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Tu Shanshu App
Aug. 2nd, 2013 12:51 amPlayer Information:
Name: Siobhan
Age: 25
Contact: aim: blitztsunami | email: israfel1030@gmail.com | plurk: fiercebadrabbit | dw: fiercebadrabbit
Game Cast: None
Character Information:
Name: Kazul
Canon: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
Canon Point: Following the events of Talking to Dragons
Age: Several hundred years
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Forest_Chronicles
Setting: The Enchanted Forest and surrounding kingdoms are fantasy lands that work by explicit and self-aware fairy tale rules. On the surface, it’s a realm of dragons and princesses, knights and wizards, all at odds in more or less the usual ways. Magical swords are a common point of contention. However, the whole universe contrives to serve the needs of the genre-savvy. Inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest know never to agree to a task without understanding exactly what it entails, for instance, and children whose success has been predicted by soothsayers are sent to special hero academies. It’s wisest to prepare for clear eventualities, and when someone does step out of line with the conventions of narrative, there’s generally someone trying to fit them back into the mold. The clever are usually successful in playing the game, though. Witches who are insufficiently witch-like receive official complaints about the number of petunias in their gardens versus the number of invisible dusk-blooming chokevines, but the complainers wind up thoroughly cursed. The heir to a straw-into-gold spinning empire finds himself saddled with a few dozen babies belonging to girls too dim to learn his name, so he founds a boarding school with very high tuition. Great, predatory birds that attack maidens find that some maidens carry enchanted blades, too.
The heroes of the novels are paramount successes at beating fairy tales at their own game. The Queen of the Enchanted Forest was once a princess who tired of embroidery lessons and volunteered to be a dragon’s captive for the fun of it. Her son, in turn, knew to always be polite to dragons, and won back his stolen throne mainly by being pleasant and cautious rather than rising to the hero-bait. And the king of the dragons crushed her enemies and set herself up for a long and fruitful reign by taking advice and allies where they came instead of sitting on top of a mountain breathing fire.
While the world is full of small kingdoms and strange stories, most of the action immediately surrounds the Enchanted Forest and a few nearby regions. Locally, the major factions are the Society of Wizards versus... everybody. While a few wizards are outside the society and relatively benign, as spellcasters go, they are uniquely unpleasant. Their entire method of practicing magic depends on leeching power away from everyone else. Their staffs store both power and spells, and a wizard without a staff is very nearly useless, and very angry. The staffs usually just slurp up any magic in the vicinity, but magical creatures tend to fight the effects, and a wizard who attempts to absorb the magic of a fire witch will find his staff slightly exploded. In addition to being irritating parasites, the Society of Wizards are a power-hungry, manipulative lot, prone to stealing magical artifacts and individuals and orchestrating conflicts just to take advantage of the chaos. Fortunately, one can melt a wizard with a bucket of soapy water with lemon, or a single word if you know the right magicians. It comes in handy if you find them sneaking around your castle or kingdom.
They are absolutely banned from the Mountains of Morning, where Kazul rules. The mountains are barren and dangerous, full of odd monsters and foreboding giants as well as dragons, but the well-informed visitor is unlikely to have much trouble, unlike a wizard. Dragons won’t eat anyone they’ve been properly introduced to. Much too polite. Under the mountains, caverns full of dragons, dwarves, and far stranger things honeycomb the rock, stuffed with treasure and enchantments, tempting any adventurers who might want to come along. Some of those tunnels lead to the Enchanted Forest, if one prefers the underground route.
The Enchanted Forest is even denser with the strange and dangerous than the mountains. While ruled by a pleasant and reasonably wise human family, the bulk of the inhabitants of the forest are, as a rule, much more bizarre and brimming with potentially dangerous power. Talking animals, mischievous little imps, carnivorous plant life, and floating blue winged donkeys that used to be small brown rabbits are among the oddities one will regularly encounter, all with varying degrees of sentience. Even the air thrums with magic, and the trees and moss are bursting with the stuff. The forest’s geography is both magical and distinctly lively, shifting various features back and forth in space and twisting so the unwary will wind up thoroughly lost. Notable witches and magicians are generally alright, like the cat enthusiast Morwen or indefatigably loquacious Mendenbar, to note some particularly useful individuals. The removal of magic (as occurs when a wizard makes use of his staff; there’s a reason they don’t get along with people very well) causes the plants to die and the forest to lock itself in place, allowing all sorts of adventurers and princesses to go unenchanted/uneaten. Can’t have that sort of thing. Besides, the wizards took it upon themselves not only to kidnap the king of the dragons but to steal the sword that controls and channels the magic of the forest in the hands of the king.
So war was inevitable, and the wizards, after a very long stalemate, lost. The Society of Wizards was largely exterminated in the final victory, and control of the Enchanted Forest returned to the royal family, including a queen who had once been Kazul’s dear old volunteer princess. She got another one out of the deal, a young fire witch who seemed bound to be the next queen, thanks to her fractious entanglement with Prince Daystar.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to make cherries jubilee quite yet, but all in all, everyone is busily living happily ever after.
Personality: Kazul was born to a good family, but lived an unremarkable if successful life for her first few centuries. She chose her name and gender fairly early, inherited an extensive treasury and library from her mother, and quickly established herself as a respectable sort of dragon. She thought quite well of herself then, but in a realistic way, assuming that any greatness that came her way would come with age and possibly luck. She focused on careful status jockeying of the kind dragons cannot neglect and built herself a network of friends and allies of a less than traditional bent, including as many witches and giants as dragons in her machinations. There was no particular purpose to her maneuvering, just habit and the fun of being right and important (and, of course, dangerous). She was once a very ordinary dragon, if one possessed of a unique and persistent cleverness under the surface, and with a gift for social maneuvering.
