God/Goddess Emblem
Every individual Ancient Dragon are born immortal, with or without the status of godhood, and the parents will bless their children and grant them an emblem they either carry on their body or wear as an accessory. The parents will usually ask a favor of their child, or await a good deed to be done. If these young dragons have proven themselves worthy, the Emblem itself will grant them more power and a god like status. Because of this, the dragons value their emblem greatly, and it is the only object that grant them access towards the spiritual world that allows these dragons to visit their haven planet, the “Dragon Paradise.” If they have strayed away from their path, the emblem will turn itself against the dragon and take away their connections through the spiritual world, and even being able to take away their status, and it highly depends on their parents wishes. To a dragon, especially those that are immortal, the protection and future of the dragons is highly valued. The emblem also plays an important part in blessing.
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Ability(ies) / Power
The Ancient Dragons have all sort of abilities and powers, these can be random and have a wide range in possibilities. This doesn’t necessarily depend on the parent's powers and abilities, but the elemental typing of a dragon depends highly on their parents. If a dragon contains the element of fire, their children are likely to do so too. If dragons of different elements mix, the results of their offspring can be a different typing. Some dragons depends completely on different factors to determine what type they are born with. If a dragon carries the “Moon” gene, then they can be affected by the elements around them, causing them to get different powers.
Ancient Blessing
Ancient blessing is a practice only known to be used by the Ancient Dragons. In the past or during the existence of such a dragon, all and any creature could be blessed by these dragons. Ancient Dragons didn’t only share their wisdom with other living beings, but sometimes they went far beyond that and granted them powers and a connection to them. Only Ancient ones with a godlike status could do this. They either blessed out of gratitude, or they had high hopes for the individual. When the dragons affected the land on Delv Ihoo they decided to bless a wolf they believed was worthy. When the life of the chosen wolf met their fate, the dragon would chose a new wolf and bless. Unlike the other Ancient ones, they had a pattern to always bless one wolf. Male dragons chose male wolves, while female dragons chose a female wolf. The blessings allowed the wolves on Delv Ihoo to possess powers similar to that of the dragon that had blessed them. However, blessings can go wrong, and even those with a pure heart can end up corrupted. A dragon is helpless to change this, and have no other choice than to wait for the death of the individual.
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Aside from that unlike most ancients dragons, those bound to Delv Ihoo greatly changed. Blessing the wolves unknown to many, was literally a process to force the land around the dragon to adapt and change. This blessing became a ritual as with every blessed wolf dying a new one would immediately be chosen. The dragon god or goddess wasn't just giving power, but was giving a part of their own soul. However in time the soul that was split became it's very own energy source, in a way a unique life source that contained a part of the dragon but was unable to merge back to it's original source. This had to be done, as for the dragon to allow the adapting area, and powers to exists a wolf itself had to carry a part of the dragon so the energy could spread faster. However, if a specie was slaughtered and no wolf would remain leading to the extinction of a specie, the dragon itself would die. The blessing, otherwise known as a part of the dragon no longer had a host to attach to it would slowly fade resulting in the death of the dragon gods. The wolves depend on their gods for the power they posses, but equally the dragon depends on the wolves for their own power source, in a way they drain energy and power from one another. A dragon god cannot be killed by wolves but those on Delv Ihoo can die if the specie they invested so much power in, dies. Because of the deep connection these dragons hold to their specie, it is said that the connection between the dragon and blessed one is deep. It is said that blessed wolves that meditate can connect and talk to the dragons that blessed them. Blessings before the pattern of the Ancient Dragons on Delv Ihoo happened through gratitude or tasks, where any individual creature could prove themselves to the dragons. When the Ancient ones disappeared and few remained, they swore an oath to never bond or bless other creatures again. By doing so, this allowed the dragons to hide at last from the humans who could no longer detect and find them. Over time, the different and blessed ones vanished and became myths. The blessings only remained on Delv Ihoo, as this was one of the major aspects of the effects the land went through. Interesting is that often the dragon and it's chosen blessed one posses of similarities. It's not the first time that a wolf that is blessed ended up with markings shaped similar to that of the dragon. It is believed that those born with similarities are highly like the blessed ones. Other than that unique events did take place in the past, as it was said some non symbolized wolves shortly after birth gained unique markings meaning that even non symbolized wolves can be chosen by the dragons.
