Draegir - creatures from Draegin Swamp
Troll-like creatures, mildly intelligent, they communicate to each other with little more than grunts, if they bother to communicate at all. At first glance they seem not to be hostile, only attacking when provoked. If they feel threatened, they have attacked without warning, coming out of their swamp home and attacking passing travelers.
Their body composition seems to be of the swamp. Heavy pieces of bark serve as their armor, bits of wood, bark, etc. making up the rest of their form. Their only weapons seem to be whatever they pick up along the way; tree limbs, uprooted stumps, and rocks. They've even been seen throwing handfuls of swamp muck.
The most prominent, and deadly of their traits is the virus that they can transmit to others. It is carried within their bloodstream and released either through blood transmittal or through a fine gas they emit through their skin. Most common transmittal we've seen is via a scratch from their 'claws'. These claws seem to be sharpened bits of wood or bone and can cut through bare flesh quite easily. This sends the virus directly into the victims bloodstream.
Those infected by this virus experience severe flu-like symptoms within 3 to 5 days after infection, depending on how they were infected. Symptoms will become worse over the next 5 days or so as the virus slowly shuts down the body's main organs, inevitably causing death. A sole vial of a cure was found within a hut inside the swamps. It's contents were carefully examined and have been reproduced to aid those who become infected.
Through our various encounters with them, we have discovered the following about who they are as a species.
12 Draegir Chieftains
> Evolved by absorbing other, lesser Draegir over the ages.
> Of a higher intelligence.
> Typically send out the brutes and such to fight, while they remain deep within the swamps.
> Different specialties that have made them be viewed as chieftains.
> Typically enhanced by shaman spells and wearing bone armor.
Draegir Classes
> Scouts – smaller breed sent in first either to ‘scout’ the area or to serve as a distraction.
> Brutes/Warriors – Most commonly seen Draegir. The ones that wield large trees, stumps and rocks and do most of the fighting.
> Shamans – Typically not seen though they heal and enhance the larger class Draegir
> Juggernauts – Largest of all, extremely slow and possibly easy to kill though they explode into a cloud of noxious gas, infecting anyone nearby with the Draegir virus.
> Rogues – Small, move on all fours, extremely quick and agile compared to the others, seemingly intelligent.
Draegir TribeMales - hunters and gatherers
Females -
2 categories: Fertile and infertile.
Fertile femmes are honored above infertile femmes. Not so constructed as the males and the fighters
Sort of a hive mentality in this aspect.
Should be limited to say maybe 8-10 eggs per mating season. If the tribe shows signs of dwindling and a female accepts a male as suitable that they can get quite busy with their clutches.
Eggs bear a leathery shells at first. Are ovoid or elliptical in shape and irregular in texture. And take up to three months before they hatch. In all appearances they look like boulder for protection.
Most likely it is an infertile female that plays the role of scout. They being smaller but quicker. But also are the babysitters, and more or less drone like in all their tribe related chores.
Young - vulnerable until they begin to age and start their construction stage. They are under the care of the infertile femmes who take over once the fertile femmes have done their job.
First comes the testing for the next shaman. It takes years of apprenticing and not all survive the apprentice stage. Those who do survive and since a tribe only needs one at a time the others are given over to the 12 Draegir Chieftains.
Females are then separated from the clutch. Color of leather shell indicates if they are going to be fertile or infertile.
Males are then separated and adopted by either the hunters or the gatherers.
Androgynous - the fighters Rogues, Brutes, and Juggernauts
Androgynous are born to their calling. When they've reached a certain part of their growth they are then dedicated to the 12 Draegir Chieftains. Though there will be some Juggernauts remaining with the tribe for protection.
Rogues serve only the 12 Draegir Chieftains and are ostracized from the Tribes.
Draegir Tribe life - Tribal HierarchyHead Tribal Draegir - an elder of the tribe serves as patriarch or matriarch. Law maker for the tribe.
Elders are considered with some respect. They have served their time in whatever aspect they had performed for the tribe and are simply waiting for the swamp to claim them. Serve as their form of story tellers.
