#rylaks

[netherstray]

Iron Skyreaver

Iron Horde beastmasters bred this rylak for war and then girded it for battle in black steel and smoldering flame.

[katieskarlette]

You know what Dragonflight needs? Drakeadon and chimarae, both monocephalic.

Sorry for the late reply. I just now noticed this in my inbox. Oops.

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A one-headed drakeadon...like a purple version of the Dark Iron Dwarf racial mount?

The thing is, the drakeadon (e.g. Chromaggus) isn't a naturally-occurring creature; it's only found in Blackrock Mountain. Nefarian took a core hound (a non-draconic being) and artificially infused it with draconic magic. I wouldn't expect to see drakeadons wandering wild in the Dragon Isles UNLESS Nefarian was there at some point in the past and let some of his creations loose, which would be awesome.

As for chimeras, they technically aren't dragonkin (not that this disqualifies them for appearing in Dragonflight, of course, as plenty of non-dragon beings are around.) They're kind of an anomaly on Azeroth, really, since there aren't any similar critters and they aren't found in many places. (Although I suppose if they were from the Dragon Isles that would explain it...)

If I was writing for Blizzard I would say that the chimeras in Azeroth are there because they came through the Dark Portal with the orcs. That's the explanation for ogres being all over Azeroth, so it wouldn't be a stretch at all. The chimeras in Outland are said to be mutated rylaks, and a slightly less dramatic mutation would explain why the ones in Azeroth don't look quite the same as the ones in WoD Draenor.

Rylaks were introduced in WoD partly to explain why there was a clan of orcs called the Dragonmaw on a planet that didn't have dragons. So in orcish the clan was called something like "Fierce-winged-creature-maw" and when it came time to translate it into Common somebody was like, "Oh, a fierce, winged creature? Must be a dragon! So you're the Dragonmaw." It's a retcon but it works fine as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, I'm not in alpha and I haven't sought out too many spoilers, but I haven't seen any drakeadons or chimeras in Dragonflight. Personally, I don't have any particular attachment to either creature, aside from the former's connection to Nefarian. So if they show up, great. If not, those dragon-frogs things are pretty cool looking, too. ;)

[katieskarlette]

Here is a headcanon of mine: Rylaks are convergently evolved with dragons. Dragons canonically evolved from elementals, and the elements are everywhere to who is to say they didn't evolve on Draenor as well? As a result by convergent evolution you have the rylaks which seem to be on par with proto-drakes and possess elemental abilities like them through breath weapons. Perhaps if the Titans had thought Draenor was worth their time the rylaks could have become something more like dragons on Azeroth, complete with two-headed ogre visages!

p.s. it is from the rylaks that the Dragonmaw Clan get their name.

Yeah, the out-of-universe (Doylist) explanation is that Blizzard made up rylaks to explain how a "dragonmaw" clan could exist on a world without dragons. I figure their name is orcish for "flying monster's maw," and they ended up using the same word for "flying monster" for dragons when they got to Azeroth.

Your headcanons seem reasonable. I love the idea of multi-headed rylaks shifting into multi-headed ogres.

[drunkenworgen]

Aaaand rylak number five, Spunky...

@king-kankor

You can pet him later when I think of an excuse for Gin to suddenly have five rylaks.

[birdnormal]

rylaks said: justifying gender critical with ‘oh, but gender critical helped me!!!’ is like justifying 'oh but wearing makeup is empowering to me!!’ like.. there’s other people BESIDES you that you need to take into account, and i hate gender critical

yeeeep. like, if you thought you were trans and then realized it was something else going on, cool, good for you! i’m glad you’re happier and at peace with your identity! but please when you talk about it, especially in generalized terms, keep in mind that like... there’s a good chance that a) asshole transphobic people will take that as “SEE? TRANS DOESN’T REAL” and that b) some young trans kid will take it as “yeah, maybe they’re right and i’m cis after all” (like i did, for years)

(i do think makeup does help some people, but i understand what you meant here)

[birdnormal]

rylaks said: i saw a gif with like.. “oh rick’s staring at morty the entire time rick does something!! he just wants to impress morty!! he loves morty” and it almost made me fucking throw up i hate the show so much

like i... looked at wikias and stuff? and all of them were like ‘HE USES MORTY AS A HUMAN SHIELD AND HAS KILLED SIX OF THEM’ and i’m like. wait. what

[chibitorra]

I really like the Rylak pets in WoW ;w; I just wish they were bigger v_v