Shadow Dragon

Hoia Forest

by Dazzlinkat

"The humans are all asunder with the French wars.

Strike now while the vampires are distracted along with them."

An Entity of Shadow

A Shadow Dragon is a six-limbed creature that walks on four of those limbs. The remaining two limbs are great wings that sprout from a double joint shared with its forelimbs. Their faded charcoal scales have no luster and their eyes are pearl. Broad opaque wings turn transluscent in light without losing any of their strength.
In fact, all of the dragon becomes as insubstantial as mist or smoke in daylight. Their bodies cannot be harmed while in daylight unless attacks are aimed at their shadows. Even then, all such attacks do half their damage.
Magic is a part of them and so every Shadow Dragon can shapechange at will. Their favorite form is that of human, where they can immerse themselves in the politics and intrigues.
Shadow Dragons traditionally start life as an egg hatched in a deep underground lair. Safe from any light, a single parent raises and protects them. Five years after hatching, they are taken into the light for the first time. For another twenty years or so they are raised and guided by their parent then sent out into the world.

"If we decide to take this county, it will be when we wish.

We never take orders from weak human princelings out all alone."

by Dazzlinkat

If they reach one hundred years of age, they are finally adults and allowed to return to their parent where they then become a member of the Order of the Dragon.
A less traditional way that has become popular amongst the dragons is to have children with humans. Whether born to a dragon mother in human form or sired by a dragon to a human mother, there is a chance the child will become a dragon when they reach puberty.
If so, they will first display an ability ot do magic without training. It is then that the dragon parent will teach them until about age thirty. If the human-born dragon lives to one hundred, they too will become members of the Order of the Dragon.

by Dazzlinkat

<<<<<

"I am no human! You WILL attack now!"

>>>>>

"M-my mistake, my lord! I will call in the packs right away. We will attack in three days."

by Dazzlinkat

Origin

by Darkmoon_Art

In the time before gods, It brought Doom. Crashing into the Earth, It thrilled at the devastation as the planet nearly sundered from the blow.
But Earth refused to stay unraveled. As the world wove itself back together, It found itself snared, unable to break free.
It became unraveled and threaded into the weave of Earth until naught but the tip of its tail remained to form the mountains known as the Dolomites.
When the gods sprang from Earth to begin their mighty creations, one of these were dragons, each forged as one individual rather than a species. These dragon were forged with a taste of the Dolomites.
Ages upon ages passed and the faint essence of It seeped out and coalesced into a quad of eggs. Eventually these eggs hatched into the first Shadow Dragons.

"Look to the stars and thank them for the Dolomite."

— Drakon Kholkikos