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Description
If I'm having a real tough time committing to a new character design, I draw a chibi of it first. Yes. Baby steps.

These are my five main dragon characters, along with stats for each, to give an idea of how they compare. When I first wrote this description, these characters were just a few individuals in a world that had loads of dragons, but recently I've decided that these should be the only dragons in the world, to make them, well, more of a threat.

One story idea is that in ancient times, dragons were plentiful and they ruled over the various human countries, but the dragons had different ideas on how to rule and were constantly fighting. Sick of dying for the sake of their overlords' arguments, but unable to kill the dragons by fighting them directly, some bright humans eventually engineered a plague that was fatal to the dragons.

Five of the most powerful dragon rulers, known as the Prodigals, were dying from the plague but still stubbornly sought a way to rule on and simultaneously resolve their dispute. (Preferably violently!) So they got together to engineer a powerful magic spell they called the Arena. Each dragon sealed their essence into an indestructible orb, and when the time was right (hundreds of years in the future), the five of them would renew their fight by possessing the bodies of humans. Once possessed, these new Prodigal Avatars would have a limited time to destroy each other...once the time was up, there would have to be one winner, or EVERYBODY lost! (Classic Battle Royale.)

Some countries looked forward to the return of their dragon leaders and protected the Prodigal orbs as if they were sacred; Dracaena, for example, was born into a society that guarded one of the orbs for centuries, and it just so happened that the Prodigal chose to make Drac its Avatar. Other countries merely dumped the orbs somewhere, glad to be rid of the tyrants; in Crucilla's case, she was near death when she heard the voice of a Prodigal calling out to her and she found its orb buried underground.

So anyway, the five Prodigal Avatars are:

1) Dracaena, the Freeborn - Dragons do not have family names, but titles. (If you're a dragon that hasn't earned a title, then you ain't shit.) "The Freeborn" is actually a derisive title, referring to the fact that Drac was born into wealth and is seen as having a carefree life. (This title was given to her by her older brother Dracaeden, who is INTENSELY jealous that Dracaena was chosen as a Prodigal Avatar instead of him.) Her design doesn't change much any more, but two things of note are that she's given up her sword to become a spear knight (she has crap defense, so she needs a long reach!), and that her horns (those headphone/antenna things...we are calling them "horns" now) droop when she's upset/flustered.

2) Crucilla, the Devouring Darkness - A notorious thief living in the secluded realm of Mydden. Crucilla is an assumed name...just six years ago she was Viletta, a Royal Knight of Mydden, but her kingdom was invaded and enslaved by the Strateans, the people once ruled by the storm-dragons. Nearly killed in the invasion, Viletta heard the call of a Prodigal, whose powers restored her. She went into hiding and emerged some time later with a new identity. Unknown to the other Myddenites, Crucilla's thievery is mainly in the interest of taking care of her five-year-old son, Cidian. Her twin chainsaw swords are actually a pair of shadow-beast familiars named Grimtooth and Goreclaw.

3) Golgrim, who Sunders All - This guy was pretty small and unknown until he became a Prodigal Avatar...now he's seen as the symbol of the might of his country, the Geodetian Republic. The Geodetians live in vast underground cities, and they dislike sunlight...hence the visor on Golgrim here. Normally a personable enough dragon, Golgrim nonetheless is fiercely loyal to his superiors, and he'd probably kill his own mother if asked to. The tubes on his shoulderpads can give him boosts of magic energy to really get him motivated. As an earth dragon, he's flightless, and he's secretly jealous of the other Avatars, who can all fly.

4) Tryphectis, the Ascendant - A deceptively deadly Stratean soldier, Tryphectis knew right away he was destined for greatness when he became a Prodigal Avatar. He led the invasion of Mydden and has since become the realm's dictator. In dragon form, he has three heads: one main head and two that act like memory extensions. Yes, he has tremendous amounts of RAM, ahaha. (He claims that his two extra heads don't have any thoughts of their own, but this is not entirely true.) As a result, Tryphectis is exceedingly smart, but as psycho as they come. During the invasion of Mydden he raped probably a dozen females. (One of whom was Crucilla.) His name is a reference to Trypticon, my favorite Transformer. There are a few such Transformers homages at work here.

5) Volcara, the Immolator - A priestess of the Kremati Protectorate. Like Dracaena's people, the Kremati took good care of their Prodigal orb, but no one witnessed the Prodigal choosing Volcara as its Avatar, and Volcara told no one. After falling in love with a policeman, Volcara started using her new dragon form as a sort of superhero disguise to fight crime. Unfortunately, her way of going about it usually involves incinerating the perpetrators. Volcara's shoulder-mounted guns are inspired by Starscream from Transformers. I always thought those were his coolest features.

