#lore rising

BLESSED

A coatl who hails from the Windswept Plateau, distantly related to fighters and explorerers. They are the Wanderers’ compass, leading the enigmatic band through the many territories of Sornieth. Blessed’s path is determined by their visions, called to aid those in need; finding those who, like themself, wish only to help others with their strange talents; and to find something to satiate their wanderlust, if such a thing exists. Their abilities are broad. The lantern on their tail reveals the unseen: spirits and magic, dreams and pathways unseen. The very stars seem to speak to them, though seldom do they understand what they say. They keep a small entourage of spirits around themselves at all times, whispering secrets and prophecies.

TWILIGHT

An heir of a clan from the Sunbeam Ruins, who left home to pursue a greater destiny. She learned of Blessed’s pilgrimage through their home clans’ relations to one another. When she felt herself ready, Twilight took to the skies to find them, her magic candles leading the way. The candles act as dowsing rods, pointing toward things lost or desired with the sway of their flames. Twilight needs only to light them with the image in her mind, and the smoke and fire do the rest. She garners a small allowance by finding lost objects and hidden resources for the dragons and beastclans they pass.

WHIRLWIND

One of Blessed’s first projects of altruism, who has since become their champion. Whirlwind is a stalwart warrior, whose only mission is to protect his Masteress. He sleeps near them, inspects all food to come their way, and stands between Blessed and any visitors who wish to approach. Whether his love for them is platonic or more than platonic matters not, so long as they are happy and well. He is a gifted spellsword but only summons his blade under Blessed’s word, an order seldom given. He often trains on Etra’s and Decay’s puppets to keep his techniques sharp.

CARABLESS

A gifted engineer; a tinkerer, slowly becoming known for his small but efficient trinkets. Unlike most of the band of Wanderers, Carabless tags along not for mysticism but for its application; he keeps observations of Blessed and their entourage in a well-kept, leatherbound journal, the writing small but detailed, the sketches hasty but clear. He is not versed in techromancy as Etra is, but tries to build small robots that mirror their lifelike qualities regardless. Etra finds his attempts amusing, allowing him to pursue his research and keeping him from crossing boundaries he is not meant to cross.

SUMMANUS

This Ridgeback is not always with the group; after a visit to Blessed’s home clan, Summanus found himself sweet on a Snapper named Constellation, and he makes a trip every three weeks with Patience to visit his love, before returning to the Wanderers by the end of the month. He is a somnimancer, one who controls and manipulates dreams. He shirked his training growing up, but he has a way of finding solutions despite his ineptitude. His lovers - both Constellation and those he has tristes with on the band’s travels - all have marvelous dreams after their nights of passion. Children who have lost their way or suffer from trauma find themselves dreaming of the right path and the correct choices. Those who need guidance can always find the band by seeing them in their dreams. Whether this is Summanus’s doing or not, Summanus himself does not know. He does not sleep enough to see his own dreams.

PATIENCE

Patience hails from somewhere in the Scarred Wasteland, her past filled with the disease and marred landscape beside which she grew up. She finds comfort in decay, absorbing it into her very body until, like her scales, the toxins fade into nothingness. She healed the wildclaw Gunther of his stoney curse, and the two have had a romantic but non-sexual relationship ever since. Contact is only used when she must heal another; any other time and it only feels wrong and uncomfortable. When she is not healing, Patience is dancing. Her wiles are mesmerising and soothing, lulling her partners into a calm trance, so as to distract them from both the pain and the treatment as it begins. She will then take as long as she needs until they are healthy again.

AKUMATSU

He who is half dead and speaks to the demons. Half of his plummage is pale with death, the rest tainted by the darkness of the shadows with which he keeps company. He enjoys their company, often laughing at jokes no one else can hear. Even others coatls have trouble understanding what he’s saying, and to Twilight he’s completely intangible, as though speaking in tongues or in an unknown language. Perhaps he has lost his wits from staring too long into the Eldritch voids. The only voice of the living he responds to is Blessed. In the darkness they are a bright blue light, a beacon of reality. Beyond the darker veils where Blessed cannot see, Akumatsu guides the Wanderers with the aid of his Shady friends.

