Ardent, the Solar Songstress

Name: Ardent
Gender: Female
Type: Western Dragon
Species: Star-Singer
Age: 437
Date of Birth: April 22
Personality: Ardent is a twisted and corrupted individual, something that at first glances seems improbable, given her relatively young age. But look just a little deeper and the cracks and gouges compounded into her psyche become clear. On the surface, she is… lost. Without a family, wandering. Even in the Ki'Sha tribe, she is still looking for someone to take her under their wings. If met by another dragon, she would happily engage in conversation (in universal of course), and try to get to know them. She wouldn’t say it aloud, but she is constantly hoping to be adopted, taken in by someone who can accept, or at least overlook, her damaged side.


Down below, she is a twitching, ticking nightmare. The darkness that formed inside her the day she killed her parents has had almost uncontested reign over her for two years, poising her. She sees herself as, in that moment, a glorified arbiter of justice, carrying out the sentencing for three depraved individuals that required death. This thought has made her silently judgmental. If someone has done, is doing, or is planning to do something she finds abhorrent, such as killing or harming hatchlings or her friends, Ardent will not quail about trying to kill them, rather, she enjoys it. The mere seconds a being has before their death, as they realise the mistakes they’ve made, the horror in their eyes as they realise it is not this, but the next life they will need to face their wrongs… it brings a smile to her maw, a lightness to her step, and a cheer to her voice. Of course, given her young age, this could easily be twisted by an individual, who becomes her friend, and slowly converts her to their way of thinking. If someone were to do this, she would be a powerful and yet completely loyal weapon, a hatchling that revels in the business of death. A powerful weapon… as who would expect it? Not only this, but the darkness that clutches at her soul calls, pines, for those like it. If she were to cross paths with another, who was truly evil, or just insane, she would feel as if she knew them already, see them as a long lost friend, and trust them above all others.

Hobbies:
Listening to her stars. The song they sing as they fly is one of the most beautiful to her
Learning to speak new languages.
Swimming. She enjoys it immensely, and dumping a star into a small pool of water makes for a nice warm and relaxing bath
Likes:
The rain, but only during the day. At night the clouds stop her from seeing the night sky.
Warmth. While she can survive perfectly fine in regular and slightly lower temperatures, she adores being warm
The stars (excluding the sun). This includes both those in the sky and her own
Dislikes:
The Sun. It hides a multitude of other stars from view during the day. So rude.
Being cold. Anything below 35*C is incredibly uncomfortable for her.
The ocean. Swimming is good and all, but the ocean is far too vast and terrifying for her to go anywhere near it
Fears:
Being in temperatures at / below 0*C. At this low a temperature, she cannot form her stars, even to save her life. Along with this, she feels permanently lethargic, and will die after mere hours.
Someone destroying her Stars. While they are destroyed, such as when Ardent throws them at a target, she is terrified that someone will find a way to properly destroy them, in such a fashion that she can’t reform them.




Place of Origin: Desert of Verula
Tribe: Ki'Sha
Position: Shemscaluri
Language: Universal, can understand and speak Kishin relatively well.
Home: Uoangi Desert
Parents: Dead
Siblings: Dead
Relatives: Dead
Mate: None, but is willing to pursue whoever takes her fancy, regardless of age, status or species.
Offspring: No
History:
Ardent was originally born in a small family group, consisting of her mother, father, and two siblings, a older sister and a younger brother. They all had similar abilities, that of star-forging, however in different aspects. Her sister was the most skilled, able to create marvellous stars that burned with every colour of the world. Her brother was next. He followed more after his mother, creating stars that seemed to bend light, consume it, negative stars as it were, that were burning hot one moment, as cold as death the next. Finally, little Ardent. The runt. The one who, until she was 4 years old, hadn’t exhibited even the smallest hint of skill with star-forging. It was a source of torment for her. From her parents, and rarely her younger brother, who all saw her as a mistake, as much of a failure as a wingless dragon. Only her older sister showed her kindness, acting as both both a sibling and parent to the younger.

Finally, mere days before her 4th birthday, she heard her parents speaking, as she had awakened in the middle of the night to watch the stars outside their den, as she usually did. They planned to leave her. Just like that. Leave the runt to die. And of course, there was one standing up for her. Her sister. She listened for what seemed like hours, her sadness growing, until it overwhelmed her. And then it happened. Her father… or had it been her mother? One of them lashed out, in anger, and wounded her sister. Ardent heard that, the sound of claws meeting scales and dashed in, her eyes streaming tears, to see her beloved sister on the ground, unconscious, blood streaming from her head, thanks to a clawed backhand. Her sadness catalysed in that moment, flowering into beautiful, unrestrained anger. She broke through into her powers, and called forth a star, one that screamed, an unearthly wailing, as it appeared before her. Blind to everything else, blind to the fact that her sister was still, in fact, breathing, she saw only red. With anger, she grabbed the star, her claws gouging into it’s surface, before throwing it forwards, towards the two beings that called themselves her parents. They lived for a second, maybe two, before the orb grew close enough to burn them both alive. Impacting the far side of the chamber, it oddly enough, did not explode, as they usually do, but rather ricocheted and bounced around inside her home for a time, eventually killing both her sister and brother, before finally exploding.

She, unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, survived. She lay there, comatose for days, her body on the edge of death, her mind not far behind. Eventually, she was forced back to consciousness, but she didn’t know why. For almost a year she was little more than a machine, unfeeling, unthinking, bar for hunting. She didn’t dare think about what she had done. How could she? How could one so young live while thinking about the four lives they had taken in anger? The only times she ever showed emotion were when she summoned her stars, her anger having burned away the block that had plagued her all her life, and even then it was sadness and regret.

It took a year before she began to recover, as if she was keeping time. She began to smile up at the stars, to watch other small animals with interest. But that darkness still lay deep inside her, waiting for another chance, to take another life. Slowly, it began to corrupt her. That what she had done had been… right. They had needed to die. They were evil beings, as shown by their treatment of her, and her sister, and to a lesser extent, their son. She began to accept it, but it made her sadness no less. Eventually it grew too much. She left her ‘home’, now a cave system that was badly melted internally, and looked for another. She found a nice place, out in the middle of nowhere, in the no-man’s land between Stormcaller and Ki’Sha territory. Eventually, she also travelled across the continent to the rainforests, but only stayed temporarily, the humidity annoying to her. That’s where she’s been, and still is. Alone for a year and a half.

Additional history, long story short, found by Aliugaan of the Ki'Sha, on their lands, after getting lost in a sandstorm close to their territory. Her young age and orphaned status was enough to save her from execution or sacrifice, thus earning her a place as a Shemscaluri. Of course, thanks to her... uncanny knowledge of the desert and the night in general, she can sneak out at a moments notice, which she has done several times before, and will again.



Height: 82 feet
Length: 174 feet
Wingspan: 216 feet
Scale/Fur/Feathers: Base grey. Her scales change colour from grey to white as temperature lower (from 30*C to 0*C) and from grey to black as temperatures rise (from 40*C to 500*C+)
Eyes: Her eyes are an odd colour, silver, but seem to shift across different shades, much like a star.
Accessories: None
Armor: Nah
Horns/Spikes: Two small, silver horns positioned on the top of her skull, just behind her ears. This is accompanied by a small frill that sits just behind her jaw, and below her ears, supported by three spines, the same colour as her horns. A row of spikes covers her spine, large, but fragile and relatively dull.
Overall Appearance: Ardent is, in a sense, compact. Rigorous training, courtesy of her parents, has left her with a small frame, but an amazing amount of muscle. This isn’t at first visible, only noticeable if one looks closely at her limbs and chest, which seem to be slightly bulkier than another dragoness age should have, but from a distance or at a glance she still retains the natural poise, grace and an illusion of litheness attributed to females of her species. Many of her scales are damaged, largely from the numerous beatings she would receive from her parents and brother, either scratched or broken. These can easily be identified, as they fail to change colour in exposure to temperature differences, yet still provide the same defense.



Abilities:
Star Calling - Ardent can summon small scale ‘stars’ at will. Around 1.5ft in diameter, they burn oddly lightly, producing slightly less light than a similar sized flame. They all share several additional base properties. They all ignore gravity, only being slowed by air resistance, and explode upon hitting their ‘target’, identified when they are thrown, if they don’t hit the target, they will eventually dissipate into nothing upon reaching 100 feet from their thrower, if air resistance doesn’t stop them before then. Ardent, or any other dragon with similar tolerances for heat, can throw these stars, and the targeting will still work for them. They are thrown by puncturing the surface with one's talons, and simply throwing, the star releasing itself at the ideal time and trajectory to impact the target. Their temperature and number she is able to summon is directly related to how angered Ardent is.

If at full rage, only obtainable if someone hurts someone she loves (which is currently no-one), Ardent can summon a maximum of a single star. This star will usually burn extremely hot, at around 500*C, and have a mass of around 5 kilograms. The explosion of this star releases a large amount of plasma, at the same temperature as the star itself. Assuming there was no outside forces, this plasma wave can reach roughly 20 feet in diameter, with a longer range possible if the blast wave is contained inside a small area, such as a cave.

