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~magarnan
Happily married to the beautiful
As for who am I? I am a Soldier by Profession, Writer, Metal Worker, Caster, builder of things, occasional Drawer by hobby.
A note on collab commissions/gift art/fan art:
Collab Commissions: I've been getting several requests on this in the past, and here's what I ask. If I do not know you, please refrain from asking for collab commissions, as at this point the only way I'm going to do it is if I know you, or if it's one of the "freebie" slots I'm offering to folks. Too many of the request have been on topics I do not care to do a collab on (particularly porn, I do not have interest in a porn piece with a stranger), or topics are just not me. Please accept the 'thank you, but no' should I decline a collab.
Gift art/fan art: All I ask is you don't make porn of my characters. I invest enough time and creativity to develop them I'd prefer they not get boiled down to another "hey, I've seen this lewd of so and so" type character.
Trello of current and future ideas I am planning or currently commissioning.
A few groups on topics I enjoy:
As for who am I? I am a Soldier by Profession, Writer, Metal Worker, Caster, builder of things, occasional Drawer by hobby.
A note on collab commissions/gift art/fan art:
Collab Commissions: I've been getting several requests on this in the past, and here's what I ask. If I do not know you, please refrain from asking for collab commissions, as at this point the only way I'm going to do it is if I know you, or if it's one of the "freebie" slots I'm offering to folks. Too many of the request have been on topics I do not care to do a collab on (particularly porn, I do not have interest in a porn piece with a stranger), or topics are just not me. Please accept the 'thank you, but no' should I decline a collab.
Gift art/fan art: All I ask is you don't make porn of my characters. I invest enough time and creativity to develop them I'd prefer they not get boiled down to another "hey, I've seen this lewd of so and so" type character.
Trello of current and future ideas I am planning or currently commissioning.
A few groups on topics I enjoy:
Featured Submission
Stats
Comments Earned: 3021
Comments Made: 2310
Journals: 13
Comments Made: 2310
Journals: 13
Featured Journal
In Regards to Draknians and Creating OC's
6 years ago
Man, first off, I truly do appreciate the positive feedback from folks on the release of the Draknian species! The comments and interest in them have been greatly appreciated!
With that, I'm making thing journal for the purpose of answering some of the questions I've received in regards to creating one as an OC of one's own (and I'll provide a link to this on each of the information sheet pages, rather than write it into one or more of the sheets and clutter it up with non-world building stuff).
Firstly, I'll go ahead and state that the Draknians are an "open species."
Though I don't fully understand the whole "open" or "closed" species thing in all honest, since folks are pretty well free to make their own character designs based on a concept they enjoy (as long as they aren't profiting from them). It is a thing I see all the time, and I'm not really certain there's any legal ground to enforce the whole "closed species" thing anyway (not that I'd have any interest in such control). I've no plans to make it a "closed species," as it just seems to me to be a rather tedious thing to try and control.
There is just one thing that I do ask for any who do decide to create their own Draknian OC/design. I just ask that the character not be created or used expressly for the creation of adult or pornographic material. That is not to ask that no adult material at all be made of it, as such things are a part of one's experience and can be quite artistic, I just ask that it be used more in a story telling/character development way, and that the majority of the work for it not be pornographic.
That said, I am well aware that there's really nothing I can do to truly enforce that, I at the very least want to make an appeal to people's decency in regards to this.
At any rate, for those who do decide to create their own Draknian OC, I do hope to see the stories that are created around them! And if you have any specific questions in regards to the species, its characteristics, or how to build one that would be "canonically correct," feel free to ask, I'd be more than happy to discuss it!
BREAK
Edit: The following is just information about the species I've copied and pasted from questions just so I can have it in one place. It'll be rather disorganized, as it'll be straight up "copy pasted" conversations I had based on the questions which contain the in detail idea, but is unrefined, as it is contained in a conversation. May organize these later.
Questions reference further anatomical info
Question: This sounds like an interesting concept and I'd be down to give it a go. Given the crystal and their influence on expressing emotion, would i be correct in assuming that they don't cry as in the ref?
