âEridians dislike earth because they abandoned Grace.â *Incorrect Buzzer Sound* ya missed the point of the story buddy! Itâs not about someone being âbadâ itâs about the incredible power of love and that love being worth dying for!
Gimmie Eridians who are absolutely heartbroken to hear that humans where so desperate and so scared that they where willing to part with not just one Grace, there were three of them! Gimmie Eridians touched to find that the humans planned a way for their sacrifices to be as comfortable as possible. Gimmie Eridians who send earth a message saying âWe know it must have hurt to send your heroes to die, but one made it and heâs safe here. We lost 22 good Eridians on the journey we would have lost 23 if not for your Grace.â
Give me humans sitting on Earth slowly coming to the conclusion that when we look up not only are we not alone, someone out there is alive because of one of us. That no matter what we think of ourselves a whole species thinks highly of us because we helped save the galaxy. Give me humans who figure out how to send a probe to Erid filled to the brim with messages for Grace and footage of a monument being raised that reads his name, his crews names, and then âin memory of the 22 Eridians who lost their lives on the journey to save the stars.â
had some fun with these! zygarde was done a while ago i just never got around to doing the others til now
yveltal is still up there as one of my favourites. awesome bird
Took me a bit to finish these with school back. I'm slowly trying to get through every tribes architecture and then move on to other worldbuilding stuff.
I also have a toyhouse where I plan to fill out a bunch of worldbuilding stuff (WIP)- https://toyhou.se/AshScarce/characters/folder:6807018
I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but itâs always worth repeating, and this time Iâm adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)
Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.
Here are Celtic bronze swordsâŠ
âŠAncient Greek XiphoiâŠ
⊠and a Roman âMainz-patternâ gladiusâŠ
Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.
Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. Theyâre weapons if necessaryâŠ
âŠbut since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.
This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside itâŠ
âŠbut may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.
A couple of internet captions say itâs for âcutting ropesâ which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Heroâs rapier (!!) wouldnât be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didnât work as well as intended for any purpose.
I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).
A lot of âflambergeâ (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.
The giveaway is the centreline: if itâs straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.
Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.
Again, the clue is the centre-line.
Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.
Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.
Thereâs no doubt about this one either.
The reason - though that was a part of it - wasnât just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.
However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasnât that much of an advantage after all.
Hereâs a Circassian kindjal, forged wigglyâŠ
âŠand an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wigglyâŠ
There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.
These more practical historical versions are usually called âsword-breakersâ but I prefer âsword-catcherâ, since a steel blade isnât that easy to break. Taking the opponentâs blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.
NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.
The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next oneâs blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.
So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.
Hereâs a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesnât even have an odd-shaped bladeâŠ
Just a very flexible oneâŠ
If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to startâŠ
Official Character Designs & Expressions for The Mighty Nein Animated
Sharing the final character design & expression model sheets for our main cast of The Mighty Nein đ
I feel incredibly lucky to be BOTH Lead Character Designer AND Layout Supervisor. Not only do I work pre-production along side my amazing character team to design a deeply varied and culturally rich world of folks, but also post-production with our wonderful retakes animation team to ensure the character style and emotional accuracy is pushed to their limits.Â
l've really fallen in love with the show and canât wait for everyone to see everything weâve planned for this band of misfits.
Hi! I love your art and blog, and all the character analysizes that you do. They always carry such insight into what a character is that it lowkey changes my perspective of them. Not to mention all the fun headcannons you add on haha.
I was wondering, have you done anything on Glory yet? She is one of my favorite protagonists, and I find her very interesting.
Asked by @daishitheprofessionalfool & @americanman18
Thereâs always some difficulty to adding new context to a character who had their own book. After all, we already got an in-depth look at their inner thoughts and motivations. I think I got away with it with Clay, because his book had to divert some of its focus into setting up the series and he turned into somewhat of a bit character after it was over. But Glory is rather well documented, Iâm unsure how much I can add.
Iâll give it a shot, nevertheless.
Personal values
Glory grew up in an environment that constantly devalued her as a person. While all of the Dragonets of Destiny suffered under their abusive upbringing, the others could at least find SOME solace in the fact that their lives supposedly mattered. They had a destiny. Glory did not have that. She was the errant Rainwing, the error of Webs, that inconvenient creature that was there because the Talons kind of needed her, but didnât really want her all the same.
In the absence of external validation, one of two things will happen to us: Either we find some value within ourselves that helps us weather the harshness of life, or we sink into despair. This is the core struggle of Gloryâs existence: She was born with nothing, told she is and will always be nothing, and claws and fights for any scrap of meaning she can give her own life.
