#the cloudsong

so here we've got a bunch of ancient clans, usually big ones since you get the "ancient" from expanding your lair, creating goddamn kites and living in them.

there are dragons living in kites in the sky! think of how they have to design their homes. having to baby proof rooms and areas so the young dragons don't fall off, and Windsinger forbid it be a poor snapper baby. dragons coming in and out and it being a huge task to import large goods since you'd have to carry them while flying. You gotta take hot air balloon rides to transfer them. Plus, the kites would shift, especially the small ones, so you just gotta be chill with your house sometimes moving. You gotta be chill during storms where lightning is just right next to you. No glass windows because birds.

I always had trouble imagining the clans of the Twisting Crescendo. Specifically, how and why did they fling an entire lair into the sky and how and why do they keep it there. I think about this stuff a lot, so here’s my answer.

The goal is to get close to Windsinger, of course.

The windswept plateau is rather far south, and probably has very cold winters. This means that the Twisting Crescendo likely grows and shrinks with the seasons. In the winter, it’s very small, spinning out over the strait and not bothering anyone. Conversely, in the summer, it grows to cover all of the plateau accept for Reedcleft and the steppes. 

The lairs that are labeled as in the Crescendo are actually in central and southern Windswept. Their lairs are completely above ground and made of lightweight bamboo. Their only anchoring to the ground is with strong tethers likely cured with magic.

In the winter, these lairs rest on the ground and act much like conventional cities. Come summer time, the storm grows to cover the lair and lifts it into the air to be more or less gently deposited back on the ground when autumn arrives. 

As time passes, a clan will extend the tethers binding them to the ground, meaning that each summer they get a little higher. Eventually, with enough expansions, they rise high enough to breech the top of the storm and into the cloudsong at which point the tethers are cut and thee lair is anchored to the others already there.