Drake
Contents
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Assassin Drake
Stealthy killers utilized by the Ravortium. -
Carrier Drake
Capable of becoming invisible and perfectly mimicing anything they hear; often used as messengers. -
Churchyard Drake
Guard the graveyards of the church, vicious enemies of undead. -
Companion Drake
Tutors and guardians for the children of those nobles wealthy enough to afford their creation. -
Forest Drake
Guardians of the wild lands that are sacred to the Dragons, such as ancient battlegrounds and leyline intersections. -
Harbor Drake
Created to protect the Capitol Harbor from invaders; have since expanded to inhabit most of the Northern Bay. -
War Drakes
Ridden into battle by the valorous Dragon Knights; their presence strikes awe and terror into the hearts of those they oppose.
The word 'drake' has two different meanings; in mythology, a drake was a massive reptilian creature that the draconic armies used to carry troops and haul their seige weapons into battle. Such creatures no longer walk the lands of Vecrona, but the modern use of the word drake refers to any number of creatures used by the Church as messengers, guard animals, and assassins among other uses.
Divine Gifts
Drakes are conjured as fully-formed adults, and do not age. They do have a limited lifespan, but this is merely an effect of the limited duration of the conjuring ritual. A drake will live for almost exactly twenty years before the magic that formed them fails, and they are returned to the ether in a violent burst of energy.
Stolen Secrets
Rumors persist of apocryphal sects and fiendish cults that have learned the secret rituals to conjure drakes, though the Church maintains that even if such cults had managed this impossibility, the magics are useless to anyone who does not posess the favor of the Dragon Gods themselves.
Explosive Expiration
Drakes that are approaching their 20th year are stabled separately, as the sudden discharge of magic can cause other nearby drakes to also dematerialize, even those who are not reaching the end of their span.
Manifold Forms
All species of drake share some common characteristics, such as the number of legs and wings, but the details are as varied as the tasks they are conjured to accomplish.
Assassin Drake
When the Church has a problem that the usual politics cannot remove, they turn to the Black Hands, the assassin-inquisitors of the Dragon of Dreams. On the rare occasion when the assassins' blades fail, then the last resort is to utilize the assassin drake.
Invisible in the Shadows
Assassin drakes exist partially as creatures of shadow, which allows them to virtually vanish under all but the brightest light. Their preferred tactic is to study the target and learn their routines, possibly for days at a time, then strike from the shadows when the victim is alone and unaware.
Dead Drakes Tell no Tales
Even these great beasts are not immune to the compulsions of powerful interrogators; to avoid a situation where the drake may be forced to divulge its masters' identities, it can will itself to die, causing a powerful explosion of magical energy, eliminating all traces of the drake's presence and potentially eliminating the assassin's target in one fell swoop.
Carrier Drake
Carrier drakes are the messengers of choice within and between high-ranking members of the Church, as their incredible speed and knack for evading danger ensure a timely arrival. A carrier drake resembles a slim, scaled hawk with a wingspan of just over four feet.
Flawless Mimicry
Though they are incapable of carrying anything larger than a coin or small trinket, these drakes can memorize even the most long-winded messages flawlessly and even imitate the voice from which they heard the message.
Hidden Informants
Carrier drakes can become invisible at will, and typically do so when travelling through dangerous territory or when subterfuge is required. This, combined with their mimicry, makes them ideal as spies for the Church, among either enemy cults or suspicious families.
Churchyard Drake
Any sizeable city is bound to accrue a sizeable graveyard, and graveyards are ripe for the picking for any cultist, graverobber, or necromancer. To prevent unwanted guests, the church utilizes graveyard drakes, massive creatures that can sense the presence of foul magics. A graveyard drake, also called a Grimm, stands ten feet high at the shoulder, and has a wingspan of over twenty.
Hallowed Protectors
A churchyard drake is bound by the summoning ritual to a specific graveyard, and cannot be made to leave, even by magical force. They have a keen awareness of everything within their territory, particularly the presence of necromancy and the undead. They have the innate ability to supress necromantic spells in their vicinity, much to the dismay of many a would-be graverobbing necromancer.
Slayers of the Dead
Churchyard drakes hold a primal hatred for the undead. When a churchyard drake encounters an undead creature, it will immediately attempt to attack and devour it to the exclusion of all else.
Final Judgment
It is believed that a creature slain by a churchyard drake is purged of its evil, allowing its soul to bypass the 999 years of purgatory typically reserved for unclean individuals, even those who were victims of undeath or demon worship. It is not unheard of for desparate individuals who are on death's door to journey to the nearest graveyard and provoke the churchyard drake into killing them.