Of all her peers, she is the most driven. She has to be, because her merit, her competence, her ability to accomplish things is how she defines her self-worth. Where Clay is placid, Sunny is carefree, Starflight is meandering, and Tsunami is flighty, Glory has iron discipline. The guardians refuse to see her worth, so she works twice as hard as everyone else to prove to them she has it. And more importantly: To prove to herself that she has it.
This mindset, while mentally and personally taxing, makes Glory very efficient, to a somewhat ruthless degree even. If she sets her eyes on a task, she does not waver or get distracted and it will generally be done. Itâs a quality the others often find inspiring, if somewhat hard to imitate due to the intensity with which Glory pursues it.
While under the mountain, she actually studies as much and has an amount of knowledge comparable to Starflight. In a trivia contest, these two would be neck and neck. The reason why Starflight is known as âtheâ scrollworm among the group, and Glory is not, is because Starflight has a genuine passion for learning. He puts the work in because itâs how he relaxes, he loves it, talks about it all the time. Glory puts the work in, but it does not relax her, rather, it makes her more tense and tires her out. Yet she still does it because she has to, because the alternative is admitting that her tormentors are right about her, and that she is good for nothing. To her, this is unacceptable.
Glory works hard because it gives her life purpose. Itâs something she can be proud of when no one else is.
In one particular sense, this is tragic. Of all the places this behavior could have been inspired from, it most closely aligns to Kestrel, who is equally driven and goal-oriented. That means in trying to escape from the psychological pit she was in, Glory subconsciously took on traits from her greatest abuser. As a testament to her own strength though, where her guardian was self-defeating and miserable, Glory did not let herself be ruled by fate, managed to transform these traits and eventually channel them into a successful life.
Physical constitution
It doesnât come up a lot in the books as a major obstacle, but logically, Glory would have grown up severely malnourished. Rainwings are photosynthetic and their bodies require sunlight for certain key functions. Being forced to grow up underground would mean Glory was deprived of vital nutrients and vitamins she needed, which is why she was chronically fatigued while in captivity.
To be honest, I donât quite know how this didnât make her end up like Chameleon, stuck with one color forever. Perhaps what little sunlight made it through that one hole in the ceiling was just barely enough to not permanently debilitate her.
In any case, I imagine these circumstances made her somewhat of a sickly child, rail thin and much more prone to illness than the others. Not that she would allow herself many opportunities for bed rest regardless, to avoid exasperated yells of âthe Rainwing is sick again??â. You can kind of see how she ended up the most cynical of the group.
Fortunately, she managed to escape these unhealthy living conditions before any of those complications stuck for good. With regular exposure to sunlight from then on, she made a full recovery. This might also be part of why she becomes a bit kinder once sheâs in the rainforest. Itâs much less emotionally draining when you donât have to fight your own body on the daily, on top of everything else.
Character flaws and growth
Despite her reliability and personal fortitude, Glory is not infallible. While her ability to stay laser-focussed on a task is in many ways admirable, it also gives her an affinity for working herself to exhaustion. She often forgets to tend to her own physical needsâlike eating, drinking, or sleepingâand has to be reminded, or sometimes made, to take breaks to do these things. There is one example of this in her book, where someone tells her to take a nap because sheâs been going without sleep for upwards of a day.
To her, being idle equates to being lazy, that dreaded label she is trying to avoid at all cost. Fatigue, sickness, injury? Mere obstacles that must be overcome. You can power through anything if you just grit your teeth enough. Getting this dragon to relax is a monumental undertaking. If you convinced her to take a vacation, youâd soon need one yourself after how difficult that would be.
I imagine this has lead to complications in the past, that Glory has collapsed before and someone like Clay had to find her and carry her to a watering hole so she could get rehydrated. Maybe this is why she has a closer bond with Clay than with the others; the confidant she can let her guard down in front of because heâs been with her when she was at her weakest. I also imagine this exacerbated her already negative relationship with the Guardians, Kestrel and Dune being angry that âthe Rainwing is sleeping in the hallway again!â
Glory is also very distrustful and has a misanthropic (misdracopic?) streak. While she genuinely loves the others and treasures their friendship, she perceives herself as not as close to them as the rest are to each other (with maybe the exception of Clay). Due to the very specific flavor of abuse she received from the Guardians, she has developed a tendency to other herself. Glory does not consider herself a Dragonet of Destiny and perceives an immutable separation between her and the rest of her peers, though this perception is not mutual. This is exemplified in, when her friends learn of Kestrelâs plan to kill her and brainstorm ways to prevent it, she keeps insisting that this is not their problem, which just serves to confuse them.