At minimal anger, which is the majority of the time, Ardent can summon a maximum of 6 stars. Each is approximately 40*C in temperature, and weighs somewhere between 2 and 5 kilograms. These are usually used as playthings, with her summoning several at once and usually rolling them into a ditch or a pile and flopping on them. When hitting their target, these stars are little more than extravagant fireworks. They release a large amount of embers and sparks, which expand in a cloud away from the impact target. They’re only about as bright as the stars in the night sky, so often cannot cause and damage to those unused to bright lights. This cloud will expand to roughly 100 feet in diameter, assuming there is no wind, and stay for roughly 15 minutes. The sparks and embers themselves are usually around 25*C to the touch.

After forming the number of stars for the given anger level, Ardent will be extremely drained, often stumbling or falling over. If all of the created stars are used and detonate, she will usually faint, with an increasing downtime, from a hour or so for play stars, to upwards of 48 hours with her single, anger induced star. While the anger induced star is often a bright red or orange, the smaller stars can be any colour she chooses, from purple to green, the embers and sparks left relating to this.


Water will completely negate all forming and side effects of all stars bar the single anger crafted one. If detonated underwater, instead of a plasma wave, a high pressure wave of water, at roughly 300*C, will be created, with a diameter of 30 feet. Water does not, however, put out the star. In fact, when fully submerged, they act as a heating element, continually pumping heat into a body of water until they are thrown, or until they collapse (15-30 minutes).


Temperature Scales: More… a safety precaution than an ability, Arden’t scales can withstand the massive temperatures generated by her rage star, 1,000*C. This only applies to her rage star and natural temperatures. Temperatures generated by magic and some forms of abilities negate this, however firebreathing is usually covered.
Strengths:
Extremely good nocturnal eyesight: Gained from spending countless nights watching the sky, Ardent can see almost as well at night as during the day.
Strong: Quite strong compared to others her age, she has proven able to beat trained soldiers on one-on-one confrontations.
Weaknesses:
Trust: Oddly enough, she trusts far too easily. She believes that her parents are an isolated case, and there can’t be that many terrible dragons in the world
Loyalty: Once she makes a friend, she will rarely, if ever, abandon them (If she ever has any, that is.)
Scales: Still growing in. Her scales are extremely soft, and able to easily be punctured, even by hatchlings if they try hard enough
Cold Weather: Makes it impossible for her to summon her stars, and makes her lethargic and tire easily.
Being truly alone: keep her alone, without her stars, for a day or two, and she will willingly do almost anything to get some company.
Elemental magic and abilities: Either of these will chew through Ardent like butter. Her scales, while they can take massively high temperature, cannot take magically created temperatures, those affecting Arde normally. Along with this, other forms of elemental magic are marginally more damaging, her scales doing almost nothing against them, even when fully formed.
Toxins, poisons and venoms: Any of the aforementioned things are extremely potent to Ardent, usually taking effect at an increased rate (2x-3x), and with marginally stronger effects (30%-50%).
Fighting Style: Ardent’s fighting style usually consists of summoning a single star, and keeping it close, usually by poking it with her tail, and swinging it at danger whenever it comes close. If she thinks the target is large / slow / distracted enough, she may throw a star or two, but rarely does this, as it more often than not ends up with a star out of her reach, and simply draining her energy for no good reason. Against enemies who can withstand the temperatures of her stars… Yeaaaaaaaah. Good luck.
Magic: None yet, but with a natural aptitude for it. If she met someone who could teach her, maybe.

Hiii, can I ask where you got your changing scale with temperature idea? Just curious as someone has that too :p https://dragonshaven.forumotion.com/t77-zero#413

Well. That's unfortunate. I can change it, if you want.

But I just needed some way of warning people, as well as Ardent herself, about Temperatures. If her scales are dark black, that's a massive no-no for any thing that isn't marginally heat resistant, and if her scales are dimming down to white, she knows that she needs to find a way to keep warm.

Did you copy it or just come up with it?

Honestly, I came up with this version, but I can change it seeing as Zero was posted first.

1/2 Approved m8

"Ardent can summon a maximum of a single star. This star will usually burn extremely hot, at around 500*C, and have a mass of roughly 3/4 ton. Normally, a thing this heavy would be impossible for a hatchling to lift. While that is correct, the lack of gravity effects makes the weight of said object much less. The explosion of this star releases a large amount of plasma, at the same temperature as the star itself. Assuming there was no outside forces, this plasma wave can reach roughly 40 feet in diameter, with a longer range possible if the blast wave is contained inside a small area, such as a cave. "

So the issue I have with this is you are basically saying you can just toss a 3/4 ton bomb as a hatchling. That way too powerful for that age.

I mean, I nerfed it, don't know if it's enough

BUMP!

~2/2 Approved~

out for edits

Bump.

Removed a strength, changed a weakness
Age + Size up, small edits to appearance (to match age)
Tribe + language updated
Small history addition
General rewrite of a few sections including personality to be more inline with the new age

Re-approved 1/2

Re-approved

~Out for Edits~

Is this still out for edits?