Answer: Hey Rhyu! Glad it sounds like an interesting concept! As far as the tears question, well, while the primary way you'd be able to see feeling in the Draknian species is through the colors shown by the crystals, I would say that they still have the physiological capacity of it (as tear ducts are an important part of eye health regardless of species), so they have the capacity for it. Hmmmm, sorry for the bit of a tangent (and to kind of mull over it as I write), I'd say since they are capable of it, but it is a thing that is very seldom, only for the strongest of moments- and I'd expect this would be one for Drakor. So yeah, it is possible, and given the depth of feeling, it can be expressed, particularly if it really helps amplify the feeling effect.
Question: Quick question, I checked out your detail reference, but to confirm since there aren't a lot of detailed images, for the face/neck would both the light and dark areas have the larger fine scales (top texture example on the anatomy sheet), or is it different for the face?
Answer: Hey Rhyu! No worries, been pretty well busy in a place with limited phone/net access anyway, so all good on that! And thus far it is looking grand, the expression is looking powerfully grieved, and catches it quite nicely!
And for the question, just a couple of moments, as acknowledge there are not a lot of detail images, so let me look at a couple of things (to include if there are any notes that I might have forgotten to put up). Alright, looked at a couple of things, and I don't have any specific notes on it, but conceptually thinking, I imagine the face would largely be type 1 scales, with them tapering into type 3 scales from the forehead up to the horns, and jawline (i.e. the softer finer scales will be in the areas where the face has more moving parts and needs to have mobility, and the coarser, less fine scales are in areas that don't require mobility and are slightly more durable to be more protective). Sorry if that is a bit convoluted in the answer, but I'd say base it on where you'd expect the face to need to move to the type of scale on it, and I'm comfortable to trust your judgement to place them based on where you'd expect there to be movement on the head.
If I missed anything or more details (or clarifications, as I acknowledge I might have been a bit convoluted in my answer X'D ), please let me know, will be happy to answer!
Question: No worries, that's about what I expected, but I wanted to make sure without making assumptions! I wasn't sure if maybe the face was even smooth with the rougher scale detail on the extremities only. One more, for the horns themselves, would they have the type 3 scales, or even be more smooth or another texture?
Answer: Thank ya! I appreciate the ask and attention to detail :) As for the horns, they would be (fairly) smooth, depending on the life each Draknian lived. The scales just transition pretty subtly from scale to the keratin-like material. Since I've based much of the design of the Draknians off real reptilian features, for the horns I'd compare it to how the horns on the Flat-Tailed Lizard or the Horned Lizard look:
Flat-Tail Lizard: http://reptilesofaz.org/Graphics/Li.....RMCA-2005h.jpg
Horned Lizard- https://thephotonaturalist.com/2012.....h-tx-_3003070/
One other of the Horned Lizard, or as we call them colloquially in Texas, "horny toad": http://reptilesofaz.org/Graphics/Li.....SOL-h-2004.jpg
I like that comparison, because in each of those animals, while the horns get to be smooth and are keratin, they still have pretty well a similar coloration/pattern to the rest of the animal.
Hope that helps answer the question!
General questions on Draknians, weaknesses, strengths, and other topics:
Questions/Concerns:
What are their weaknesses? Do they have any current predators or species that used to prey on them or their eggs? Do they have any illnesses? Do they need to defecate or let out unneeded matter? While that last one may be disgusting, these topics do help ground them and prevent it from feeling like almighty super beasts or too godly. If they can live for a really long time and aren't particularly slow movers (locomotion wise), then there's gotta be some drawbacks. Maybe some species they are co-dependent on to make their food. Or limited population.
What do they eat? Energy don't come from nowhere. It could be ether or magma or rocks but gotta be something. And it should probably be something that is made regularly, otherwise if they just eat the rocks of a mountain range, they'll eventually run out and need to move somewhere else. Maybe it's rock plants, with roots that tap into magma veins. However, you handle it, it's an important part of survival and ecosystems that should be known.
The black crystal seems a bit much. I can accept the crystal displaying moods, black stands out as the only one displaying 'intent'. Which has a lot of problems.
