Toruk - Dragonfather

Monday, September 28, 2015

Lord Toruk, the Dragonfather, is the progenitor of the dragons: malicious, god-like creatures that bring nothing but desolation and waste wherever they roam. For sixteen centuries Toruk has been worshipped as a god by those in the island empire of Cryx.

History
According to Everblight, the athanc was the first sentient entity on all of Caen, risen to consciousness and assuming the name Toruk in a language of his own devising long before he clothed himself in flesh and scale. Whether this primacy is true is a matter of debate, since the only one who would know is Toruk and/or Dhunia.

In ages past, Toruk became tired of his solitary existence. Desiring company or perhaps servants, he split off pieces of his own athanc to form others, and from each splinter a dragon came into being.

Unfortunately for Toruk, the essence of these dragons was too pure, for the lesser dragons were not capable of humbling themselves, even before their creator. Each considered himself a god in turn and refused to bow to the glory of the Dragonfather. Instead the dragons turned on their father and sought to consume him. Toruk eventually destroyed many lesser dragons, and the rest fled and scattered across Immoren.

From that point forward, Toruk sought to hunt the dragons down and gather the pieces of his athanc to restore their essence to his own.

In 1640 BR, Toruk consumed Shazkz, the dragon of the Scharde Islands. Shazkz's blighted blood rained on the island, creating the Satyxis. In 1400 BR, Toruk discovered Everblight hiding under the Kingdom of Morrdh and exerting his influence by turning several Morrdhic lords to him. Toruk threatened the lords whom Everblight was unable to corrupt and convinced them to end their alliance.

Everblight fled as Toruk descended. Toruk managed to inflict grievous wonds on Everblight, who led him to the lair of another dragon, Nektor. Toruk decided to go after Nektor, leaving Everblight alone. Momentarily sated by the consumption of Nektor, Toruk forgot Everblight and gave up the chase. Toruk continued his hunt elsewhere, consuming Gaulvang at the Castle of the Keys in 1387 BR.

A few centuries before 1000 BR, a great dragon, a champion of the wyrms, whose name is now lost, confronted Toruk to prove to the others that their father could be harmed. In this the champion succeeded, but after a great battle he eventually fell. The other dragons, smelling Toruk's blood, rushed from their hiding places, and Toruk was forced to flee, unable to stay behind and consume the champion's athanc, which was soon hidden from the dragons by Zevanna Agha, the Old Witch of Khador.

In 1000 BR, the dragon Blighterghast gathered the surviving dragons and convinced them to drive Toruk of mainland Immoren. The fight ended in a stalemate, with Toruk being forced to retreat to the Scharde Islands west of Immoren.

When Toruk came to the Scharde Islands, it was ruled by fourteen great pirate kings. Toruk sent an emissary to the pirate kings to force them to bow to him. The pirate kings slew the messenger rather than answer, and Threnodax, the mightiest of them, roused the others to defiance and convinced them to muster their armies and prepare to battle Toruk.

Though Toruk could easily destroy the pirate kings, he had need of an empire and generals to use against his brood, so he came to the Atramentous, a Tordoran dirgenmast ship stolen by Threnodax to use as his flagship, and obliterated its crew and captain in a breath of consuming fire. He extinguished their lives, collected their souls, and turned them into revenants bound so tightly to the ship that it could retain them even past death.

The ghost ship Atramentous came upon the pirate kings who had gathered at Threnodax’s fortress in Darkmoor. The revenant crew swept through the harbour, overwhelming the living defenders and added the killed to their number. Thirteen of the kings gathered in a fortress tower and watched in horror as all they had built burned. Only King Moorcraig absented himself.

When Toruk descended upon the fortress, crumbling it to ruin beneath his terrible weight, the pirate kings were the sole survivors. Twelve of the kings prostrated and humbled themselves in the surviving tower. Stubborn to the end, King Threnodax kept his feet, continuing to speak defiance.

Lord Toruk annihilated all thirteen in a single breath, but the twelve who had bowed were reborn. Their souls were enslaved and they would become the first lich lords, chosen by him as vassals to rule over a new empire. Threnodax was consumed for a special torment by Toruk.

King Moorcraig hid within his castle and hoped his collection of ancient relics would protect him, but when Toruk flew over the castle and unleashed unquenchable fire, all of Moorcraig’s plans and schemes burned and were buried in rubble.

