my final crossover doodle before we dive into a new world isss... subnautica BZ+ phm !! Grace and Rocky remind me of Robin and Al-an alot in some ways. yay yay aliens and their human
That's a weird looking chameleon why do you look like that
Rainwings were the source of many folk tales about invisible tree spirits, but nowadays they’re considered backwards pacifists who refuse to catch up to how the world is “supposed to work”.
They’re so reclusive to their own territory that real information about them is scarce, much like with Nightwings, and the stereotypes about them are less than stellar (usually calling them slow, lazy herbivores who don’t even hunt or have teeth or claws like a real dragon, or saying how they’re so primitive that they don’t even have a Queen).
In the highly polarized and charged climate, anything different than your queendom’s standard is dangerous and irrational.
Many pyrrhians identify themselves as their type of dragon first, then their queen alliegance. Everything about who you are and how you act is related to what type of dragon you are, there’s no room for individual/context dependent traits when they have been taught to view everyone in categories that explain the Other dragons actions and why the Other dragon is so very different (or even lesser) than their own category
(for example, Skywings are told seawings are poor (rely on the land for many resources ), stupid (they don’t talk “normally”) non dragons (“can’t fly”) and have weak, cowardly leadership that puts power in the hands of males (seawings rarely leave the ocean and they live in pods where the male and female leader bulls have equal power). seawings are told Skywings are cruel (often practice infanticide to keep their aerie population manageable, do gladiatorial combat, see, to want to ruthlessly expand their borders because they need a lot of space and resources ) sex/gender- obsessed (their matriarchal structure is eusocial, the egg-laying sex is the one that is considered powerful, important, smart, reliable, etc) and vain (they preen their feathers/filaments and wear relatively a lot of clothing, and their access to bronze jewelry is seen as an insane show of self-importance.)
A few rainwings can be found outside the rainforest, and their interactions with other dragons are normally colored by these same ideas. Unlike Nightwings, rainwings aren’t met with fear, but they do experience the same amount of spectacle with some added ridicule.
A lot of rainwings physically just can’t do the same labor as other dragons, so instead they need to find a job that wouldn’t, for example, require them to fly a hundred miles a day up a freezing cold mountain to check on the herd they’re supposed to be tending (such as being a scribe or tailor). Those positions are basically unattainable to an outsider dragon like a Rainwing , they’d need to pull some serious strings or just settle on being someone’s housemaid or delivery boy. There’s also the likely case that they get kicked out for one mistake that they definitely made because they’re a lazy rainwing. It often ends up with rainwings falling back on having to exploit themselves as performers, or sometimes be exploited against their will, since many dragons would love to ooh and ahh at the color-changing tree spirit. Others also join criminal organizations, which are having their golden age thanks to every soldier who used to be on guard being occupied trying to kill the fuck out of the other queendom. The bandits who have taken advantage of the free for all being fought by the queendoms would love to take in someone small, agile, and basically invisible to their operation. This is all to say any Rainwing that leaves the rainforest is likely to return, unless they can establish their own communities out there.
A few queendoms have tried to make use of the rainforest for their own purpose, especially after contact with a Rainwing tribe made them realize that dragons could live in there (if those stupid little colorful things can do it, we definitely should be able to!!);but it has proven uninhabitable.
The dense canopy cannot be navigated by the massive skywing, and their attempts to burn it down have failed. It’s too hot for icewings. It’s wet enough but lacks any safe waterways for seawings (too many unspeakably giant toothy fish and snakes). Its dark ground level is basically impenetrable, and also home to so many venomous animals and poisonous plants that any Sandwing ground soldier who gets sent in never comes out . Mudwings live on its outskirts, but won’t go in because it’s cursed and not worth the trouble.
Guhhh one last thing, Ive decided their scale color doesnt directly play into their language (they don’t have that fine of control over it across their whole body for it to spell out characters like a certain buggish theropod-shaped alien species I can think of cough who said that) but the broad strokes of their colors are a big part of tone and expression (basically, it’s like their personalized ‘voice’ because actual vocals-wise they literally all sound the same and are monotone) changing colors in a certain pattern can be seen as like a hand gesture or to allude to something, but it’s doesnt equate to a single word/phrase I guess.
(has a fic commitment I should be working on) anyways I think I'm gonna do one of those 5+1 fic things for a 13 year old movie's middle aged side character couple.