1. Intent is subjective. No matter how much we wish to believe it, what one person views as evil, another may see as good. I doubt crystals attune themselves to what intent is good or evil based on everyone else's crystals. Moving away from the image, even the description of is as malice would put it more towards anger.
2. Can any of them lie w/o having black crystals? Even if it only turns black with the intent of grand destruction, what if one sought to do that through diplomacy? Idk if it's a good idea to have villains that are that easily identified.
3. It kind of feels like black should be something else. Like an overwhelming sense of every emotion due to traumatic stress to contrast the neutral of white. Or an intense cognitive failure to control your own mind or brain. Maybe even a sign of death or depression with it turning grayer. I'll include more of these thoughts in a suggestions portion since this can easily reach outside of the main topic. But it does feel like black needs to be more considered than its current iteration.
Is the color of the crystal automatic or is it a conscious thing they project onto it?
What do they make their clothes out of? Do they trade with other species for wool? Can they make clothes out of rocks? Maybe it's vines that grow on the mountains. Either way, attire is likely informed by the resources you have and worth keeping in mind.
For telepathy, do they send the a crystal to who they’re talking to? If a draknian sent one of their crystals towards another draknian, would they be able to hear their thoughts? Idk if this is important but felt worth considering.
Since kids usually adopt their parent’s job… which parent do they get it from? You could say both parents usually have the same job, but that’d probably lead to a lot of inbreeding. Probably worth avoiding that. Maybe should consider a matrilineal or patrilineal descent. Worth reading up on kinship groups in anthropology for this stuff.
Suggestions/Ideas:
I'm not quite sure if crystals are reflective and absorb/reflect light that hits them, or luminescent and produce their own light. I'd guess the latter, since they're using the crystal to channel their powers, so I imagine energy is flowed through it. So it'd glow brighter with stronger emotion and dimmer while sleeping or something (maybe even pulsing while dreaming like REM sleep). Losing all light upon death. Honestly, I'd maybe just make black represent stress. With shades of grey in between.
[I was going to speculate here on how that'd effect other colors but then I came up with my fourth point in the section above so it'd probably best be saved for a discussion on how you'd want to handle this stuff.]
Might be neat to consider the Draknians less as the reptiles and more as the crystals being tied to a body. The eggs are just a bunch of crystals fused together and given time to form a body they are bonded with. And when they die, the crystals are just packed together by other members of the species to make a new egg. Idk, was a neat thought that crossed my mind but you certainly
don’t have to go down that route. [Then I realized I just described Steven Universe’s gems and began to question if I should delete this or not. If this makes it in, then I decided not to]
Things I Thought About But Didn't Know How To Address:
Why do I act like magic needs balance in a species? How does Avatar: The Last Airbender get away with it when I feel more critical of it here? Is it because what I ask could have more influence over it? Or because of details like that blood is hemocyanin, that attempt to ground it more in reality than fantasy? Should I approach it more as fantasy?
Answers:
Contained in the following links as my lazy ass wrote them down but failed to put them in digital form (other than pictures) just yet-
Answer set 1
Answer set 2
With that, I'm making thing journal for the purpose of answering some of the questions I've received in regards to creating one as an OC of one's own (and I'll provide a link to this on each of the information sheet pages, rather than write it into one or more of the sheets and clutter it up with non-world building stuff).
Firstly, I'll go ahead and state that the Draknians are an "open species."
Though I don't fully understand the whole "open" or "closed" species thing in all honest, since folks are pretty well free to make their own character designs based on a concept they enjoy (as long as they aren't profiting from them). It is a thing I see all the time, and I'm not really certain there's any legal ground to enforce the whole "closed species" thing anyway (not that I'd have any interest in such control). I've no plans to make it a "closed species," as it just seems to me to be a rather tedious thing to try and control.
There is just one thing that I do ask for any who do decide to create their own Draknian OC/design. I just ask that the character not be created or used expressly for the creation of adult or pornographic material. That is not to ask that no adult material at all be made of it, as such things are a part of one's experience and can be quite artistic, I just ask that it be used more in a story telling/character development way, and that the majority of the work for it not be pornographic.
That said, I am well aware that there's really nothing I can do to truly enforce that, I at the very least want to make an appeal to people's decency in regards to this.