At the Dragon's Roost, in the shadow of a great volcano, a blackclad prostrated himself before Lord Toruk and offered his service in exchange for even a fraction of his power. Toruk made no promises but challenged the druid to prove his willingness to sacrifice everything. He climbed atop the lip of the volcano and jumped into its depths. Toruk scooped his bones from the caldera with one massive talon and blew a spark of unlife into them. The blackclad's soul was put into a vessel of power, and from then he became known as Iron Lich Asphyxious.

The lich lords wasted no time or effort in founding Lord Toruk’s empire and were privy to secrets and powers known previously only to the Dragonfather. Toruk allows his servants to rise and fall by their virtues and ambitions, with the weak culled by the strong, who are elevated to replace them.

In those early centuries the lich lords divided the governance of Cryx among themselves, each finding his role in the construction of the empire. They unified the islands and culled the petty faiths of their inhabitants, and Lord Toruk became the sole god and master of these islands.

The arrival of the Orgoth from across the Meredius put any invasion plans of the lich lords on hold. The Orgoth seized the Thousand Cities one by one, then launched an incursion to seize the Scharde Islands. After a Satyxis fleet sent to intercept the Orgoth ships was annihilated, Toruk took to wing for the first time in centuries to deal with this threat personally. Toruk sunk the entire Orgoth fleet, and this was the last time Orgoth challenged Cryx. Toruk instructed his minions that they should deal with the Orgoth at a time of his choosing. The invaders were allowed to occupy the northern island of Garlghast, but any ship that dared Windwatcher’s Passage was destroyed.

When they were finally driven from their fortresses, the Orgoth retreated to their first and mightiest stronghold of Drer Drakkerung on Garlghast Island. Toruk gave his approval to commence the great attack, and five lich lords led an army of tens of thousands strong and sailed against Garlghast.

When the Orgoth saw Cryx would be triumphant, their warwitches invoked a final conflagration to obliterate both themselves and the Cryxian army, including three of the lich lords. The other two, Fulmenus and Tenebrous, forced into somnolent recovery after the near disintegration of their physical forms, were thereafter unsuited to the chaos of war. Toruk thought nothing of these losses and was satisfied with the outcome. The Orgoth could not keep their secrets from him in death, and in time his legions would grow ever more powerful. Certain occult traditions from the Orgoth now survive only among Cryx, such as the warwitches, which have become a vital Cryxian occult tradition.

After the fall of Drer Drakkerung, Lord Toruk gave his leave for additional forces to emerge from the inner island and extend deeper into the continent. He needed generals to replace those destroyed on Garlghast, and for this task he chose Daeamortus and Terminus.

As the duties of rule are beneath the Dragonfather, he has left the governance of Cryx to his twelve lich lords. Toruk currently dwells in a great citadel ornamented with metal spires resembling grasping claws. Beneath lies the Black Temple, the centre of Toruk’s worship, where his undead clergy gather at the direction of Lich Lord Divinitus to chant obeisance to the self-appointed 'God of Caen'.

Mainland faiths do not accept Toruk’s claim of divinity, but it is an unquestioned fact in the island empire, and to suggest otherwise is to invite the retaliation of the merciless blighted priests of the Church of Toruk.

Personality
Possessing vast intelligence and patience beyond that of any living thing, Toruk has no interest in traditional conquest. His only desire is the destruction of his progeny. He has been waiting, watching, plotting, building for thousands of years, and is willing to continue that plan for thousands more before making a move. In time, his armies will arise and lay waste to the petty kingdoms of humanity, enslaving them in death and preparing the army of his final victory. Once the nations of men have fallen, Toruk will drag his progeny from their hiding places and devour them once and for all.

Ocean Dragon

Friday, September 25, 2015


A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of Greek sea monster either wholly or partly serpentine. Sea serpents descriptions have a number of things in common, but also enough variety that it sounds like more than one species. Sea serpents come in a variety of colors, including black, brown, gray and green, and have adult lengths ranging from twenty feet to hundreds of feet. Most of them are reported to move in an undulating up-and-down motion, with a series of humps visible above the water at times. They generally have a split tail, like a whale, and may have one, two or more pairs of paddle-legs along their lengths. They may have armored segments like a millipede, large plates or scales, or a smooth rubbery skin. Most often, they have smooth skin suggestive of a mammal.
Sometimes sea serpents have a mane of hair or hair-like fins running in a row along the back. The head is generally described as horse-shaped, with huge cat-like or eagle-like eyes. On sea serpents that don't follow that body plan, the head and neck instead resemble an elephant's trunk, with tiny eyes and a small mouth near the "tip" of the "trunk." Some sea serpents sport whiskers, but it is not always clear whether witnesses mean the same kind of whiskers that cats, dogs and seals have, or whether they mean fleshy "whiskers" of the sort that are found on catfish.