Companion Drake
In exchange for a sizeable donation to the Church, a wealthy noble family can procure one of these creatures to educate their children in the ways of court manners, history, and even the many languages of the empire. These drakes are often referred to as the Children of Sirion, as the patron saint of teachers is said to have bestowed the first companion drake upon the son of then-emperor Constantius the First.
Lifelong Companions
A companion drake is traditionally conjured and appointed to a child on their tenth birthday, to remain in their service for life. In some rare cases, a companion drake can be passed on to a younger sibling if the drake has enough remaining years left to raise the second child as well.
Fierce Protectors
In addition to education, these drakes serve as a bodyguard to their charge, protecting it from the many dangers they may face in the trecherous world of courtly nobility. Far fiercer than any guard dog and with a mind for tactics, companion drakes are loyal to the death in defending their pupils.
Forest Drake
Forest Drakes are among the few species of drakes that are brought into existence directly by the Dragon Gods themselves, rather than by the akregian clergy. They serve to protect forested areas that are sacred, such as ancient battlegrounds or places of worship.
Harbor Drake
In the North Bay, the murky depths are home to schools of harbor drakes, bloodthirsty creatures that combine the deadliest traits of sharks and sea serpents.
Harbor drakes live and travel in small pods of 5-15, though this number can vary greatly depending on the food sources available. Some estimates place the populations in and around the Capitol Harbor at nearly 25 to a pod.
Serpentine Horrors
A harbor drake is a frightening visage to behold; a narrow reptilian head houses two full rows of needle-like teeth, trailed by a long, serpentine body that can grow to over two meters long. Their scaly hide is a bright azure blue when they hatch, though this color fades to a pale seafoam near the end of their lifespan. Their dorsal fins are as venomous as their teeth, though they lack the coordination to utilize them offensively.
Bloodthirsty but Obedient
Harbor drakes are feral creatures that attack almost anything they think they can eat, but they respond to the draconic language as immediately as any other species of drake. Many an overboard sailor's life has been spared by knowing the draconic word for "friend." A basic understanding of some simple draconic phrases is considering essential learning for most akregian sailors.
Life Finds a Way
Though the harbor drakes share the same conjured origin as the other species of drakes, their existence is one step removed from their cousins' existence of servitude. Their original purpose was to protect the North Bay from invaders and natural predators, but whether by some fluke of design or by external influence, harbor drakes have somehow gained the ability to breed and reproduce naturally, although their lifespan still seems limited to 20 years and their deaths are just as explosive as other drakes'.
War Drake
In the most dire of battles, when all may seem lost, the appearance of even a single war drake in the skies above can be enough to bolster the morale of entire armies. These beasts have turned the tides in countless conflicts, as they rain fire and lightning down on the enemy.
Rewards for the Valorous
The war drakes are the ultimate reward for the valorous dragon knights of the Church, and serve as much as a badge of honor as they do a companion of war. The two become inseperable, and it is not uncommon for the death of a dragon knight to send their war drake into a frenzied rage, diving into the front lines in a suicidal fury.
Varying Forms
Each war drake has an entirely unique appearance; some bear jet-black scales with a cobra's hood, while others are gleaming red and gold with a leonine mane surounding its head and shoulders. The visage of the war drake is thought to be a reflection of its knight's personality.
Breath Weapons
Of all the drakes, the war drake boasts perhaps the most fearsome of combat capabilities; the drake can exhale gouts of flames and bolts of lightning at foes, allowing it to rain down death upon its enemies from above the line of battle.
Conjure Drake
2-level Conjuration
Ritual - does not require spell slot, takes 10 minutes longerYou conjure a dragon of CR 2 or lower from the elements to fulfill a particular goal. As part of the summoning, you must dictate a specific task for the conjured creature to accomplish, such as delivering a message to a particular person, protecting a place or object, or hunting down and retrieving/killing a target creature.
The DM has the statistics for the chosen creature. The dragon acts on your initiative in combat and follows any commands you give it, so long as they are spoken in a language it understands (typically draconic). The dragon remains for 1 hour, until the task you give it is accomplished, or until it is reduced to 0 hp, at which point its spirit is violently returned to its original plane and the spell ends.
If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the challenge rating increases by 1 for each slot level above 2nd.
If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 7th level or higher, the spell's duration becomes twenty years or until the drake is killed, and after one hour of concentration the dragon is freed from your control and acts of its own accord, though it may still regard you as an ally depending on your previous treatment of it.
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