The Ashen Striders

Heya! This is my flight rising blog. You can call me Pyrouge. I'm a butch lesbian who uses they/them pronouns, and I've been playing flight rising for 8+ years.

My current lore project is The Yawning Grave, a modified pinkerlocke challenge with lots of lore that ties into my old Rivensong lore, complete with writing and art. You can find that thread here.

As for personal rules: I appreciate likes, reblogs, etc on personal lore and/or art. There's no rules about who can interact with my blog, but TERFs, transphobes, etc. will be blocked and removed.

My Stuff: #my lore, #my art, #worldbuilding wendesday

Dreamer in the Dark

Rain trickled gently against the leaves above, dripping through the thick duff and into the shadows below. Deep in the organic darkness, where roots sought sustenance and fungi fed on both the living and the dead, something stirred. The veilspun were first spun from this darkness, feeding on the fungi until they emerged into the world to do their goddesses' bidding. They lurked in every shadow, skittering, watching, whispering among dragonkind. Until they were called back to their birthplaces, placed into the deep, only their dreams to reach the surface world.

Day twenty-four of my Pinkerlocke, featuring the mysterious and not-at-all shifty Somer. There's a lot of lore that's going to pick up soon, and this little guy may or may not be at the center of a lot of what's about to happen...

Hm... I've been thinking about this one a lot. Canonically, there are major religious sites tied to the elemental deities of Sorneith, but based on canon lore it seems like a lot of dragons have different relationships to these sites than most people have to holy sites in our world.

Building off of that, in my lore, pilgrimages are very rare. Most sites with bountiful magical energy are considered holy, and as such most major draconic settlements are built around them. But reverence and worship take many different forms. For instance, lightning and fire flight both emphasize work at these sites-- hotspots of fire magic fuel furnaces and lightning magic powers massive factories. Shadow, light, and earth flights all have magical spots connected to history and lore, so most dragons approach these as reverent scholars. Inversely, to arcane dragons, all new knowledge and libraries are essentially holy sites, so scholars create sites of abundant magic (this ties in to them being the newest flight). Plague and nature are both focused on cultivating sites of great magic to alter the landscape and produce usable resources. Ice focuses on guarding such places from outsiders.

For most dragons/clans, if there's specific sites they'd like to use for rituals and holy offerings, they simply create their own shrines near to their clans. Travelers might stop at these spots on their way but they are rarely a primary destination. Travelers might also go to specific places and clans to celebrate flight festivals, but how much religion is the primary motivating factor in attending the festival might vary.

The one major exception would be the wind flight and Dragonhome. the Windsinger is the patron deity of travel, so wind pilgrims are exceptionally common. The difference is that they are not so much focused on any particular destination but rather the journey itself. The act of traveling IS a way to connect with the Windsinger, and many journeys are bound by experiences or time as opposed to destination. Some dedicated dragons journey their entire lives, or chase the next adventure forever.