I find it interesting in this context that Glory is the only one of the arc 1 protagonists who ends the arc physically separated from the others. It makes sense in context, but also serves as a bit of an extension of how she sees herself in the group.
Itâs because of this perceived gap that Glory is haunted by a subconscious expectationâor perhaps even fearâthat she will be abandoned if she stops being useful or becomes inconvenient. There is always a little voice in her head that parrots what the Guardians told her growing upâthat she is worthless and undeserving of love. She usually pushes it back, but certain stimuli can bring her buried insecurities to the front, and as is common with long repressed feelings, it tends to make her lash out.
The most notable example of this happens just after the group escaped Scarlet and the Sky Palace. Clay approaches Peril and theorizes that she might be the missing Skywing from the prophecy, and that she would have a place in their group if she needs it. The statement is made with pure, altruistic intent. But Glory hears it and interprets it maliciously, that Clay intends to replace her. I imagine deeper down she knows this is nonsense and that Clay would never be this openly callous to her. But in the moment, it triggers her greatest fear and she reacts irrationally.
So in that state she concocts a weird, spiteful scheme with Tsunami to punish Clay for his âbetrayalâ, by making him think he caused Glory so much anguish that she ran away. Itâs honestly kind of uncomfortable and possibly one of the grossest things she does to another person (who isnât trying to kill them). Like, I understand all of it and it makes perfect sense for her to act like this in that moment. But perhaps the story makes a misstep here by never having Glory visibly apologize to Clay after the fact, even when the story sets up an opportunity for it later when she and Clay are alone.
For me itâs not an insurmountable problem because I can just imagine they talked about it on their way to the Mud Kingdom (Iâve thought about how that would go before. I might write it out some day). But I could understand if this moment of spite towards a benevolent presence in her life with no explicit reconciliation soured the character for some people. Maybe thatâs why the graphic novel cut that scene entirely (you know, other than for brevity).
Glory, over the course of their journey, eventually does address and temper a lot of these personal shortcomings. In particular after she gets out of that suffocating cave and connects with her people she blossoms into a more empathetic and considerate person. Perhaps finding her calling, with all the responsibility and purpose she craved, allowed her to move on from constantly pushing herself to the brink and being stressed out.
Nightwings' folly
This is already well-documented, so Iâm going to be brief here. Perhaps one of the most satisfying aspects of Gloryâs role in the story is how her presence exposes the folly of the Nightwing Regime and causes Morrowseerâs entire plan to implode, all through his own fault.
Glory enters the Nightwingsâ awareness as a spanner in the works, a quick fix that became necessary due to an intervention by Scarlet, and a completely unknown variable. Consequently, she and the way she is treated shine a light on Morrowseerâs ability to adapt on the fly. Namely, the complete and utter absence of any such ability.
There were definitely ways for Morrowseer to make this work. The simplest solution would have been to just deliver an updated prophecy to account for Scarletâs meddling, though he was really leaning on that fake mysticism and âunseen hand of fateâ schtick, so I get why he didnât want to tip his hand like that.
Ignoring that, he could have simply claimed that Glory IS the Skywing of the prophecy, that actually she is half Skywing, and then told her to stay red whenever sheâs in public. He could have then ordered Kestrel to pose as her mother, which would have been extra ironic since Kestrel DID have a child with a Rainwing.
If they had done literally anything other than antagonize Glory and treat her as some kind of mistake, it stands to reason that the Dragonets wouldnât have rebelled and tried to escape. Without the threat to Gloryâs life, the others might not have been able to convince Sunny to leave and they would have stayed put. Maybe Morrowseer could have even swayed them to his side, by coming in as a savior to validate Gloryâs existence and deliver them all from their captorsâ torment.
If Morrowseer had swallowed his pride and been kind to Glory, even just pretending to be so, their plan would have gone off perfectly, and Blister would have taken the throne.
But instead, he short-sightedly ordered her death, ensuring that the Dragonets would never be loyal to him, and that Glory would dedicate her efforts towards destroying their plan. They created their own undoing, and as a reward, Morrowseer dies by having a volcano literally erupt up his backside.
Truly a con for the ages.
What I would do differently
Earlier nitpicks aside, if there is one blemish on the character for me, it is in the moment where her competence is tested and she becomes Queen.
