Dragons

Of all the creatures that crossed into the new world, dragons might be the most fascinating. Even after more than two millennia, the people of Ravine are still uncovering some of their secrets.

Dragons are mostly social creatures, usually living in flights of more than ten individuals. They are very protective of their young, and females tend to be aggressive for weeks before their eggs hatch. Hatchlings often stay with the same flight for life.

The ability to form firebreath occurs after a dragon's first forge, which is the natural process of maturation though it can be triggered by emotional or survival situations. The same is true for all subspecies, with exception of wyverns and wyrims, which are born with their dragontear already formed. The first forge empowers the dragons with firebreath and enough power to use their wings to walk and their front legs as hands. From this point on they are referred to as wingwalkers. They spend more and more time wingwalking as they develop battle skills that involve fighting with their front legs (used as arms) and their opposable thumbs. Many believe that in the old world, the dragons were the smiths of the gods.

Forging is repeated several times during the life of a dragon, resulting in the strengthening of tellas, the metallic substance found in dragonscales. Forging also results in empowering the dragontear, a natural crystalline formation in a dragon's throat. The dragontear acts as a conductor of magical force, and enables a dragon to perform a raw form of breath-based spellcasting.

Dragons when born are mostly leathery. Before their first forging they are incapable of breathing fire and have no scales of Tellas. They also cannot wingwalk, as their wings are too fragile for it. Dragons shed their scales once every eighteen to twenty years and those scales are a prized loot for many adventurers as they fetch a great price in weaponry and armormaking circles.

It should be noted that dragons in Ravine start off in the traditional scaley fashion, but with forging those scales evolve and elongate into unbreakable feathers of high grade tellas. These scales are often used unchanged as swords, with only a hilt being added to them.

Elder dragons tend to fly less, so with time their wings erode. It comes from the fact that their scales are so tough that they have basically no natural enemies and they allow their descendants to do the hunting instead. One of the rare exceptions to this general rule was Dragonmother Barahea. Her wings never eroded but she rarely flew because her sheer size and wingspan was sufficient to cause hurricane level destruction in her nearby area. Due to this, she spent most of her time wingwalking with her mate.

Dragons apparently hate the scent of human magic.

Known Dragons

 * Barahea
 * Baran


 * Hurricos
 * Kaiser
 * Mergarand
 * Thar


 * Vulpeen