The creatures described in these reports tend to look fairly serpentine, as far as their overall body shape goes, although in some cases it is only the head end and tail end that look serpentine, with a roundish body between the two ends. At first, this generally serpentine shape meant that sea serpents were universally thought to be huge ocean-going snakes or sea dragons. Witnesses would confidently label them as snakes even when some features inconsistent with this conclusion were also noted, such as a mane of hair (typical of mammals only) or an up-and-down motion (all known snakes swim with a side-to-side motion).


Tigrex - Monster Hunter Freedom 2


Tigrex is a Flying Wyvern introduced in Monster Hunter Freedom 2. It is known to inhabit a variety of environments and can be encountered at all ranks.

Physiology
Tigrex is a large, quadrupedal wyvern characterized by its massive head and jaws, powerful limbs and striking yellow/blue striped colouration. The top of its head is tipped with a pair of horn-like ears, and its segmented tail ends with a spiny protrusion.

Abilities
As a pseudowyvern, its wings have evolved into forelegs, which allows it to run at very fasts speeds. Though it possesses a pair of adequately-developed wings, it is rarely seen flying in a traditional sense. It is in fact more prone to gliding from location to location. It has a powerful set of lungs which gives it the ability to produce extremely loud, concussive roars which can physically damage nearby objects. Unlike many other monsters, Tigrex does not wield any elements. Instead, it relies on its sheer brute strength to bring down opponents.

Behavior
When idle, Tigrex will assume a bipedal gait, standing only upon its hind legs while holding its forelimbs at its side. When threatened or engaging prey, however, it will stand upon all fours and ready itself for combat. It will usually attempt to intimidate would-be attackers with an ear-splitting roar. If combat becomes intense enough, it will flush blood to its forelimbs, face, and eyes, in order to give its skin a bright-red glow as an effort to further intimidate attackers.

Habitat
The Tigrex can be found in many different environments. Like many wyverns, it will travel far and wide in search of prey.

Questing Beast

Monday, September 7, 2015


The Questing Beast, or the Beast Glatisant (Barking Beast), is a monster from Arthurian legend, the subject of quests by famous knights like King Pellinore, Sir Palamedes, and Sir Percival. The strange creature has the head and neck of a serpent, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion and the feet of a hart. Its name comes from the great noise it emits from its belly, a barking like "thirty couple hounds questing". As King Pellinore describes it, the hunt of the beast has always been the burden of the Pellinores, and all Pellinores are in fact trained for the hunt from birth (a training which does not seem to extend much beyond finding the beast's droppings). Having searched fruitlessly all his life for the beast, Pellinore is convinced by his friend Sir Grummore Grummursum to drop his quest. However, when it turns out later that the beast had been pining away for lack of attention, King Pellinore nurses it back to health and resumes his Sisyphean hunt.

The first accounts of the beast are in the Perlesvaus and the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin. The Post-Vulgate's account, which is taken up in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, has the Questing Beast appear to King Arthur after he has had an affair with his sister Morgause and begotten Mordred (they did not know that they were related when the incestuous act occurred).

Arthur sees the beast drinking from a pool just after he wakes from a disturbing dream that foretells Mordred's destruction of the realm (no noise of hounds from the belly is emitted while it is drinking). He is then approached by King Pellinore who confides that it is his family quest to hunt the beast. Merlin reveals the Questing Beast had been born of a human woman, a princess who lusted after her own brother. She slept with a devil who had promised to make the boy love her, but the devil manipulated her into accusing her brother of rape. Their father had him torn apart by dogs as punishment. Before he died however, he prophesied that his sister would give birth to an abomination which would make the same sounds as the pack of dogs that was about to kill him.

The beast has been taken as a symbol of the incest, violence, and chaos that eventually destroys Arthur's kingdom.

Excellent Dragons!