[Image Description: Three fan-made Pokemon made to resemble the northern cardinal bird, one of which is presented as two sexually dimorphic individuals.
The first Pokemon is a young bird with yellow feathers, tipped red-orange at the wings and on the tail. It has a small rounded blue beak, blue legs, and big dark blue eyes. It has its wings tucked against its body and is looking to the left of the image as it faces the right. The feathers on its head stick up to imply the beginning of a crest. Light blue text to the right of the image reads "Cardling".
The second Pokemon is a juvenile bird with tan feathers on its body and red feathers on its wings and tail. It has a blue beak and legs and light blue markings around its dark blue eyes. Feathers on its head stick up in a crest. Its legs are pulled up against its body and its wings are outstretched in flight. Light blue text to the right of the image reads "Purdinal".
The third Pokemon are two adult birds with large three-feathered head crests, maroon beaks and legs, blue facial markings, dark blue eyes, and turquoise talons resembling icicles. The individual on the left is a little larger and has bright red plumage with blue tipped wings and tail, while the individual on the right is a little smaller and has dull tan plumage with bright red belly, wingtips, and tail. Their wings are tucked up to their bodies and they are positioned to that their bodies are facing each other, while their heads are facing away. Turquoise text outlined in light blue to the right of the image reads "Frostinal", while smaller text in the same colors reads "male" and "female", indicating the larger red individual is a male and the smaller tan individual is female.
End ID.]
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Cardling - Chick Pokemon | flying While Cardling are capable of flight a lot earlier in life than some bird Pokemon, they are almost incapable of dealing with the cold until maturing. They tend to become quite close to their parents while they can before they make the trip back north. / Cardling are very susceptible to frigid temperatures, and as such their parents must nest much further south than the typical location of their home. They feast upon a wide variety of berries several times a day in order to build their strength.
Purdinal - Fledgling Pokemon | flying They are capable of fluffing up their down undercoat in order to provide some better cold resistance than they previously could. They seem to be quite fond of Snover berries, but their opportunities to taste them are quite rare. / Beginning to develop some mild cold resistance, Purdinal sometimes travel further up north than they could as Cardling. They are still not fully capable of living in cold climates, merely visiting to briefly reunite with parents while they are still fairly young.
Frostinal - Cardinal Pokemon | ice/flying It lives in the northernmost parts of Cantessy, except for during breeding season when mated pairs will travel south to raise their less resilient young. Males can be seen feeding females berries plucked from Snover during courtship. / Its talons are as cold as the snowy north it calls home. A mated pair will fly south to warmer climates during breeding season as their young cannot withstand the cold very well until fully grown.
I know the tradition with Fakemon stuff is to introduce all the starters and their evos together, but I wanted to post the full evo lines for my starters pretty close to posting people who would reasonably use them, ie. the player(s) and the rival characters. So we're gonna wait a bit on Calflame's evos for now and instead focus on Cantessy's "Route 1 bird": Cardling! And of course its evolutions Purdinal and Frostinal! Compared to the origins of the starters' inspirations, the Route 1 bird was fairly simple to figure out. I knew when I was figuring things out that I wanted my Route 1 bird to be based on Kentucky's state bird, the northern cardinal. I see 'em all over the place here, and they're really not hard to spot, especially the bright red males for which the species gets its name. (fun fact, when I first learned about catholic cardinals I thought they were named after the birds, luckily I was old enough to have the critical thinking to realize it was probably the other way around pretty quick on my own hehe) So Cardling are based on a mix of the babies and fledglings, Purdinal on the juveniles, and Frostinal obviously on the adults. This is going to be the only Cantessy Pokemon to have a gender difference, as I wanted to reference how the females are closer to olive drab rather than that iconic vibrant red. Better egg camouflage, y'know?
Thanks to my buddy Tav for suggesting the final stage of this evolution line gain the ice type! This was the only major hang-up I had with this line at any point, tbh. I knew I wanted it to gain a secondary type, but I didn't want to just play into the red coloration and make it fire type, and becoming fire would also make it too similar to Talonflame with fancy colors. They suggested ice, and I was reminded of all those winter images and holiday cards that have cardinals on them, not to mention the red plumage would artistically stand out against a snowy scene in a really lovely way. (come to think of it, that's probably why cardinals are used in those images hehe) And speaking of ice-type cardinal Pokemon, please check out the Pokemon Cardinal series on YouTube! It's a really cool Fakemon series and I think y'all would liiiike it O:
Also if anyone wants to suggest other moves for these guys to learn and some physical stats (ie. height and weight, idk much about scaling hehe), feel free to throw ‘em at me :3 Links to their info pages will be provided in the replies!
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Pokemon and related concepts © Nintendo/GameFreak Cardling, Purdinal, Frostinal, the Cantessy region, and artwork © PuppyLuver Studios