Here is a quick recap of that moment: Glory, fed up with the display of self-serving lethargy, has just challenged Magnificient for the Rainwing throne. The ruling structure has decayed into this strange amalgamation of volunteering commoners who all take the position for selfish reasons, and the previous Queen just let this happen because she got disillusioned with her people. Glory needs the position to be functional right now to rescue some kidnapped Rainwings, so she seeks to cut out the rot.
Magnificient however is a catty little shit and convinces her gaggle of equally inadequate commoners-turned-monarchs to rig the challenge and humiliate Glory. Glory tries to persevere through the rigged challenges but it doesnât look good. When she is at her lowest point, Kinkajou accidentally gets injured and Gloryâs quick thinking saves her from excruciating pain. This reveals to the tribe that Glory has secretly been the Rainwing Princess all along and is the true legitimate heir to the throne by right of birth. This realization makes the previous Queen forfeit her match and wins Glory the challenge.
This is certainly a nice and validating moment for Glory, Iâm happy for her, but... to be quite frank, this is completely backwards. The reason why Glory is awesome and aspirational is because of her inner strength, her propensity for getting things done, and her refusal to give up even as everyone keeps shovelling manure into her face. She is amazing because she comes from nothing and nobody expects anything of her, and sheâthrough sheer grit and determinationâturns all of that around and makes herself not only into SOMETHING, but one of the most significant somethings there is.
To have her personal, most important victory hinge on a random fortunate blood link that she had no control over is antithetical to her story. It removes all of her agency and, instead of proving that circumstance of birth does not have to define who you are, doubles down on it by suggesting Glory was incapable of winning by her own merits and had to be bailed out by a secret royal heritage.
Like, am I to assume that, if Glory wasnât coincidentally a secret Princess, she would have failed? That everything she accomplished through her own power was rendered meaningless? Why is so much importance placed on birthright (of royalty) being the savior, when previously birthright (of being worthless) has suffocated Gloryâs entire life? Like, the concept of birthright is arguably the VILLAIN of her story, why is the villain resolving her conflict for her?
And conversely, if we assume Grandeur would have heard her out even without the secret lineage, then why is it necessary in the first place? All it does is muddy Gloryâs character journey and defiance of birth circumstance being a thing that defines you. No, sorry Glory, birthright still does dictate who you are, itâs just that your birth happened to be better than previously thought.
This secret Princess twist is perhaps what I would consider as the one significant misstep in Gloryâs character development. Which is why I usually rewrite this portion of the story for myself.
Here is how I picture this playing out: Just turn it all around, flip the statuses. Rainwings donât keep track of their personal lineages, but the exception of this is and always has been the royal family. Queen Grandeur had five daughters and she knows who all of them are. However, they were all incompetent for one reason or another, so when the time came to pick a successor, she couldnât. At a loss for what to do, she reluctantly allowed all of them to share the throne on a weird rotating schedule. Her hope was, while they were all individually inept, maybe together they could balance out each othersâ shortcomings.
This went catastrophically wrong. The Rainwing government became a farce of self-serving, ineffectual bullcrap. The Rainwing tribe, once a proud hub of travelling merchants, fell into complete decline. Grandeur saw this decay, but couldnât do anything about it because she had already abdicated and couldnât retake the throne. Thus, powerless and seeing no alternative, she became jaded and disillusioned with everything.
Then comes Glory, an upstart commoner and outsider, and dares make a grab for power. Magnificient huffs and slinks off to her tired mother, laying this out, but twisting it in her own favor. She completely neglects to mention the kidnapped Rainwings and instead assassinates Gloryâs character, describing her as jealous and lusting for the position. Grandeur, long having grown accustomed to displays of selfish behavior around her, believes this without scrutiny. The former Queen is too checked out to question it. She half-heartedly agrees to mess with this upstart to get her daughters off her back.
The challenges play out, but throughout Grandeur keeps catching glimpses of Gloryâs actual character, which does not align with the twisted caricature she was presented with earlier. It all culminates in that scene where Kinkajou tearfully apologizes to Glory for messing up the venom challenge, and Glory treating her with compassion and understanding, mentioning the kidnapped Rainwings in the process. Grandeur has caught on by now and decides to just talk to Glory to figure out what her deal is. Glory tells her about all the Rainwings currently in captivity. Jambu and Mangrove tell her about how Glory tried to find Orchid. Kinkajou explains how Glory risked her own life and got herself captured to rescue her. And the other Dragonets tell her about being stolen from the tribe when she was an egg. Grandeur learns of all the things Glory has done for their tribe since she arrived, despite not even really being a part of it or knowing any of them.
