#dragon centaur

Picture, if you will, a canon verse AU except the dragons are all dragon centaurs. ( don't have a name for them yet in universe, but dragon folk or dragon born is the best I have at the moment.) They're still seen as beasts and still behave mostly like the dragons in the films, though are a bit more intelligent. They have their own language, as one example, and can learn english/norse.

Now, imagine, one Viggo Grimborn. Chief of his own tribe on an island in the archipelago. They have been plagued by the dragons for generations, becoming elite hunters. No matter how skilled they become, the dragons keep coming, and they keep killing, and stealing their livestock and fish. Viggo and his tribe have tried to find the dragon nest, but to continuous failure.

One night, during a raid, Viggo manages to bring down one of the high value dragon targets that has stared showing up in recent years. A Night Fury. He goes alone into the woods to find where it fell, and is stopped in his tracks by the beautiful creature. The majority of its form, a sleek, powerful black dragon, and the top of its form, a handsome, and lithe young man with freckles and piercing green eyes. Frightened, yet defiant. Unlike other dragons, this night fury has a satchel and a dagger nearby, knocked off when he hit the ground. Obviously handmade by the dragon. Never has one showed such remarkable craftsmanship. For once in his life, Viggo is captivated by a dragon.

So yes, essentially, a HTTYD1 AU with Hiccup as Toothless and Viggo as Hiccup.

Ok so. I’m not the sort of person who makes up languages for fun. That is not the sort of hobby that appeals to me.

BUT. I was designing this here beautiful lady (see kept my promise)(she hoards teacups. The sword technically belongs to her girlfriend)

When I had the silly brain thought and it is refusing to leave so now I present it here to you:

Dragon genders.

There’s five main genders—as well as a few others we’ll get into later—each based off the classification of the dragon’s hoard:

Wealth (gold, jewels, currency)

Wisdom (mostly books, but also other forms of recorded media)

Labour (tools, weapons, craft supplies)

Life (plants, creatures, food)

And Beauty (art, trinkets, garments)

Each of these has its own set of pronouns attached.

Aside from these categories, there are the three hoardless genders; that which is used to refer to young children, that used to refer respectfully to adults without a hoard or members of other sentient species, and the highly offensive basically-a-slur one.

But the highest insult of all is to say that an individual’s hoard isn’t valid. You just don’t go there.

I wanted to keep the lower body and legs about the same length (I tend to draw legs super long tbh) for a more balanced stance and profile. The wings sit in front of the arms in flight, with the muscles kinda bunched up like a cusion when folded or at rest. I think it'd help prop the abdomen up a little more, although the abdominal muscles of the "human" half are modified and re-positioned to adapt. The god of planking.

Wings talons/hands are at the wrist of the wings because the thought of wing hands are super cool and hot and have a lot of potential. The total limb count (wings are only one set of modified arms, tail wings are heavily modified vertebrae) would add up to 8, legally making them a spider. Limb size and shape and whatnot varies as much as you want, but I chose mine to be leggy, making them fast runners. I think flight-wise they'd be slower, but they'd make up for it with extreme maneuverability and control. Mid-flight combat is def something I wanna draw or animate with them

Rough flight concept animation (tail wings are often just used for steering, shown is a type of power flight that would be used in more difficult conditions) ->