Draykon

Elves are able to live for up to eight hundred years and produce children through most of that time period. As a result the shining cities of the Politeia required a release for all their excess youths. To this end all commoners and non-heir nobility were conscripted to fifty years of mandatory military service. During this time they would be expected to campaign or enforce elven hegemony from the backs of subjugated dragons. Revolt against the Elven Empire was near constant, and mortality among the conscripts was high. This was not improved by a noble exclusive officer class.
The Voice's influence was not immediately noticed as the nobility getting their subordinates killed in reckless assaults was not terribly unusual. Even massacres of foreign civilian populations, though an unpleasant surprise was not so far from normal conduct to cause more than isolated mutinies. It was only when these officers began to organize their soldiers into blood sport arenas that the Voice's influence was fully understood. At this the enlisted soldiers assassinated their officers and braced for an organized suppression by the cities than never arrived. They were harried by seasonal mobs of cannibals but rarely with any coherent plan of attack.
In the time since the Draykon as these former soldier elvens have taken to calling themselves have settled the mountains and foothills along the border of the former Elven Empire, providing protection to surviving farming communities and the mountain hermits. Their aerial capabilities are unique in the post-Imperial era and allow for control of enormous territories. The Draykon have no single organized state but instead man sovereign mountain fortresses, each responsible for its own region. They are organized as a military missing its high command, each community a barracks out of culture and habit.

Naming Traditions

Unisex names

Names from Tolkien's Quenya or medieval Finnish both work
Quenya names from Tolkien's works
Finnish Names from birch bark letters in the 1300s
Essay on Finnish naming practices

Culture

Culture and cultural heritage

Though in the time of the Elven Empire dragons were stolen from magically entralled parents, modern Draykon receive their mounts from the Elder Dragons which live at the peaks of their mountain homes. These revered beasts bear young without any second parent that hatch into the lesser dragons rideable by elves. To birth a new Elder Dragon they must mate as any other species would, and they do so only rarely.

Shared customary codes and values

All Draykon are soldiers- There are no officers, and even farmers are expected to act as militia when required.
Mounts are not slaves- While most of the dragons ridden by the Draykon are not as intelligent as kin they are much more than simple animals. Each soldier must form a bond with his mount based on mutual trust.
End the of the World and I Feel Fine- Draykon generally have extreme pessimism in the world's overall course, but consider such thoughts inappropriate to dwell on or speak about frequently. Instead they try to accept the world as doomed but with individuals joys to be found in the moment.

Foods & Cuisine

All Draykon in community or if traveling a camp, must eat in a communal mess. Eating in private was a priveledge reserved for officers, and is not to be tolerated in the modern day. Due to the extreme distances they travel on dragon back most Draykon meals are dried meat or grain that soldiers are expected to cook themselves at meal time.

Encompassed species

• Elves

Related Organizations

• Tartarians
• The Common Gods

Real Life Inspiration
Medieval and Iron Age Finns
Conscript Soldiers throughout history

Media Inspiration
First Four Black Company Books
Full Metal Alchemist (anime)