#kardas

Legend of Kardas and his frequent hunts for treasure spread across Okoto, until one day, the legendary knight and Protector of Fire, Flammik, rose to the charge. Desiring the various Masks of Power that Kardas had acquired for the Okotans, Flammik and a small army of her most trusted warriors ventured through the Dragons’ Den, fighting through Hikaki and various other animals, before finally confronting Kardas within his lair. What ensued afterwards was a fierce, unrelenting battle in which Flammik succeeded in dislodging one of Kardas’ teeth, seizing the fang for herself as a trophy alongside a few Masks of Power before retreating. Incensed by the pain in his jaw, Kardas nevertheless chose not to pursue the thieves, not wanting to risk leaving his hoard vulnerable after the losses incurred.

The legend and tale of Flammik’s battle against Kardas became enshrined in legend and on Okoto’s Wall of History, with the fang she won being put on display at the Mega-Village of Tawahi. Kardas, in turn, more closely attended to his lair, paranoid of potential intruders. He continued to go on the occasional hunt and foray out into the Region of Fire for more treasures to add to his collection, but nevertheless bore a bitter resentment towards the Tawahans.

When the Skull Spider wars began, Skull Spider attempts to access Kardas’ hoard resulted in inevitable failure, with even the most armored of Skull Spiders quickly succumbing to the heat and melting before reaching Kardas’ lair. With the threat, power, and rage of the dragon himself taken into consideration, the Brotherhood of Makuta eventually gave up on trying to access Kardas’ lair and focused efforts on scavenging elsewhere. At one point, Makuta attempted to make an ally of Kardas, the same way he had with the Nui-Jaga; However, Kardas’ memories of the Mask Hoarder’s battles against him remained etched into his brain, and the dragon furiously rejected him.

Following the Arrival of the Toa and the Okotans’ subsequent counter-attack against the Skull Spiders, attention was once more drawn to Kardas’ lair and his precious hoard, including the Masks of Power that could turn the tides in the conflict. Eventually, a group of Okotan warriors was put together, consisting of the Toa of Fire and Ice, Tahu and Kopaka, as well as their respective Protectors Narmoto and Izotor. The Tawahan Military, and a few members of the Sanctum Guard, ventured into the Dragons’ Den, with the Tawahan Military’s experience with fire and the Sanctum Guard’s access to the power of Ice helping carve a path to Kardas’ lair.

Eventually, the Okotans breached the castle and came into conflict with Kardas, who furiously defended his treasure hoard against the Okotans. Tahu and Kopaka combined their powers of Fire and Ice to defeat the dragon, eventually collapsing Kardas’ lair onto his own head while the Okotans escaped with the vast majority of his Masks of Power and Life Automatons. Combined with the cache of a rogue Digging Automaton in the Region of Earth, these Masks of Power proved instrumental in turning the tide against the Brotherhood of Makuta and allowing the Okotans to fight back.

Trapped beneath the ruins of his castle, the enraged, embittered Kardas simmered a white-hot grudge as he recovered from his wounds, desiring vengeance and to take back his lost treasures. During the Battle for the Mask of Creation, Kardas, sensing the Mask of Creation’s presence and privy to the chaos of the conflict, flew over to participate. Despite Kardas’ furious attack and attempts to seize the Mask of Creation for himself, he was eventually defeated by the combined efforts of all six Toa and their Okotan allies, who quickly felled the dragon. Once more wounded and beaten, Kardas would find himself buried underneath the eruption of the volcano containing the Mask of Creation after his Energy Breath catalyzed it, and would later be left for the dead in the ensuing chaos.

Having been defeated twice since the Arrival of the Toa, Kardas eventually dug his way out of the lava and volcanic rock and returned to his lair to lick his wounds, recovering. Following the Battle of the City of the Mask Makers and Ekimu’s awakening, Kardas eventually flew over to the city for a grudge match against the Okotans, but after coming into contact with his old foe the Mask Maker and an even stronger Okotan Alliance, was forced to retreat.

Although a legendary Rahi, Kardas’ sheer size and strength made Umarak opt not to bother hunting him down, with the Hunter planning to personally capture and absorb the dragon with the Darkness Below once it broke free of Okoto’s foundations. After Makuta possessed Umarak and unleashed the Elemental Horde upon Okoto to raze the island to its foundations, several Elemental Beasts made their way into the Dragons’ Den and came into conflict with Kardas.