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Dragon genetics
The dragons always carried a gene inside of them which was inherited from their parents. Immortality is a gene that usually passes on, but some other genes were simply inherited from the parents or formed from the parents of two different genes.There are many types of genes, but a few of them are more well known than others. The most endangered gene and species was known as the “Moon Gene” while the most common gene was the “Earth Gene.”
*Moon Gene: This gene was so rare that it was considered a subspecies of the Ancient Dragons. The dragons who were said to have carried this gene lived on the moon. This unique gene gave the dragons the ability to lay plain white eggs. These eggs, unlike any other eggs, were affected by the elements around them, causing their element to be influenced by various circumstances, enabling the offspring of Moon Dragons to be all kinds of different dragons. This gene was rapidly declining as non-dragonlike gods went after them, and other species believed to carry the gene, in hopes of destroying them because of this special gene they had. Another unique trait of the "Moon Gene" was that the eggs were always extremely large but he closer the hatch lings got to hatching the smaller the egg became, the eggs in other words shrink as time passes. This is because most dragons carrying the gene would send their eggs towards different planets and locations which resulted in the eggs being rather big as this gave extra cover and protection towards the dragon.
*Earthly Gene: This gene was common as it allowed dragons possessing this gene to give birth to what seemed to be identical versions of the parents. This meant that a fire dragon would give birth to a fire dragon. However, this gene allowed dragons to be born with completely different elements if the parents had different elements. If one parent was a water dragon and the other was a plant dragon, the offspring could end up having the “Swamp” element. These dragons were most common.
*Sun Gene: Dragons with this gene, no matter what typing, can produce Fire, Magma, and Light types of dragons when nesting their eggs in full view of the sun.
*Unique Gene: When a dragon is born, they could be born with unique traits that allows them to develop new genes they could pass on to their offspring in the future.
*Moon Gene: This gene was so rare that it was considered a subspecies of the Ancient Dragons. The dragons who were said to have carried this gene lived on the moon. This unique gene gave the dragons the ability to lay plain white eggs. These eggs, unlike any other eggs, were affected by the elements around them, causing their element to be influenced by various circumstances, enabling the offspring of Moon Dragons to be all kinds of different dragons. This gene was rapidly declining as non-dragonlike gods went after them, and other species believed to carry the gene, in hopes of destroying them because of this special gene they had. Another unique trait of the "Moon Gene" was that the eggs were always extremely large but he closer the hatch lings got to hatching the smaller the egg became, the eggs in other words shrink as time passes. This is because most dragons carrying the gene would send their eggs towards different planets and locations which resulted in the eggs being rather big as this gave extra cover and protection towards the dragon.
*Earthly Gene: This gene was common as it allowed dragons possessing this gene to give birth to what seemed to be identical versions of the parents. This meant that a fire dragon would give birth to a fire dragon. However, this gene allowed dragons to be born with completely different elements if the parents had different elements. If one parent was a water dragon and the other was a plant dragon, the offspring could end up having the “Swamp” element. These dragons were most common.
*Sun Gene: Dragons with this gene, no matter what typing, can produce Fire, Magma, and Light types of dragons when nesting their eggs in full view of the sun.
*Unique Gene: When a dragon is born, they could be born with unique traits that allows them to develop new genes they could pass on to their offspring in the future.
Reproduction
For each Ancient Dragon, sexual maturity differs greatly and is affected by genes since some dragons can only breed after hundreds of years, while others can by the time they reach 15-20 years of age. When choosing a partner, the dragons rely on the fact they can get along. They will usually spend a lot of time with one another until they decide to bond. The dragons have no breeding season, as they will breed when they feel or want to. A female usually lays a clutch of 10-25 eggs, while smaller dragons lay between 10 and 15 eggs. They usually lay a large amount of eggs at once, as it takes them a very long time to be able to produce more eggs. Because of this, most dragons are known to only breed once.
Trivia
- Ancient Dragons are usually inspired by dinosaurs design wise.
- Ancient Dragons are the first dragons to have been mentioned in AzureHowl.
- The emblems they carry is referring to old believes of dragons that guard their treasure day and night.
- The Emblems they carry usually contains a symbol that is inspired by japanese symbols, only the Azure Dragons carry a symbol that exists.