Grandeur hears this and becomes absolutely livid at having been lied to. She starts tearing into Magnificient about playing around while their tribe is being preyed on and the callous dismissal of their peopleâs plight in captivity. She is furious that her daughter would be so selfish to actively delay the only person trying to help, and frustrated at herself for enabling it through inaction. The rage reawakens the fire within her, she is feeling a drive and passion for her tribe and position like she hasnât in many years. So she throws the challenge and disowns Magnificient on the spot, then names Glory her successor by right of merit, lack of royal blood be damned.
This is only possible because of all the things Glory chose to do for these people, and the heart, craftiness, and competence she displayed while doing them. Itâs the personal integrity she showed in those moments, not a blood link, that sways Grandeur to her side. Itâs an earned victory, not facilitated by luck or circumstance of birth, but an unrelenting will to prove to the world and herself that she matters.
It is the very victory Glory has worked towards her entire life. She wasnât born special, but she made herself special. The circumstance was overcome.
Conclusion
It may strike some as odd that I dedicated so much essay space to discussing Gloryâs character flaws (in-story flaws, not flaws with her narrative purpose). A while ago I saw this sentiment around that Glory is âtoo perfectâ and gets overly glorified (ha ha).
To a certain extent I understand that. Her abilities feel like superpowers sometimes, to the point where she outclasses several members of her group, and she ends her arc in the most powerful and influential position out of all the arc 1 protagonists.
But I disagree with the notion that she has no flaws, or is generically perfect (a Mary-Sue, as some may describe it). The story, at the brisk pace it is told, may not always be interested in exploring them fully, but Glory does have significant shortcomings that cause friction in her life, particularly with her personal relationships. That she ends up in such a prominent position of power is to be expected from a character whose primary trait is that she is an overachiever, in a story that isnât a tragedy.
But I don't think that's enough to make her generic.
Admittedly, I donât know how widespread this sentiment actually is. Itâs possible it was just a stray opinion I happened to witness. Perhaps beliefs like this would be less common if the story was more willing to rub Gloryâs nose in it when she messes up, like Iâve mentioned with that Clay scene. At least every once in a while.
But despite all that, I hope it is evident that she is a well-rounded, three-dimensional characterâone of the deepest out of all the arc 1 protagonists even. I can follow her thought process and understand everything she does because of how strongly she is characterized. And I can look up to her because of how much adversity she faces and manages to confront head-on. The place she ends up in (not necessarily all the steps that get her there) has always made sense to me.
And so, because I canât think of anything else to do, let me conclude this wordy essay with a toast:
May we hence all stride onward, like our Glory, to our glory.
These guys are responsible for my headache these last four years. Literally. One day I was like "what if the Tree Wars never stopped?" and this was the result. Find out more below, as usual!
More concept art for the Alate Atta's Ascension trilogy.
Otherwise, next week I got.... ugh, I'll get back to you on that-
It WILL be my version of "beetle wings" with the tribes, but it might take more than one week to get done. Sorry!
OR depending on how this post goes I might give you an infographic on AntWing classes I made years ago. Probably that!
So one day I was minding my own business until I got the random idea to try making an ant-based Pantala tribe. No problem, I thought, it would be a fun exercise.
5 years and 3 books later:
SUPERMAJOR (carnivorous diet, soldier build)
WORKER (vegetarian diet, majority population)
From a glance you might have seen these two and been like "what the heck is going on"? Allow me to introduce the main gimmick of the AntWings: depending on what they eat, they grow to different classes!
Part of this gimmick is that, once a dragon is seven years old, they are done physically growing. Workers will stay the same size their whole lives, as will Supermajors, who are three times as large as a Worker.
ALATE (vegetarian diet + LOTS of "Royal Jelly")
Alates are the princess/princes of the tribe. If you guessed any AntWing could be an Alate by their diet alone, you are correct! Dragonets are essentially blank slates that can grow into any class. I haven't formally decided but I would say that within two years the "choice" becomes set in stone and switching diets abruptly might result in undersized wings/dragons that are bigger than they should be. I never considered this because the AntWing tribe during the time of Alate Atta is very... controlled but a way the biology could probably work is that, depending on what diet the dragnets start on, their digestive systems quickly "lock" into it so their brain/body will only recognize that as a food source. Everything else will seem gross/not provide the proper nutrients.
The exception to this is AntWing "Royal Jelly", a special mix mainly consisting of sugar that is used to make Alates and Queens (as a Queen can only be made from an Alate).