Despite the dragon’s immense power, Kardas quickly found himself overwhelmed by the Elemental Beasts and was badly defeated and wounded. Following the defeat of Makuta and the shattering of the Elemental Beasts, Gali, Toa of Water, came across the wounded Kardas when travelling through the Region of Fire. Feeling sympathy for his plight, Gali gathered a team of Okotans, who managed to transport the injured beast all the way to the City of the Mask Makers, placing him within stasis as efforts were made to heal him. Currently, Kardas is still in recovery at the City of the Mask Makers. The plan is that once Kardas has recovered, the Okotans will let him go so he can return to his home in the Dragons’ Den. Hopefully, Kardas’ recent defeats, as well as the healing by the Okotans, will humble the dragon enough to prevent any future conflicts.

A colossal dragon of great strength, Kardas has a pair of powerful wings that enables him to fly through the air, as well as a long, writhing tail with a blade at the end, and several claws and spines to rend his foes with. His armored scales, colored gold, silver, and dark-blue, are nearly impenetrable, and Kardas’ powerful jaws and massive fangs, super-heated by his hot breath, are more than capable of tearing and apart and rending prey.

Of most worthy note was Kardas’ energy breath, a constantly-spewing stream of plasma-like energy. Its incredibly volatile nature allows it to catalyze and exacerbate reactions- When used against the flames of the Dragons’ Den, they were made hotter. When connected with the lava flows of the volcano containing the Mask of Creation, the Energy Breath super-heated the volcano’s core, triggering a powerful eruption that later buried Kardas. During the initial battle against Kardas within his lair, Tahu and Kopaka took advantage of these effects to collapse the castle onto the dragon.

Constantly generated within Kardas’ stomach, the Energy Breath has a unique nature in that it’s always being produced within Kardas’ internal functions- If he doesn’t regularly expel energy, it will eventually build up and explode, killing the dragon in a volatile explosion. This, combined with Kardas’ hostile and aggressive nature, contributes towards an incredibly destructive existence. From within his nest, Kardas has carved a tunnel through the abandoned castle to act as an exhaust port for his frequent bursts of Energy Breath, striking the flames surrounding his home and further igniting them to the point of plasma.

To work around this infinitely-generating issue while healing him in the City of the Mask Makers, Okotan engineers have hooked Kardas’ mouth up to a harvester that regularly absorbs his Energy Breath, converting it into power for the Okotans to use. Due to the Energy Breath’s limitless nature, some have suggested keeping Kardas in eternal stasis as a generator of clean energy for Okoto- However, due to the dragon’s dangerous nature and liability as a rampaging beast, such suggestions have quickly been shot down.

Curiously, Kardas has an affinity for gold, jewels, and various other treasures, with Masks of Power and their life energy being particularly high on his list. It is currently unknown as to why Kardas desires these sorts of things- All his recorded behavior with them has been to gather and stockpile them into massive hoards, which he occasionally sleeps upon. Many Okotan scholars have offered various theories- Some believe gold is a comfortable environment for Kardas that helps him regulate body heat, while others believe it is his way of making himself as a more attractive mate to a non-existent dragon. One explanation is that Kardas, like many Okotans, simply enjoys the perceived value and luster of gold, despite not being able to spend it, while others have even hypothesized that he eats treasure as a form of nourishment- However, Kardas has never been reported to do such a thing –although most observations are few and far-between- and is only confirmed to be carnivorous.

Inevitably, stories and fables of unknown merit have sprung up in an attempt to explain Kardas’ actions, with some legends claiming he was once a greedy king he was transformed into a destructive dragon as punishment for his avarice, while others claim Kardas is gathering treasure in the hopes of ‘buying’ his way into the Okotan pantheon. Many have speculated that Kardas himself doesn’t know, and that he is merely driven by instinct- Meaning attempts to ‘ask’ him (which would be practically impossible) are generally futile. Regardless, Kardas’ love for treasure is obvious and well-established, and in the past, many mining villages would attempt to pay Kardas tribute in the hopes of warding off further attacks, or even persuading him to destroy their enemies. Kardas’ greed, like his Energy Breath, seems to know no bounds, and attempted worshippers quickly find themselves overwhelmed by demands and eventual destruction.