's no way to undo the damage they cause. Once petrified, there's no potion or spell to undo it. The moment the “statue” is damaged, the curse is permanent. The only way to cure the victim is to kill the darker, which is nearly impossible.

Cursed darkers are easily the most dangerous among their species, even without proper control of their powers.

Elements can still harm them, and physical attacks are also still
possible, but you  can't touch them without being affected by
their element, i.e. you could scratch Medusa the
moment you touch her scales your claws will turn into gold, and like
that it will slowly spread over your entire body. So no one  would
recommend touching these darkers.

Example: Medusa, Seifer, Secravee

### Artificial

Nothing is known about this type of darkers yet.

## Ranks

Ranks are decided by power. The strongest darker is the leader (the alpha). There can be more than one alpha among a group of darkers if they manage to cooperate with each other (which rarely happens).

Sometimes alphas are challenged by other darkers. They will fight, and the winner will be the new/same alpha. Of course, the purple dragons are still the big bosses above them all.

Next go Betas ( The 3rd in command), elites (the strongest darkers), normal soldiers and omegas (the weakest darkers).

## Other features

### Cannibalism

Cannibalism is common for darkers. The reason why there are no small, old, weak and little light colored darkers, is because they are eaten/ killed by their own kind.

### Feeding

Darkers do not need food or water to survive. Dark energy, radiating upon them, keeps them alive.

Sometimes they do prey upon and eat different creatures (dragons and even their own kind included). Since they do not need food, they will only hunt for sport or their sadistic satisfaction. They can even “prefer” certain types of food.

### Influence of crystals

Darkers do not react to any sort of magical crystal, except for dark crystals. They become more powerful around those.

### Lack of free will

Darkers do not have a free will.

The moment they are born, their only goal in “life” is to kill. They do not have morals. They naturally follow the purple dragons without question (no exceptions). If they would order them to jump into a volcano, they would do it without question, no matter how intelligent they are. Also they are unable to betray the purple dragons (no exceptions). It's in their nature to obey them, since they have so much dark energy inside them.

### Pain and death

Every normal creature has the “common sense” that it doesn't want to die, or at least “not today”. Darkers do not have this common fear.

When they are injured, they are aware of their injuries, but they do not feel discomfort of them like we do.

### Reproduction

Most darkers are created by dark energy itself. Almost all of the ones that appeared when the war started, were created this way, but they are able to reproduce in the “traditional” way as well. They will not care for their own young it's the exact opposite, they will try to eat them. Because a small darker is a weak darker. And darkers don't see a difference between small and young. They will not eat darker eggs, but the moment they hatch, the hunt is on. The reason they do not eat the eggs is because all darker eggs are pitch black. No matter what element.

When a baby darker hatches, it's behavior is comparable to that of a shark pup. They are immediatly independent, and their parents will try to eat them! They grow up very fast. In less than a month, they are fully grown. Though it takes a very long time for them to develop some form of intelligence. And mastering their powers/elements takes them a few years too.

This is why, intelligent darkers are usually rather old already. As their intelligence develops, they can develop a personality too.

## Powers

Dark dragons' elements are very similair to dragon elements, they are all based on fire, water, wind or earth. The main difference lies in the magic: dragon magic is based on light, darker magic is based on darkness. Darkers cannot control the neutral elements of time and gravity (no exceptions).

### Dark elements

* **Fire branch**: shadow (dark equivalent of fire), dark fire, night fire, lava, electricity, laser, hypnosis, smoke, etc.
* **Wind branch**: wind, siren (dark equivalent of sound, the fear element of dotd), tornado, etc.
* **Water branch**: poison (dark equivalent of water), dark ice, nitrogen, mist, etc.
* **Earth branch**: earth, earthquake/shock, mud, metal, sand, gold, crystal, etc.

## Weaknesses

Aside from the usual physical injuries, darkers have one more weakness: Light. On normal occasions darkers have to stay in the shadows, because the sun will burn them, but because of the fact that the purple dragons literally radiate darkness, they can now roam around as they please.

When darkers come into contact with  elemental light, though, they will instantaneously collapse and dissolve, no matter how powerful they are.