Description
If I'm having a real tough time committing to a new character design, I draw a chibi of it first. Yes. Baby steps.

These are my five main dragon characters, along with stats for each, to give an idea of how they compare. When I first wrote this description, these characters were just a few individuals in a world that had loads of dragons, but recently I've decided that these should be the only dragons in the world, to make them, well, more of a threat.

One story idea is that in ancient times, dragons were plentiful and they ruled over the various human countries, but the dragons had different ideas on how to rule and were constantly fighting. Sick of dying for the sake of their overlords' arguments, but unable to kill the dragons by fighting them directly, some bright humans eventually engineered a plague that was fatal to the dragons.

Five of the most powerful dragon rulers, known as the Prodigals, were dying from the plague but still stubbornly sought a way to rule on and simultaneously resolve their dispute. (Preferably violently!) So they got together to engineer a powerful magic spell they called the Arena. Each dragon sealed their essence into an indestructible orb, and when the time was right (hundreds of years in the future), the five of them would renew their fight by possessing the bodies of humans. Once possessed, these new Prodigal Avatars would have a limited time to destroy each other...once the time was up, there would have to be one winner, or EVERYBODY lost! (Classic Battle Royale.)

Some countries looked forward to the return of their dragon leaders and protected the Prodigal orbs as if they were sacred; Dracaena, for example, was born into a society that guarded one of the orbs for centuries, and it just so happened that the Prodigal chose to make Drac its Avatar. Other countries merely dumped the orbs somewhere, glad to be rid of the tyrants; in Crucilla's case, she was near death when she heard the voice of a Prodigal calling out to her and she found its orb buried underground.

So anyway, the five Prodigal Avatars are:

1) Dracaena, the Freeborn - Dragons do not have family names, but titles. (If you're a dragon that hasn't earned a title, then you ain't shit.) "The Freeborn" is actually a derisive title, referring to the fact that Drac was born into wealth and is seen as having a carefree life. (This title was given to her by her older brother Dracaeden, who is INTENSELY jealous that Dracaena was chosen as a Prodigal Avatar instead of him.) Her design doesn't change much any more, but two things of note are that she's given up her sword to become a spear knight (she has crap defense, so she needs a long reach!), and that her horns (those headphone/antenna things...we are calling them "horns" now) droop when she's upset/flustered.

2) Crucilla, the Devouring Darkness - A notorious thief living in the secluded realm of Mydden. Crucilla is an assumed name...just six years ago she was Viletta, a Royal Knight of Mydden, but her kingdom was invaded and enslaved by the Strateans, the people once ruled by the storm-dragons. Nearly killed in the invasion, Viletta heard the call of a Prodigal, whose powers restored her. She went into hiding and emerged some time later with a new identity. Unknown to the other Myddenites, Crucilla's thievery is mainly in the interest of taking care of her five-year-old son, Cidian. Her twin chainsaw swords are actually a pair of shadow-beast familiars named Grimtooth and Goreclaw.

3) Golgrim, who Sunders All - This guy was pretty small and unknown until he became a Prodigal Avatar...now he's seen as the symbol of the might of his country, the Geodetian Republic. The Geodetians live in vast underground cities, and they dislike sunlight...hence the visor on Golgrim here. Normally a personable enough dragon, Golgrim nonetheless is fiercely loyal to his superiors, and he'd probably kill his own mother if asked to. The tubes on his shoulderpads can give him boosts of magic energy to really get him motivated. As an earth dragon, he's flightless, and he's secretly jealous of the other Avatars, who can all fly.

4) Tryphectis, the Ascendant - A deceptively deadly Stratean soldier, Tryphectis knew right away he was destined for greatness when he became a Prodigal Avatar. He led the invasion of Mydden and has since become the realm's dictator. In dragon form, he has three heads: one main head and two that act like memory extensions. Yes, he has tremendous amounts of RAM, ahaha. (He claims that his two extra heads don't have any thoughts of their own, but this is not entirely true.) As a result, Tryphectis is exceedingly smart, but as psycho as they come. During the invasion of Mydden he raped probably a dozen females. (One of whom was Crucilla.) His name is a reference to Trypticon, my favorite Transformer. There are a few such Transformers homages at work here.

5) Volcara, the Immolator - A priestess of the Kremati Protectorate. Like Dracaena's people, the Kremati took good care of their Prodigal orb, but no one witnessed the Prodigal choosing Volcara as its Avatar, and Volcara told no one. After falling in love with a policeman, Volcara started using her new dragon form as a sort of superhero disguise to fight crime. Unfortunately, her way of going about it usually involves incinerating the perpetrators. Volcara's shoulder-mounted guns are inspired by Starscream from Transformers. I always thought those were his coolest features.