#toraion

Mystery Egg - Dr. Pumpkin and Mr. Spice

Finished mystery egg for @zenaquaria of her original race/species, a Toraion. These are kinda like upright griffons and are from their world, Ulie'Var. This gal is actually a small subrace, the Feitorai. She is a ball of sunshine, even if she dresses like an edgelord.

More info about Ulie'Var here: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/aulivar-cpttritium

There’s a corvid-themed show pirate/tourism corsair in the Axia setting, and I posited to our DM that the captain’s first mate could be a magpie-based Toraion boy! So Jay Swifte came into being~

It’s likely that Jay here came from the same batch of stolen Toraion young’uns as Ashenfur did. Like Ash, his wings were removed; but when this guy stole off to Axia, he found tourism piracy under Captain Jack Dawson of the Raven. Being up there in the shrouds and sails gives him the wind in his fur and feathers that was taken from him, and he’s blossomed into a capable sailor and loyal mate aboard the Raven. And a fancy-footed showman, to boot~

“I don’t particularly like hurting people the way I was hurt. But for you, I make an exception. My toxins to cleanse your noxious existence from the mundane!” ~ Ashenfur, to any slaver

Ash, my Warlock/Artificer boy, in the midst of a poison cloud and about to sling a ball of acid! And bandolier loaded with more home-crafted poisons~

Ashenfur can alter his spells to different flavors of damage, as he’s doing here. That would have been a Fireball, if he had left it unchanged! But by his will and adding a liquid reagent, it becomes less boom and more splash. Burns bad regardless! He’s a sweetheart under that mask but up against those who are anything at all alike to those people who stole him from his home and put him through Hell, they best beg for a swift end. The alternative is succumbing to poison’s havoc or acid’s burns.

A few doodles of some of my D&D characters!

Top is Spooks floating in gross old-castle-dungeon-floodwater because she is simply too short! This actually happened in our penultimate Curse of Strahd session, when the party reached the castle dungeons/catacombs and found them flooded. Fortunately at least two of the party are 6ft tall, and our centaur paladin gave the lil owl some help.

Bottom left is the new boy, Ash, giving some love to his crow-munculus, Blackberry, after some maintenance. He calls Blackberry “she”, and yes she is perched on his tail. x3 The construct is one thing Ash considers his closest friend and he treats her as such. Bottom right is Naruus Kar’kuun, Naru for short, my dragonborn necrodruid. They have fascinations for “unconventional” critters. Leeches, spiders, salamanders, y’know. What the world generally doesn’t see as “cute” but Naru does see as “cute”. They are absolutely fine plopping down in the middle of the swamp to watch slugs winding over a tree, or a knot of leeches in a shallow pool.

Ashenfur Refsheet, 2022 edition~

Meet Ash! The first of my D&D 5e compatible Toraion homebrew race, possibly a future playtest of the race, and overall an embodiment of a concept I’ve been trying to pin down for a while.

“Ashenfur” is a name he gave himself, after losing memories of what his parents named him. There’s still some background and game-mechanic wibbly-wobblies I need to work out but as it currently stands, Ash is to be primarily a Warlock, with some Alchemist Artificer on the side!~ Enough to give him some potion/elixir savoir faire and let him have a little construct buddy in Blackberry, his crow homunculus!

Story-wise, Ash was stolen from his homeland in Torai, by slavers in nearby lands and seas surrounding the landmass. The slave master who bought him took his flight, the few precious mementos he kept of home, and his name from him. Shortly before making his escape, Ash entreated some power beyond to help him get out, forming his Warlock Pact. He killed or severely wounded his captor and fled to the nearest sea port, where he stowed away on boats heading west towards the lands of Curoq and Axia.  It is in Axia that he picks up his first Artificer level, as well as learning how to handle firearms. Axia is the leading region for firearms development, and its western neighbor, Breggario, is THE alchemy/apothecarial hotspot of the world. So he spends his time learning here and having his trust in humanoids built/restored. It’s slow going but he is extremely receptive to real kindness; I’m talking big ol Ghibli tears at being shown hospitality for the first time in years. c: 

One day he IS going to go be the freedom fighter he feels he should be. <3

Meet a newly redesigned old Toraion gal of mine, Driftess Su’Kirra of Aerie Hold, Torai Empire!

She was the very first Toraion I ever made. Back when Zen was just a wee teen, I made her just to dabble with goth-ish aesthetic and tribal ink designs.The Toraion evolved around her from that point on. Back then, she was Tsukizo. Something to do with the moon. Which happened to be the name of the clan she led way back then. Back before I turned it into an empire and called the regions ‘holds’ and gave the biggest cities “real” fantasy names. xD And she had black hair with red dyed tips, and under-eye tattoo designs, and a beak “tattoo” in that pseudo-tribal spiky style that just looks edgy, and like four or five ear piercings. Teen me thought it looked sick and had to express it somehow, so I put it all over an anthro gryphon since I couldn’t wear any of it. xD

Thinking about that, I can’t recall if there have been or no, at least out of the pre-established mythologies. o: I mean, dragons always had my attention but I never dove into crafting a specific subspecies of my own. It wasn’t until ponies happened that I looked into other mythical unguloids to be more unique with. That and if there has been something, I’ve delved into it anyway and just waited for them to have a place somewhere. xD Like my Torai Gryphonfolk, who found their place in Taller Half’s and my high fantasy universe.

That said, I’m still waiting for my hippogryph derivatives, Equidrafyn, to find their place in things. Had them since... oh heck, must’ve been 2004? They could probably end up the same as the Toraion and get a place there...

A couple of things I worked on just to get the concepts down.  I’m back working on my Toraion gryphonfolk again~

Here I’ve got a pencil sketch of a Monsoon Hold Ranger that I hope to refine later, which I did in my little pocket sketchbook while at the in-laws’. And then this morning I rendered a concept of how they visually perceive/represent Death. c: