Family: Dragon
Type: Dragon
Habitat: Forests, tropical
Disposition: Mischievous, energetic, curious, affectionate
Diet: Carnivorous; spirit energy
Rarity: Very Rare
Iridracons (ee-RID-reh-konz) are, for more than one reason, a rather unusual member of the dragon family. The most obvious of these reasons is their stature. While most members of the dragon family are known for being large and imposing, iridracons are by comparison diminutive in stature, rarely reaching the height of an average human woman under normal circumstances. In spite of their small stature there is nothing childlike about their appearance once they reach maturity. Another factor keeping them apart from most other members of the dragon family is the fact that they lack the pride and arrogance that is often attributed to that family of mamono. Instead, more often than not, iridracons exhibit mischievous and energetic personalities, acting like the wind that blows wherever it pleases. They often revel in playing pranks and investigating anything that catches their attention. Interestingly, though their love of pranks and mischief never quite goes away, there is usually a distinct shift in the types of pranks an iridracon is apt to play as they age, with juvenile pranks and humor making way for more sophisticated and often much more elaborate efforts as they age.
While iridracons are smaller in stature, the resemblance to other members of the draconic family remains very evident. Their bodies are still unnaturally strong and they often, but not always, possess sharp claws, a long, prehensile tail, and fey-like wings that allow them to fly at speeds and with a maneuverability that makes wyverns turn green with envy. The tradeoff to this is that they cannot maintain this extreme high performance for very long.
The most remarkable feature of iridracons is their scales, which are as tough as any of their cousins but are not of a single color. Rather, they are covered in iridescent scales that reflect all colors of the spectrum. Usually one particular color will shine through with greater intensity than the others, and this color indicates the age of the iridracon. As a freshly hatched whelp that color will usually be red. As she ages this color will shift roughly once every century, moving from red to orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and settling on violet. Violet will remain the dominant color for most of their remaining lives, though their scales will slowly grow darker and darker, finally turning black around one millennium of age. This iridescent color applies to their wings as much as it does to their scales and even their eyes. Age is also another factor in which iridracons are distinct from other members of the dragon family, who are usually known for exceptionally long lifespans. The lifespan of an iridracon rarely goes much past 1,000 years of age, though exceptions have been known to occur.
Almost without exception iridracons possess strong innate magical abilities. They tend to be particularly adept in magics aimed at confusing, bewildering, misleading, or charming their targets. This extends to their breath, which does not cause any direct damage but instead causes their victims to experience a rush of euphoria that results in spontaneous bouts of revelry or even causes their targets to simply walk off in search of a place to have some fun. If an iridracon is raised among her kin her mother or another member of her community will usually take her under their auspices and instruct them in the magical arts. Iridracons, unlike some other members of the dragon family, are unable to assume a true ancient form.
Iridracons prefer to live in forested areas, where they tend to build their abodes. They are not very territorial and enjoy the company of others, particularly that of their own kind. This means that, though iridracons are not a commonly encountered species, it is quite common to encounter more than one of them when encounters do take place. Their day-to-day routine often consists of hunting or preparing for some new mischief to pull and rarely carries them far from their homes. The exception to this rule is when the need for a mate becomes stronger than their inclination to maintain their usual lives or when a concrete opportunity presents itself. They also tend to be a very affectionate species that seek close physical contact with others. They love cuddling and will gladly do so with anyone they like, even if they are not lovers.
When trying to attract a partner iridracons rarely rely on sex appeal, but rather prefer worming their way into their chosen one’s life through energetic pursuit and good-hearted mischief that provokes their chosen one into taking the first step. When copulating with their lovers iridracons are adept at rubbing their surprisingly soft and smooth bodies against whatever areas they seek to inflict pleasure upon. Given their often magical nature many iridracons will have learned a trick or two to perform in the bedroom.
After securing a partner an iridracon will prefer to return to her forest home, if she even had to leave it, though she will typically be willing to accompany her lover to live elsewhere so long as that place is not located in a cold climate. If they return to her forest home they will soon proceed to build a home suitable to accommodate the lover’s needs or expand her old home to do the same. Usually they can expect the help of their community in the process. Iridracons are not jealous mamono; if their chosen lovers should agree they are often only too willing to share, especially with their own kind.
Name That Mamono: Fadyt, the Rabbit Slayer
Fadyt (FAH-dit) is an iridracon of short stature and slight build, though she possesses the thick horns and impressive wings befitting a member of the dragon family. Her scales, wings and eyes, in the process of shifting from indigo to purple as their primary color indicate that she is nearing 600 years of age and is about to enter the final stage of her life. Fadyt is not particularly bothered by that fact, given that she still has centuries ahead of her.
Fadyt is a powerful sorceress and makes her home in a large wooded area in southwestern Amarante. She is well known in her local community, which consists of less than a dozen iridracons and a few dozen other mamono. While she was born as part of that small community, Fadyt has actually spent almost 200 years mostly apart from her people, studying her craft, searching for a suitable husband, and creating plenty of mischief along the way.
While she has not succeeded in securing a husband Fadyt has deepened her skills at illusion, telekinesis, and oneiromancy to a considerable degree and now, after her return, finds herself as the most able practitioner of these arts in her little community. This fact has enabled her to quickly reassert herself among her people and display how her preferences for mischief have evolved over the years.
As a young woman, barely an adult, Fadyt entered into a competition of sorts with a local warren of rabbits. While the confrontation actually was quite instructive to her in the application of her considerable gifts, her solitary focus has yielded the nickname of the “rabbit slayer.” Fadyt is more than a little embarrassed to be called by that title, which is all the more reason for her kinfolk to tease her with it, both before she left and now that she has returned.
STARGAZER
Family: Succubus
Type: Elf
Habitat: Isolated places with clear views of the night sky
Disposition: Fatalistic, unhinged, lustful
Diet: Omnivorous
Rarity: Nigh Extinct
Stargazers are a rare high tier, long-lived elven species. They have pointed ears, glowing eyes, lithe bodies, pink to blue or purplish skin tones, and dark hair. Physically speaking stargazers are one of the weaker elven species, and with an average height of “only” 175 cm (5’9”) they are also one of the shortest. They are exceptionally long-lived and possibly biologically immortal, but it is hard to tell because stargazers usually succumb to their corruption long before their bodies would cease to function.
Stargazers have exceptionally keen senses that allow them to detect things other mamono do not even know exist. Their ability to extend these senses out into space is unique. True to their name stargazers are obsessed with space, destiny, and cosmic divination -- so much so that they have become a mostly nocturnal species. They are immensely powerful casters that specialize in the occult, the obscure, and the forbidden. Yet if one gazes at the stars for long enough then eventually the stars start gazing back and start corrupting the stargazer.
Stargazers are able to extend their senses upwards into the void through a unique form of astral projection called shadow projection. This allows them to observe the cosmos without interference from the sky. To do so the stargazer must first separate her shadow from herself and mold it into a ghostly dark clone known as a shadow body. Once formed the stargazer’s real body becomes slightly translucent and no longer casts shadows. Their shadow body is connected to them through a thin ethereal umbilical cord. By entering a trance the stargazer can transport her consciousness and senses through the umbilical cord into her shadow body, after which she can direct her shadow body to a place within her body’s line of sight, including up past the sky and into the void beyond.
A stargazer’s senses are not only superb, they also have four additional senses. Their sixth sense, called fluxcidity, allows them to detect the intensity and direction of energy flows that collide with or pass through them or their shadow body. Their seventh sense, called chromo vivisection, can tell the stargazer the composition of colors that make up some but not all of the energy flows their sixth sense detects. This allows them to detect all manner of colors their eyes cannot perceive. Their eight sense is called visions from beyond. It is arguably their most potent but also most dangerous sense. Occasionally a stargazer’s shadow body is struck by something tiny yet energetic. While it causes searing pain, damages her psyche, and inflicts internal damage to her real body, it is accompanied by flashing visions of strange suns, colorful ethereal clouds, or strange dark objects or entities. While the stargazers rarely fully understand what was revealed, it seems plausible that those visions are related to what struck them. Their ninth sense, known as the cosmic lure, is their most subtle and least understood sense. It allows them to perceive motion in the cosmos with their umbilical cord. It is so subtle that only stargazers with several millennia of experience can even perceive it. Stargazers often claim that this sense is accompanied by a most unsettling sense of dread.
Mastering magic comes easy to stargazers; it is not uncommon for them to have fully mastered half a dozen schools of magic before they are a thousand years old. Typically they focus their studies on magic schools they believe will be useful for their observations. For the same reason they also like to pick up other knowledge or skills like astronomy, lens crafting, and tinkering. Yet, despite being exceptionally potent casters they rarely show interest in leveraging it to acquire power or wealth beyond what they need to fund their obsession.
It is not clear why the stargazers are drawn to the cosmos like a month to a flame. All they can say themselves on the matter is that it calls out to them. Yet the very act of observing corrupts the stargazer. This corruption manifests differently among individuals, but seems oddly enough hereditary with mothers and daughters suffering the same types of corruption.
This corruption can manifest itself in many forms, and its effects are not always detrimental -- in fact it sometimes even grants them boons or new unnatural abilities. The first sign of corruption seeping in is usually them becoming eccentric or even unhinged. The accumulation of this corruption is a slow process, but eventually after many millennia it can and will spiral out of control eroding and warping both their minds and their bodies. A fairly common manifestation of corruption is some of their hair coalescing into slimy tentacles made of, strangely enough, shoggoth jelly. Those stargazers will, when the corruption begins spiraling out of control, see more and more of their body be replaced by slimy equivalents, until eventually they morph into a shoggoth. It is not clear if the stargazers body is slowly being hijacked by some other entity or if becoming a shoggoth is the final stage of their minds and bodies being warped and twisted.
Stargazers have varied and sometimes odd personalities that are in part influenced by the kind of corrupting effects the stargazer is suffering from. However, the inexorability of their corruption has many convinced that there is no such thing as free will and that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable. They believe these events are written in the stars and therefore can be gleaned through thorough study and divination.
Stargazers are highly sensitive to spirit energy. A grazing touch by a human or angel can be enough to arouse and holding hands can bring them to a climax. This makes them very easy to please in bed. A stargazer reaching a triple digit number of orgasms during intercourse with a human or angel is not exceptional. Typically this sensitivity increases with age as older stargazers have better developed senses. Stargazers who are several millennia old regularly become so sensitive to spirit energy that they are overwhelmed and intoxicated by it, with plenty even getting addicted. Hence nymphomania is rather common among stargazers, though many see this as yet another manifestation of their corruption. Intercourse with other mamono is a slightly different story as there they and their partner will have to work just as hard as anybody else to get off.
Name That Mamono: Ravenna
Ravenna is a 8,613-year-old stargazer with pink skin and long dark violet hair. Around five millennia ago the first physical signs of her corruption showed when her eyes and hair became reflections of the stars. She is a wealthy and exceptionally powerful caster, nevertheless she has yet to experience the touch of a human and is blissfully unaware of her vulnerability to spirit energy. Ravenna has devoted her life to unraveling the mysteries and destinies hidden in the eternally fluctuating energy flows of the cosmos. These efforts have brought her into contact with forces far greater than any other mamono has ever witnessed. Just subtly observing one of the most diminutive of those cosmic forces has given Ravenna access to dark powers that have shaken her to the core.
While observing she has had disturbing visions of dark cosmic giants with impossible spherical shapes, or searing jets of energy that could vaporize Arcadia in the blink of an eye. Recently she has stumbled upon a ruinous and nightmarish dreamworld that is perpendicular to reality. She is now convinced that this world is linked to several pages of an accursed, obscure, incomplete manuscript she obtained two decades ago. It contains a play about a King in Yellow who might actually be one of these unfathomable cosmic forces. Ravenna has begun trying to placate it in hopes of being rewarded with a deeper glimpse into the hidden truths of reality. When a chance encounter had her run into two lusca sisters who not only had a specific interest in the occult but also happened to have the exact same names as the two named characters in the manuscript, she took it as a sign. A few hasty steps and setbacks later Ravenna is beginning to doubt the wisdom of her actions. In fact, she is even having second thoughts on the wisdom of attempting to draw the King in Yellow’s attention, but fears she is already in too deep to back down now.
tygertygerAug 30, 11:31 PM
"When you have bought your own load of hooey, you know exactly what it is worth." -- Bruce Sterling
