Here's the fifth entry in the countdown:
This is the fiery dragon, Calderyn. The accompanying lore writeup is pasted in below.
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This
world is full of monsters, demons, beings of the ethereal and plenty of other
creatures besides humans. Included of course are the dragons. Regal, illusive,
and worthy of their reputation, the dragons have long since been cemented in
the lore of the realm. While mostly keeping to themselves and having little to
do with what they consider “lesser species”, enough interaction with the
dragons has been recorded to document their legacy.
Many
dragons make their home in areas that reflect their elemental affinity. Fire
dragons prefer volcanic regions, water dragons live in the oceans, sky dragons
roost in the high mountains and so on. As a result, it’s not common to see a
dragon yourself unless you do something to anger it. This is especially true in
the tale of the Cinder Drake. In times where a dragon enters a pact with
another being, it’s not uncommon for them to become guardians or protectors.
The powerful female fire dragon, Calderyn is one such case. Documented accounts
of the western Heisath kingdom tell of a heroic knight that found the fallen
body of the great fire dragon near the base of the Torun mountains. Dragons
frequently make their home on the skypeak and this one looked like it had been
attacked for it was near death. The knight who was never named in the scrolls
apparently tended to the wounds of the dragon and helped it recover. After she
had regained her strength, the dragon named Calderyn told the knight that her
kind had been forced from the mountains after being attacked by a pack of demons.
They had apparently been fighting with the northern territory packs and in
retaliation they struck the dragons where they had been living. Calderyn
survived the fall from the skypeak but would have died had the knight not
helped her recover. To show her thanks, the beast offered to become a guardian
of Heisath. The kingdom itself was frequently the target of raids from nearby
demons and lawless humans.
The
scrolls also tell of a great battle that burned Heisath to the ground.
Following a tremendous quake that decimated the city, a detachment of ogres
from the west laid siege to the battered kingdom. Many of the knights had been
out helping secure territory across the continent and thus Heisath was not
prepared to fend off the ogres after the quake. They leveled the buildings,
slaughtered hundreds and left the once prosperous city in smoldering ruins.
Calderyn herself fought bravely to the end but could not drive the hordes of
ogres back. The final scroll recovered from Heisath tells of her last moments once
the armies had moved on. As she lay dying once again near the city gates, a
form appeared before her. Witness accounts describe a featureless creature
shaped like a human clothed in a black robe and wielding a tree-like staff. There
are no further records of what this figure did but it’s rumored that it
absorbed the soul of the dying dragon, for no trace of the great beast was ever
found. A single scorched outline was found etched into the ground at Heisath
but nothing more.
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| Front View |
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| Side View |
When I was doing the design elements for Calderyn, I wanted to have a the horns but their layout and shaped changed a few times during the constructions process. I think the long curved horns worked out fine though it does make this mask much wider than the others. This mask needs to sit on a certain branch of the tree so it doesn't cause problems with the rest. Finally, the color scheme is pretty straight forward. I went with darker reds for the fire color scheme but also mixed in the yellow highlights and darker purple horns for contrast.
Here's the concept work for Calderyn. This one turned out to be interesting. I told our artist that I didn't have any specific things in mind for Calderyn's body. I just laid out the facts that she's a fire element dragon and let the artist interpret the rest. The end result is what you see here. I'm happy with the fully rendered design and the painted "primary" sketch near the top is definitely in line with what I would envision for this type of creature.
That's it for this entry. See you next time!
~Zan