#dryadix

I changed her major color from orange/yellow to more of a teal/green because. she just doesn't look good in yellow I'm sorry I really tried but it wasn't working. Also little updates to her hair color, nothing huge tho. Daphne's primary motifs are a branching "Y" shape and a double oval/tear drop. She's a pants when possible girlie and a one set winger(yes her nymphix looks like it have multiple wings but they all merge into one stem on each side) . Her scars from her Sirenix being ripped out of her caused her winx/enchantix to change a little to cover them(mostly seen in the arms) due to insecurity. Her Dryadix/nymphix flower is a daffodil! because pun Daph-Daff, and Daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings (also creativity, energy, resilience, forgiveness and vitality). Her Harpix wings aren't super specificly patterned, but she has darting wings common in small song and seed birds (robins, finches, brown birds etc.) the coloring is referential of a Shrike (also called a Butcher Bird), because Daphne was. incredibly dangerous and if she had sided with the ancestral probably would have been given a moniker similar to Butcher of Domino or Daphne the Slaughterer. (some people do call her these but its mostly among people who dislike Domino/The Royal Family.)

Lore! Daphne doesn't have a great sense of self, she was planned as a necessary successor to Marion/the dragon flame in a period as the ancestral witches were escalating their attacks and search for the dragon flame. Bloom was a back up baby in case both Daphne and Marion got dead and basically worked as intended haha. Daphne was also much more publicly involved in the kingdom than many of the other royals in winx (Stella, Aisha, Krystal and even Galatea to an extent all had rather sheltered upbringings) in a way Daphne is much more like Sky and Thoren in the since that none of them really had the space to develop their own personality outside of their familial duty.

Daphne's 1st winx and enchantixes are as direct a copy of her mom's Enchantix as you can get with transformations, right down to the more greenish tint of her major color. Growing up Marion used her fairy form liberally, so that, combined with being the next Dragon Flame holder left a deep impact on Daphne's subconscious. Daphne was also heavily influenced by Faragonda during her Alfea and Nymphix Quest years, but since she was older this isn't as deep an influence. After being revived, Daphne's years of defining herself as her connection to Bloom causes her major color to shift more blue in response to her trauma. Daphne is slowly starting to develop a sense of self outside of her titles/connections but it's unlikely her major color will shift again unless she has another major trauma.

So just like the Dryadix quest a witch looking to become a Landrid has to create a crystalline magic seed, grow a flower from it, and present it to the source of Dryadix. Unlike fairies however, witches usually work more closely with the elemental companions of each quest (in this case the Kodama). Witches need a gift from their elemental companions to add to their uniform in order to handle the ethereal power bestowed by the elemental quests. Witches becoming Landrid get a mask carved from a kodama’s home tree. Kodama each have a tree they were either born into(in the immortal forest) or that they have claimed (in the magix dimension). The Kodama’s life force is connected to their home trees and they protect them as much as possible. Kodama usually carve their own masks from parts of their own tree. It’s an incredible gift to receive any part of a kodama’s home tree and the masks lend a drop of Immortal Forest magic for the witch to build on. The elemental witch forms still influence the witch’s biology, but none of these babes are genetically predisposed towards the earth element.

So just like Sirenix and Harpix, Dryadix is earned through a quest. Elemental quests are traditionally initiated through the corresponding elemental companion, but a “cheat code” exists in the Elementix Compendium to kickstart each of the quests with out a companion (if the fairy already has Harmonix obvi). The Dryadix quest requires a fairy to create a crystal seed out of their magic, grow the seed into a plant with at least one flower bud, and present the plant to the Source of Dryadix on planet Magix. Unlike like the sirenix pearls and harpix feathers, there are no riddles to solve to get a seed, instead the Elementix Compendium details crystalline magic creation and plant care. There would still be some kind of virtue trial in order to get the plant to grow but its literally just like. Patience, dedication, nurturing, etc, just the regular stuff to take care of plants anyways so it’s pretty straight forward.

Design! I’ve described Dryadix before when talking about Daphne and the elementix here but designing this transformation was a journey, the final results have serious differences compared to the original sketches I did. I actually ended up throwing some aspects of the “magic of joy” transformation from the comics in there? not a lot and only as i needed but I wanted a kind of ethereal feel to this one despite being the “earth” transformation for the elementix.  Basically, the updated Dryadix includes: loose hair styles with optional braids, a flower crown, a cropped vest type thing (neck collar bone and shoulders), visible ribcage filled with flowers, simple solid bottoms with some kind of waistband, a sheer multi-layer skirt, one sheer sleeve, solid color socks, pretty basic shoes limited to style lines as decoration, and a glove/bracer/arm thing that matches the boots and socks. The fairy wings resemble plant matter and have more glow-y veins than typical wings. Flora’s plant based biology is reacts strongly with this transformation, transforming her hands, feet, and ears into vines and branches (her eyes, if they were open, would have flower shaped pupils).