And if you read the word "choice" there and wondered if the dragonets get a say... no :D That's a running theme in the story, so I am aware. I am also aware they likely never will have a choice beyond what their parents allow since they would be too young to understand. I never said it was a nice system.
QUEEN (omnivore + Royal Jelly)
The Queen caps this system off with the largest build of all. Four times the size of a Worker, she is the most powerful class with strength to rival a Supermajor's. She would be no match against a horde of them, however, and so her pheromones have the ability to be so strong they are practically mind control. If any Worker or Supermajor smells her fear they would drop everything to protect her. Alates have a weaker version of this ability.
Yes, she has wings, but with how large she is she would probably have a very hard time doing so. She wouldn't always be this size, however, and probably not even by the time she is seven.
This is a symbolic remnant of real queen ants who break their wings off when they find a place to start their colony. The diet system was created with real ant classes in mind, where you will find mostly workers, a good chunk of large soldiers, prince/princesses during mating season and, obviously, the queen herself.
Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, Alates are the only class that can turn into a Queen. The Royal Jelly they eat keeps them open to receiving meat in the event the old Queen dies and a new one has to be made. From there, she would gradually grow until she reaches Queen size.
There is absolutely no science involved in this process, lmao, it's just my silly food magic system. But it sounded fun!
~4 years old / darker scales
lighter, softer scales / < 1 year old
One thing all AntWings share, however, is the fact that they all hatch with soft pale scales. Real ant larvae are like this too, and as they mature they grow proper limbs and hard exoskeletons. To simulate this, dragonets hatch early with softer scales than adult AntWings. It is a gradual process, but by the time they are physically mature their scales are done developing too.
Adults call dragonets 'Softies', which many take as an insult cuz they wanna grow up and stop being called kids, damnit! Technically, Softie can be used affectionately but a lot of the time it is condescending, ironically used by newly mature AntWings to say they are all grown up now, thank you, stop babying me! >:(
(Far right) Many talons are good for multitasking
The other main gimmick for AntWings is six legs! Not only are they crazy strong, they also have an extra set of front legs to lift things with. They can be used individually or synchronized in sets.
Antennae can be used to track and communicate (....FOOD.... THIS WAY...)
AntWings have the best sense of smell of any tribe, Pyrrhia or Pantala, because of their antennae. They can do just about anything with them. Just like how FlashWings can sense a dragon's heart pulse AntWings could tell you how old you are and where you live based on your smell alone. Even if they've never met you!
Supermajors are the soldier class, built for fighting for and protecting their tribe. They have huge tusks, extra armoured scales, a larger build, more fire in their tail organs and - oh yeah, the whole reasons the AntWings exist!
[1] Strong muscles squeeze liquid out hard enough to cramp - so there is none sucked back in
[2] Sometimes, if the muscles are too weak or the liquid is ignited at the wrong time, it can travel back into the organ and explode
When making this tribe I was trying to decide what type of ant to base its abilities on (or if it should even be one). And then I wondered what would Pantala look like - the tribes, the history, the continent itself - if they had access to fire?
And thus the true AntWings were born: strong, six-legged dragons with the ability to shoot fire from their tails. Like the insects they are based on they are hard-working, intelligent, and a force to be reckoned with when they work together. I never sat down and made a proper timeline but lets just say things like scavengers and the Othermind were... dealt with.
[1] The liquid AntWings shoot from their tails is based on fire ants' formic acid spray. I think that's what it's called, it's been a while since I watched AntsCanada (if you know the YT channel, hello!). It is actually two chemicals that, when mixed together and exposed to oxygen, becomes highly flammable. If a spark is introduced to the equation there will be flames.
[2] To keep this ability from being too OP I made the method of using it very painful (so they don't use it willy-nilly, only as a last resort) and technically with the change of permanent disfigurement. If they mess up even once the entire organ can explode and never regrow. This way, AntWings can be dangerous if provoked (with a healthy reason to be certain they want to use their ability in the first place) and flamesilks are not rendered pointless by their existence.
And that's it I hope you liked the manifestation of my teenage ant obsession :D
SYKE rapid fire lore drops:
- AntWings have tusks because I didn't want to do splitting jaws but wanted a way to honour ant mandibles. This was the result. Supermajors can do some pretty neat tricks like skewering dragons on them :)
- Their spines only go halfway to mimic lion names!
- The dark stripe under their eyes is something every AntWing has, so they can see properly on the savannah like cheetahs!
ok I'm done now sorry for the late post-
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