#outcast lore

I now permanently headcanon that Memphis was sooooo old that he was around before they genetically engineered all the fruits and veggies, so they didn't look like their modern day versions when he last saw a piece of produce. And unfortunately, the sun is a dumbass and don't really know WHAT fruit is. Hence:

The lemon(?)

Do you feel this fits Mephiles?

THE OFFICIAL OUTCASTS ASK BLOG!!!!!

The matriarch sending every piece of the hoard’s birdskull apparel to be boiled down into slime?

Now that Summer and Autumn are level 25, I thought I’d visit how they ended up with Glory and Shame. You don’t need to know anything about my lore to enjoy (?) this story.

Shame rose to the sound of wailing. She blinked the sleep from her eyes, then hefted herself off of the bedding. Glory was nowhere in sight, but she suspected that if she followed the sound of the unhappy dragons, she would find him. Stretching her wings, she walked for the exit of the inn room, nosing aside the curtain that had separated their sleeping area from the others. 

Here’s a short little one-off that explores one of the odder corners of the clan lair.

--

The dragons of the Clan of the Outcast are constantly digging, because the clan is constantly growing. When the earliest members arrived, the lair was a little hole in a hill under a big tree. Now, it is a carefully constructed labyrinth of tunnels and rooms, laid out in such a way that dragons of all sizes may pass through its halls.

At least, that is how things go until the construction reaches The Hole. Since discovering it about a year ago, the builders have quietly moved on to expand other areas of the lair and just left it where they found it at the end of the main hallway. The Hole is large, and deep, and dark, and no dragon in the clan is quite brave enough to attempt to see just where it goes or what it is hiding. Everyone quietly agrees—in the sense that it is never spoken aloud, but understood through eye contact—that there is something hiding in The Hole. Still the clan carries on… and nobody walks to the end of the main hall.

Sort of. They have characters, anyway.

Giles and Jeeves are the salesmen. They sell what the other alchemists create, legitimate or not. (They're not allowed to sell to the clan.)

Saadat and Sarava are both trying to transmute common items into valuable ones. Saadat focuses on gems, and Sarava focuses on gold. So far neither have managed to make the real thing, but the pretty imitations they've created sell well.

Curie and Baldrick focus on using what they naturally create to change the world around them. Curie likes to mutate plants, making them large and pretty and possibly murderous. Baldrick spends his time trying to expand the reach of his eyes. So far he's managed to create a living ooze that can help him see wherever it goes.

Vnis won't tell anyone what he's working on, and he won't let anyone help, either. This is probably why he's covered in disfiguring burns.

Radium is a spiral, okay? And she's not doing anything suspicious.

"But you've never actually written about them, glitterdusted. We'd love a long and overly detailed post about them!" - no one ever

Well step right up, because I'm about to walk y'all through the intricacies of the Clan of the Outcast's resident death cult. It's led by this lady, who is also the Big Bad of my lore:

This is Ajatar, the Bonekeeper. She's big on the whole beauty of life from death thing, but a little hung up on helping people get dead so they'll become something more beautiful and worthwhile. She's also the reason half my vault is bones. (She doesn't like chimera fangs though. Apparently keeping teeth is too creepy even for her.)

Her acolytes are these two:

Velikaya and Vashti. They help her do her creepy bone rituals (and some of the clan suspects they know a bit too much about poison for anyone's safety.)

So these three aren't exactly subtle, but the clan is big. How can the cultists tell each other from the dregs? Well, if they're wearing birdskull apparel, chances are good the dragon is a cultist. Chances are also good they just like bird skulls.

Cultist.

Not a cultist (he takes care of the hatchlings, actually!)

Cultist with crippling gembond infection that he hides as much of as possible under gaudy shit. Also Ajatar's son. Also a cinnamon roll.

Definitely not a cultist. (Unless Pilates is a cult.)

Absolutely a cultist.

Makes sense? No? Blame my inconsistent dressing schemes. It's a work in progress. :)

So what is the clan doing about the dangerous cult working not very subtly in their midst? If you know anything about the Matriarch, you'll know the answer is nothing. At all. It would get in the way of the napping.

The clan is hospitable to newcomers. We ask no questions. We don't want to know where you came from, or what you've done. Tell us if you must, but be warned-- when we share in return, you'll wish we hadn't. Secrets are best when they are kept.

We train our hatchlings for the Gladekeeper. Our clan is in the Earth domain. We train our hatchlings for the Gladekeeper. We send them out, nest by nest and day by day, but no longer know where they are going.

Each family can choose one child to stay behind. These chosen few never quite look their parents in the eyes. They don't want to see that they were better than the ones that came before. They don't want to see that they were too week to serve. They aren't sure if preference is worse than pity.

The forest outside the lair is alive with birds. We don't go out alone. They are not singing friendly songs, but war cries. There are more birds every day. We don't go out in pairs now, either.

Someone keeps moving the marker stones. No dragon in their right mind would send travelers down that path. The trees are too quiet there. In a domain where life is a scream, we learn to run from the silence.

Nobody mentions the flicker, the shadow, the gap in the light. It wasn't always with us, and we're worried that acknowledging it will make it stay longer.

The hovering thing in the wolf skin, with the long, taloned limbs? He's perfectly fine, why do you ask?

Our numbers are never stable. Whispers of war in other domains one day finds ten missing dragons the next. We forget their names and faces. We know they won't return. And down the path, ten more arrive at our door. We're already forgetting them, too.