Astral dragons

Unbelievable, Varnatax's voice boomed through Roku's mind, he's still alive. Roku let out a whistle, quiet enough so that the guards couldn't hear him. His fingers slid over the rough and angular surface of the meteorite. He could feel it, even without the assessment of the dragon soul inside him. The stone between his fingers pulsed, beating to the rhythm of a slow heartbeat. It even trembled slightly, the tremor of tense claws inside, and he breathed. The astral energy-enriched material expanded and contracted again.

Do you think they are identical, though the boy's question must have sounded moronic, Varnatax instantly understood what exactly his question was aimed at, No, they are not. The astral dragon is inside, the meteorite keeps reforming around it. If you take any of it with you, it won't notice, nor will it bother it. Roku nodded in satisfaction and set about using his equipment to detach individual stones from the larger construct.

The longer he remained in the presence of the huge stone, the clearer and more present the life inside became. On some blows of his tools he felt a rumbling in the meteorite as if it were complaining and in some phases of rest Roku was sure that a pair of eyes was watching him. At the moment, the creature might be sleeping by means of witchcraft, but it was by no means dead, it was alive and breathing and waiting. Possibly the only astral dragon on the entire planet was resting just a few meters away from him, separated only by small layers of rock.

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Astral dragons, just like the Yal'Sekai, the Elemental dragons and the King dragons are part of the four known types of dragons. For the longest time thought to be merely a fairy tale or superstition, their existence was confirmed to humanity in the year 911 abna.

Table of Contents

1. general
2. appearance
3. abilities
4. travelers
[url:#anchor-5]5. Decline[/url

General

Just like the other species of dragons, astral dragons were apparently born from the remains of a God-being that rained down on Terria. As terrestrial beings devoured these remains, they merged with them and gave birth to a new species, the astral dragons. Unlike their cousins, however, they never shared an interest in their homeland, quite the opposite. Their nature, their connection to the endless expanses of the cosmos, almost demanded that they become travelers and explorers of the void above them.

Because of this natural desire to leave Terria behind, the Astral Dragons were for the longest time considered a mere old wives' tale. However, this changed in the year 911abna when the dwarven city Gratangur opened its gates and began to share its culture, formerly kept behind closed gates, with the world. In doing so, they also revealed the nature of the meteorite at the center of their city, the sleeping body of an astral dragon that had fallen back to Terria as a celestial body and become the source of their own people, the Cosdwarves.

Appearance

by CSor96 using Midjourney

Astral dragons have a long, serpentine body covered with the usual triangular scales of draconic life forms. According to reports, the largest astral dragon is said to be several kilometers long, while a newborn is only a few centimeters in size and can only be distinguished from a snake by the pair of purple wings on its back. The older and therefore seemingly infinitely larger an astral dragon becomes, the more such wings grow on the creature's back, with the largest specimen reportedly having more than 700 such pairs of wings.

The scales of astral dragons can take on three different colors, the paleness of the moon, the orange glow of the sun or the blackness of the night sky itself. Their eyes, on the other hand, lack the usual textures of the other dragon species, instead consisting only of a blank white, which is due to their blindness. -For your eyes can deceive you. Only those who look from one star to the next may consider the cosmos empty, but those born without light are able to behold the endless fullness of nothingness.

Abilities

The Astral Dragons' most essential ability lies, as their name suggests, in their control over Astral energy. Their control over this energy is unrivaled by any known user in all of the Astraverse. They use this power to travel from planet to planet, from star to star and from sun to sun, reaching the farthest reaches of the universe. Likewise, they communicate using this power, sending messages and news into the infinite expanse, which can be deciphered using tools such as the Astral Writing Claw

Although there are no reports for these cases, astral dragons presumably have a similar structure to their soul as the other dragons and should therefore be able to give birth to dragonpriests, who can tap into the power of the stars and other celestial bodies to realize specific powers, astral dragons can consciously give form to the cosmic energy around them, but subject to their own characteristics, similar to the basic concepts of magic.

Travelers

As previously mentioned, the Astral dragons are considered the travelers of the cosmos, but they have not only explored but rather created paths throughout it. Their powers have allowed them to reach the outermost edges of the universe and have allowed them to leave the central planes of the astraverse. They have explored the astral plane and the plane of the elements, and on this journey they have left trails, cracks and narrow fissures along which they have pressed their bodies through the veils between the planes. These cracks still exist today, could not be closed even over millennia and act as plane bridges, so to speak, by means of which travel within the astraverse is possible, provided one is able to find and access them.

Demise

by CSor96 using Midjourney

A special feature of astral dragons lies in their inevitable demise. When the death of such a creature approaches, it follows an instinct to reach a point in the universe or the astraverse determined at the moment of its birth. At this point it dies or, more precisely, gives up its body. However, it does not disintegrate, but takes on a new role, becoming part of the larger cosmic context. Those of them that remain in the ordinary cosmos curl up and begin to absorb astral energy, which gradually wraps itself around them in the form of stony layers until they finally become one of their beloved celestial bodies themselves. Some even suggest that there is nothing in the night sky but dead astral dragons, a spectacle of their bodies drifting in the darkness, having taken on a new purpose.

Among those of them that found their place in the myriad realms of the astraverse, however, few evolved into planets or moons in the skies of these worlds. Most returned to the fissures and cracks they had cut into the fabric of the astraverse. There they lay down, giving up their flesh and letting their scales become one with their bones, before they themselves become part of the trail they had once trodden, a mighty bridge through the worlds, hidden from unwanted visitors.