At any rate, for those who do decide to create their own Draknian OC, I do hope to see the stories that are created around them! And if you have any specific questions in regards to the species, its characteristics, or how to build one that would be "canonically correct," feel free to ask, I'd be more than happy to discuss it!
BREAK
Edit: The following is just information about the species I've copied and pasted from questions just so I can have it in one place. It'll be rather disorganized, as it'll be straight up "copy pasted" conversations I had based on the questions which contain the in detail idea, but is unrefined, as it is contained in a conversation. May organize these later.
Questions reference further anatomical info
Question: This sounds like an interesting concept and I'd be down to give it a go. Given the crystal and their influence on expressing emotion, would i be correct in assuming that they don't cry as in the ref?
Answer: Hey Rhyu! Glad it sounds like an interesting concept! As far as the tears question, well, while the primary way you'd be able to see feeling in the Draknian species is through the colors shown by the crystals, I would say that they still have the physiological capacity of it (as tear ducts are an important part of eye health regardless of species), so they have the capacity for it. Hmmmm, sorry for the bit of a tangent (and to kind of mull over it as I write), I'd say since they are capable of it, but it is a thing that is very seldom, only for the strongest of moments- and I'd expect this would be one for Drakor. So yeah, it is possible, and given the depth of feeling, it can be expressed, particularly if it really helps amplify the feeling effect.
Question: Quick question, I checked out your detail reference, but to confirm since there aren't a lot of detailed images, for the face/neck would both the light and dark areas have the larger fine scales (top texture example on the anatomy sheet), or is it different for the face?
Answer: Hey Rhyu! No worries, been pretty well busy in a place with limited phone/net access anyway, so all good on that! And thus far it is looking grand, the expression is looking powerfully grieved, and catches it quite nicely!
And for the question, just a couple of moments, as acknowledge there are not a lot of detail images, so let me look at a couple of things (to include if there are any notes that I might have forgotten to put up). Alright, looked at a couple of things, and I don't have any specific notes on it, but conceptually thinking, I imagine the face would largely be type 1 scales, with them tapering into type 3 scales from the forehead up to the horns, and jawline (i.e. the softer finer scales will be in the areas where the face has more moving parts and needs to have mobility, and the coarser, less fine scales are in areas that don't require mobility and are slightly more durable to be more protective). Sorry if that is a bit convoluted in the answer, but I'd say base it on where you'd expect the face to need to move to the type of scale on it, and I'm comfortable to trust your judgement to place them based on where you'd expect there to be movement on the head.
If I missed anything or more details (or clarifications, as I acknowledge I might have been a bit convoluted in my answer X'D ), please let me know, will be happy to answer!
Question: No worries, that's about what I expected, but I wanted to make sure without making assumptions! I wasn't sure if maybe the face was even smooth with the rougher scale detail on the extremities only. One more, for the horns themselves, would they have the type 3 scales, or even be more smooth or another texture?
Answer: Thank ya! I appreciate the ask and attention to detail :) As for the horns, they would be (fairly) smooth, depending on the life each Draknian lived. The scales just transition pretty subtly from scale to the keratin-like material. Since I've based much of the design of the Draknians off real reptilian features, for the horns I'd compare it to how the horns on the Flat-Tailed Lizard or the Horned Lizard look:
Flat-Tail Lizard: http://reptilesofaz.org/Graphics/Li.....RMCA-2005h.jpg
Horned Lizard- https://thephotonaturalist.com/2012.....h-tx-_3003070/
One other of the Horned Lizard, or as we call them colloquially in Texas, "horny toad": http://reptilesofaz.org/Graphics/Li.....SOL-h-2004.jpg
I like that comparison, because in each of those animals, while the horns get to be smooth and are keratin, they still have pretty well a similar coloration/pattern to the rest of the animal.
Hope that helps answer the question!
General questions on Draknians, weaknesses, strengths, and other topics:
Questions/Concerns:
What are their weaknesses? Do they have any current predators or species that used to prey on them or their eggs? Do they have any illnesses? Do they need to defecate or let out unneeded matter? While that last one may be disgusting, these topics do help ground them and prevent it from feeling like almighty super beasts or too godly. If they can live for a really long time and aren't particularly slow movers (locomotion wise), then there's gotta be some drawbacks. Maybe some species they are co-dependent on to make their food. Or limited population.