Shaman - spirit advisor for the Draegir. Also looked up to supply protection. Typically male but occasionally there could be a female if the power is strong enough. Usually found at birth but could be one with latent powers (rogue shamans).
Lesser Tribal Chiefs
Lead Hunter
Lead Gatherer
Chief Egg layer
Hunters - They eat their meat raw. Not having a fondness for fire. Though they dont object to warmth as in the hidden hot springs or something and of course the warmer weather. They also tend to take on what is otherwise the predators of the swamp. If one of these are taken down by the hunting party it is the hunters and the fighters that partake of these accomplishments. Belief that the spirit of the predator beast will transfer to them.
Gatherers - These gather the 'crops' of the swamps. Certain fungi, insects, tubers, and berries. They will be adept in acquiring these items from their poisonous and/or thorny flora related plants and bushes. They also employ the services of another swamp denizen.
Squamateles(No picture unless someone draws it) - Small one foot high (at their largest) creatures that look the cross between a fur less spider monkey and a lizard. Long phalanges are prehensile. No tail. Sharp pointed teeth. Limber to swing, leap from, or climb, trees. Only a scruff of stiff yellowed fur and what appear to be the quills (like a porcupines) as a ring around its neck and wrists and ankles. These creatures exude a noxious ooze that is meant to protect them by appearing unpalatable to any hunters. They rely on the protection of the tribes to keep the predators away. In turn they can reach the tallest branches in the trees to retrieve insects, birds eggs, pupaie of flutterbyes, and other such delicacies a Draegir is to large and clumsy to get themselves.
Tribal HomesBanyan type trees that grow strong and are giants among the other trees in the swamps but they arent the only such large trees. They are the center of most tribal territories. Serving as the nexus. Using branches of other trees to form platforms on which they then formed huts from harvesting and binding moss. They store their 'harvests' and serves as a place of safety for the young and other draegir they are bound to protect.
Around the tree can be found other huts. Using whatever is indigenous to the area they camouflage these huts twigs, branches, moss, packed mud, bones of predators, hides, and whatever else they can get a hold of.
There is a single egg laying pit. Usually where the earth is warmed by geothermal means. This is guarded fiercely if a clutch has been laid.
The Shaman's hut is at the center of the tree's growth on the ground.
Speech patterns of the Draegir:They speak in grunts, snarls, and/or growls. This keeps things rather limited. If they are organized enough to create a tribe/clan structure its quite possible they also have developed a rather intricate (By our/furrie/hyoomanoids/those who make up Eileadora's standards) language.
Birdsong
Cries between predators and other wildlife found within the swamplands.
Elemental sounds, wind in trees for example (see below)
They adorn or grow the talons that bear the noxious disease. But they could hold a dual purpose. Bringing them together in something resembling a pattern could:
a) form some kind of speech code.
b) would not be noticed as something that is organized and might hold a purpose other than natural noises.
Moss on their 'armament' or as part of their 'wardrobe' can be brushed to make sounds similar to leaves rustling in a tree's limbs overhead and so forth.
Music - primative.
As mentioned above: Draegir are born in clutches of 8-10 eggs from several fertile females during a given breeding season.
Once they've freed themselves from their leathery shells, they are nothing more than head, teeth, sharp talons resembling time weathered wood, arms, legs and torso. Very much appearing as fleshy representatives of their gnarly plant counterparts.
Pale leathery jaundiced skin stretched tautly over bone. Appearing slimy as they exude a moistening perspiration that keeps their skin supple and viable. Hatched with the Plague running through their veins, only the Draegir seem to be immune to their own 'venom'. Though blind for the first couple of weeks of their lives, until their eye membranes are shed.
Born with the wild instincts of their breed they are quick to adopt and emulate their adult tribal members. Eating raw flesh and delicate insects almost as soon as they are hatched.
For at least the first few years of their lives, they are often guarded/warded over by the infertile females and other members of their tribe. Taught at an early age to begin their outer constructs, at first they appear to be less harsh compared to their adult counterparts. Moss, small shrubs, bones of smaller animals and even flowers are incorporated in their early forms. Meant more for camouflage rather than battle.