Dragons – Quel’Lan’s Brood

Physical:
Dragons in their natural forms are massive, scaled beasts with manes of long, light-based hair. Two sets of horns sprout from their heads and rows of sharp, nasty teeth adorn their maws.

Massive wingspans sprout from their backs, but are usually kept folded alongside their gigantic frames. Heavy arms with articulated thumbs drop from their shoulders while powerful hind legs make up the rear. A long, powerful tail finishes off the look.

Immortal to the ravages of time and gifted with the physical shifting capabilities of Quel’Lan, Dragons were considered the most majestic of all the races have been made by the Gods – until they almost went extinct when Quel’Lan was murdered by her siblings.

Out of all of the creatures made by the Gods, the Dragons are the least to look like the pale-faced creatures they were before – and with good reason.

Society:
Quel’Lan’s Dragons are some of the most anti-social of the other creatures. They do not build lasting structures, nor do they make family units. These mighty beasts do not want for material possessions, but what they do value are stories.

The Dragons of Quel’Lan were known hoarders. They gathered loots and valuable treasures that had stories attached to them and declared that these artifacts were part of their hoards, boasting that any who wished to claim such a wonderful treasure would need to best them in combat.

Rather than build a vault for their hoard, Dragons prefered to claim a building, cave or structure that is already capable of housing their accrued wealth.

A family, or brood of Dragons, stays together for a time after the Dragons are hatched. The parents grow tired of their children after a couple of years and scare them off, demanding that they go out and get their own hoard and to make them grand-babies so that they can share their stories with a new generation.

As such, most other races always though the Dragons to be beasts. Truth be told, the Dragons love nothing more than to watch the other creatures of Alteria mill about and live their lives.

It’s fascinating to them, like watching a train wreck.

Often times, Dragons will interject themselves into the affairs of those around them – they mainly do this for the attention, but also because their entire place among their peers is to be mentioned in the stories of the other races.

If a Dragon knows another Dragon by name it shows that the second Dragon’s reputation precedes them, and therefore makes them far more important than the first.

Dragons are incredibly easily to manipulate when you flatter them, but their intentions are almost always selfish.

There’s a saying: Never lay with a Dragon, you never know which end you’ll be kissing.

Lore:
Quel’Lan came through the Oculus and looked upon her flat land. It was void of amazement, void of life, void of excitement – so she fixed that.

With a long breath, Quel’Lantook in all the essence she could muster before breathing it forth across the 9th Plane. From her spittle, creatures comprised of pure magic sprung forth. Horses that could fly, tiny creatures that could pull from Godessence, even beings made of air, fire, water and earth broke forth, roaming around in the strange, colourful world that permeated of Quel’Lan’s essence.

Within her Plane, Quel’Lan stayed, playing with her creations, destroying them when they bored her and creating newer, more fantastical versions of them when the mood struck her. This continued until she came across a creature that was not hers.

Perplexed by such a simple thing, Quel’Lan wasted no time in taking it apart, down to its essence. She found a tether that lead back to her brother, Ith’Ir, but pretended to overlook it.

With interest, Quel’Lan devoured the essence and mulled it about before releasing it from her stomach. From the Essence came a small egg and from the egg spawned the first Dragon.

Quel’Lan moved on and scoop up all of the pale-faced creatures that came her way, devouring them and modifying their essence to be in tune with her own. So different were the creatures from their original design that even Ith’Ir did not recognize his little workers.

All the other Gods thought them to be mindless beasts. Even Dershan ignored them as they moved from plane to plane, searching for things.

When Quel’Lan at last revealed her followers to the other Gods, the Gods were shocked. They asked what was so wrong with the original creatures, to which Quel’Lan informed them that there was nothing wrong with them, she just wished to give them more.

The other Gods, flummoxed with Quel’Lan’s decision began their own experiments. They tried to make their own races, but all came out as twisted versions of the Gods’ intentions. The faeries were beautiful, delicate, tiny creatures, with a penchant for biting and cruel jokes.

The Troggs were massive creatures that could smash some of Kurthals’ finest trophies, but they refused to listen and preferred to wallow in filth and muck.

Every attempt the other Gods tried to create Quel’Lan’s Dragons was met with failure, for they did not know she had used Ith’Ir’s base for her own design.

Eventually, all the Gods eased to try and make their own original, true creature and declared their followers to be the creatures they had made from the pale-faced ones.

Unique Traits:
All Dragons’ true names are spoken in the Godtongue. The names they provide to other races are so that they do not have to constantly hear people butchering their names. Dragons are the only race that are fully fluent in Godspeak and can decipher what others are saying without repetition.

Dragons were taught shape shifting by Quel’Lan herself. This means that a Dragon can disguise themselves perfect from other races, even to the point of hiding their massive Essence trail. Though, due to their penchant for wanting to be known, many Dragons have only a handful of forms they go about to be seen in, in order to make sure they are not confused with some other Dragon. Many scholars believe more Dragons are hiding in plain sight, but none have the evidence to back up these claims.

Dragons are capable of spell casting without invoking the Gods or siphoning essence. Due to their Goddess being the Goddess of Magic and Balance, Dragons were given free reign over the magical essences around them. As such, they are competent spell casters innately and do not require their own essence in order to cast spells.