What do they eat? Energy don't come from nowhere. It could be ether or magma or rocks but gotta be something. And it should probably be something that is made regularly, otherwise if they just eat the rocks of a mountain range, they'll eventually run out and need to move somewhere else. Maybe it's rock plants, with roots that tap into magma veins. However, you handle it, it's an important part of survival and ecosystems that should be known.
The black crystal seems a bit much. I can accept the crystal displaying moods, black stands out as the only one displaying 'intent'. Which has a lot of problems.
1. Intent is subjective. No matter how much we wish to believe it, what one person views as evil, another may see as good. I doubt crystals attune themselves to what intent is good or evil based on everyone else's crystals. Moving away from the image, even the description of is as malice would put it more towards anger.
2. Can any of them lie w/o having black crystals? Even if it only turns black with the intent of grand destruction, what if one sought to do that through diplomacy? Idk if it's a good idea to have villains that are that easily identified.
3. It kind of feels like black should be something else. Like an overwhelming sense of every emotion due to traumatic stress to contrast the neutral of white. Or an intense cognitive failure to control your own mind or brain. Maybe even a sign of death or depression with it turning grayer. I'll include more of these thoughts in a suggestions portion since this can easily reach outside of the main topic. But it does feel like black needs to be more considered than its current iteration.
Is the color of the crystal automatic or is it a conscious thing they project onto it?
What do they make their clothes out of? Do they trade with other species for wool? Can they make clothes out of rocks? Maybe it's vines that grow on the mountains. Either way, attire is likely informed by the resources you have and worth keeping in mind.
For telepathy, do they send the a crystal to who they’re talking to? If a draknian sent one of their crystals towards another draknian, would they be able to hear their thoughts? Idk if this is important but felt worth considering.
Since kids usually adopt their parent’s job… which parent do they get it from? You could say both parents usually have the same job, but that’d probably lead to a lot of inbreeding. Probably worth avoiding that. Maybe should consider a matrilineal or patrilineal descent. Worth reading up on kinship groups in anthropology for this stuff.
Suggestions/Ideas:
I'm not quite sure if crystals are reflective and absorb/reflect light that hits them, or luminescent and produce their own light. I'd guess the latter, since they're using the crystal to channel their powers, so I imagine energy is flowed through it. So it'd glow brighter with stronger emotion and dimmer while sleeping or something (maybe even pulsing while dreaming like REM sleep). Losing all light upon death. Honestly, I'd maybe just make black represent stress. With shades of grey in between.
[I was going to speculate here on how that'd effect other colors but then I came up with my fourth point in the section above so it'd probably best be saved for a discussion on how you'd want to handle this stuff.]
Might be neat to consider the Draknians less as the reptiles and more as the crystals being tied to a body. The eggs are just a bunch of crystals fused together and given time to form a body they are bonded with. And when they die, the crystals are just packed together by other members of the species to make a new egg. Idk, was a neat thought that crossed my mind but you certainly
don’t have to go down that route. [Then I realized I just described Steven Universe’s gems and began to question if I should delete this or not. If this makes it in, then I decided not to]
Things I Thought About But Didn't Know How To Address:
Why do I act like magic needs balance in a species? How does Avatar: The Last Airbender get away with it when I feel more critical of it here? Is it because what I ask could have more influence over it? Or because of details like that blood is hemocyanin, that attempt to ground it more in reality than fantasy? Should I approach it more as fantasy?
Answers:
Contained in the following links as my lazy ass wrote them down but failed to put them in digital form (other than pictures) just yet-
Answer set 1
Answer set 2
User Profile
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Metal, Classic, Orchestral, Soundtracks
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Canids, large cats, most reptiles
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"-had to be me, someone else might've gotten it wrong" -Mordin
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Too many to list now, to be quite honest, after having met so many lovely folk at cons.
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And yeah...i certainly wouldn't mind some cons again at this point...
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