DOC DECAY

A Necromancer who really shouldn’t be a Necromancers; Decay is Summanus’s son, who followed him back to the Wanderers once he was old enough to leave the nest. Where his mother reads the stars and his father controls dreams, Decay knows only the whispers of corpses, their voices clear on the winds through their desiccated windpipes. He is learning to harness the power to breathe this life back into the bodies, but they are never quite the same, mere shadows of their former selves. They hold only the strongest emotions and memories before their death. Often times this is enough to piece together a pre-mortem story, of how the body got there and to what they died. It is a grisly way to learn a truth, but a way it is.

CHAMPION

A noble seer from the depths of the Sea of a Thousand Currents, Champion sees herwlf as royalty, perhaps an heiress to the mighty Tidelord himself, although she carries no proof of such lineage. She takes pride in the accuracy of her visions, and even sees Blessed as something of a rival, even as she follows them as the Wanderers’ indisputed leader. She considers Twilight’s techniques weak and Blessed’s wishy-washy, and often steps in to try and control a situation or conversation, affected by the impatience of their clients through her empathy. She insists on being paid for all services however, proving her not as charitable as her fellows. It’s only by her misering that the group continues to collect funds for their necessities.

ETRA

 Short little gasps of air filled the cave with a sense of dark life, the ice shards that once held three unborn hatchlings melted into the fur beneath it, soaking it to the stone. Between two lithe squirming forms, one did not look quite the same as the others, the mother peering closer. It very much resembled the father, who preferred to dwell outside the cave, near it’s mouth. A bounce of delight came from the mother as she nudged them all together. Doing her best to keep them warm and safe, the night was not going to be any more forgiving than it was; the dark magic had only just settled to give time for the three eggs to hatch.

2 Weeks Later.

  The sky was alive with a small snow storm; not breaching the walls of the valley that was secure, but enough of a stir had sent many dragons seeking their homes for shelter. Among it all, snow white eyes stared from the darkness of the cave, a mere smile on the dragon’s lips. Stepping out of the shelter, she sat near the edge of the cliff, turning to beckon forth the young she had so lovingly protected.

  With a stumble and a squawk, three young and blackened hatchlings approached their mother with caution and curiosity. Ears listened and both crests and feathers adjusted to the bracing wind that would have sent them back into the safety of the cave. A low rumble from behind, the father of his young sat and watched, a bone clenched in his claws; top shattered from a bite. 

  “This is your home, my young ones. It is all ours, from mountain to mountain, and the plains below. We are a family, but there are more of us. Others, but not family.For we are different.Not like me. Not like Pa. For whatever you wish to be, my young ones, you have both of us, behind you.”

  Heads turned and the hatchlings smiled, charging their father who fell at their might, gruffing with the defeat he’d succumbed to. The hatchlings cheered and sat on their father, proud and strong.

2 Months Later.

  “Haar!”

  Wings snapped in the air, a rough landing hitting the stone as the dragon that had once been in the air, crashed into his sibling, the female sent sprawling. Soft laughs filled the air, when suddenly a heavier dragon came along and slammed beside them.

  “Careful you big oaf! You almost squashed us!”

  “It wouldn’t be any different if you two did it!”

   Watching with a gentle fondness, the parents admired their children, but it was short lived. The night soon came, and the moon was nowhere to be seen. The prowling was beginning. Leading her children to beyond the borders, their mother sat perched on an out cropping. She said nothing to her young dragons, simply letting instincts run their course. She had learned to resist the call of the beast, but her children, had not.

  Marvix was the first. Teeth had found their way into the neck of a snow elk. Bringing it down without too much force, the scent of blood filtered in the air. Bait. An attraction that brought a loner dragon from the depths of the snow. It was not long into the night that the scent of blood was thick in the air, and the loner was set upon by three. 

  Teeth shredded  scales and tore in muscle, the shriek and roars of a weakening dragon sending the trees into a cold shake as the wind of beating wings made them tremble in the darkness of the night. No stars were present, and clouds were scattered across the blanket of darkness above them. Madness and a streak of insanity was present in the night where beasts dwell.

  Several hours later.

  Returning from the valley beyond their home, the three siblings staggered into the ranges, energy deprived and sightless to where they were going. Was it home? Was it back into a fearful embrace? Neither of them knew. Until the female looked up to see their mother, her cold gaze peering down at them from a cropped rock.