Her life took a surprising change when a princess volunteered to be her captive. While untraditional, it turned out to be very useful, and Kazul began to be a bit more openly flexible in her approach to getting things done. The spindly little human was intelligent and industrious, an excellent cook (Kazul had a special weakness for cherries jubilee), and turned out to be a dab hand at uncovering conspiracies and mysteries. Kazul’s world expanded just a little almost without her noticing it, and she endorsed and aided Princess Cimorene’s investigations, turning her critical eye on dragon society and politics she had formerly let slide by for the most part. She began to invest herself more deeply and think more particularly, though she wouldn’t have admitted the effect that a little human and a few untoward puzzles had on her.
And then she wound up king of the dragons. (It is worth noting, for the benefit of the squishily human, that “king of the dragons” is the name of the job, and has nothing to do with the gender of the dragon who holds the position. Queen of the dragons is a very dull sort of job, and the position is usually vacant.) Her success at the trial came as a complete surprise, especially as she was recovering from poisoning at the time. Her old belief that she was fundamentally ordinary and had to play by the rules fell entirely by the wayside. Kazul’s ego expanded accordingly, as did her occasional bouts of righteous temper. Being royal ought to be some fun. But there was a sorry side to the event that educated her as well. Cimorene uncovered the fact that it was a longtime friend who had poisoned the last king and conspired with wizards to win the throne, quite stripping away any lingering naivety about the honor and traditions of dragons. Kazul was set to be a very young (why, she only had a handful of grandchildren), very confident, and very untraditional king. Her first act was banning the wizards entirely from the Mountains of Morning, just to make a point. She hadn’t even been crowned yet.
And then she was kidnapped by vengeful wizards, trying to start a war they could take advantage of. And to make matters worse, she had to be saved by her princess. The experience tipped her already dragonish temperament a little further toward the readily homicidal. It certainly didn’t help that she was, like all dragons, allergic to wizards as well as enraged by them. The incident deepened her grudge and hardened her general resolve. She went from a young, untested king who had mainly her own force of personality to lean on to a ruthless warrior with a wealth of unique experience at a go. And it deepened her bond with Cimorene and the other helpful humans, even if being rescued made her grumpy. She’d always been fond of her little two-legged friends and willing to find them useful, but they moved into a category shared mainly with her grandchildren. She felt responsible for them, wanted to protect them, enjoyed the chance to get angry on their behalf, and kept it mostly to herself that she thought them a little bit slow. Kazul was perfectly happy to be a king, but it did damage her ability to form friendships that weren’t at least a little condescending.
Thus tested, Kazul became a particularly unique king, allying herself freely with humans, especially the royalty and magic-users of the nearby Enchanted Forest. She didn’t trust entirely in the superiority of dragons in all things, just most, and valued politeness on her part almost as much as on everyone else’s. She never doubted her own effectiveness, and did, undeniably, develop quite problem with stubbornness, especially when angry. Her temper was generally unguarded and she occasionally had to be restrained from breathing fire on everything that annoyed her, but anyone who’d dare disagree with her had fairly immediate cause to regret it. She almost never had to eat anybody to prove a point, but if someone were to suggest a nice half-dozen sandwiches in lieu of an offending wizard, they’d be disappointed.
Ultimately, the wizards got their war, but it was them against the combined forces of the dragons and Enchanted Forest. The battle still managed to drag on for the better part of twenty years, during which Kazul came into her own among her own people, rather than just impressing the two-leggers and harassing wizards in the toothiest way possible. She solidified her power, she wiped out her old enemies, and she saw her plans come to fruition. Self-satisfied and unshakably confident, undefeated and to her mind undefeatable, she became even more intimidating than a multi-ton, fire-breathing dinosaur usually would be. And a bit insufferable, unless you were very good at etiquette battles.
But she could be affectionate still, if only in a dragony sort of way. Her human friends had her as mentor, guardian, and frequent houseguest (it wouldn’t really occur to her to worry about how the cook would cope with that), and she was fondly tolerant of her grandchildren, if stern, frequently taking short trips to see how they were doing. She had a sarcastic streak that only got wider as she came into sufficient power that no one was going to complain, and her little bursts of fiery anger persisted, but she knew the power of politeness and reason, the only way to get anything done in the Enchanted Forest. She took advantage of the library and treasury of the king of the dragons to feed a natural curiosity that had been with her since she was a hatchling, inheriting her mother’s pretties and looking forward to a life of calm respectability.
Arriving unexpectedly in a pocket dimension on top of a turtle, while not so far outside Kazul’s experience as to really confuse her, will come as an affront. She is the king of the dragons and does not approve of being at someone else’s beck and call. The memories of her brief but very unpleasant captivity at the hands of the Society of Wizards will make her nervier than she’d admit to, but at least she’s not being kept in a magical bubble, and that will pass. It’s mostly the principle of the thing, and the chance to find out interesting new things and meet interesting new people will eventually take the edge off her mood. She’ll remain irritable, but no one’s getting eaten, just bothered with questions or possibly imperious, snarky dismissals.
Appearance: Kazul is roughly thirty feet long, about a third of which is tail, which puts her on the large side for a dragon. Her scales are bright green and just beginning to gray a bit on the ends, hinting at the onset of middle age. She has exactly as many sharp, silvery teeth as could possibly fit in her mouth, three horns on her forehead (marking her as female), and green-gold eyes with slitted pupils. She’s comfortable reared up on two legs and using her tail for balance, and can even use her claws as hands if she’s very careful, but when she’s in a hurry she moves on all fours. A row of spikes runs down from the top of her head to the tip of her tail along her spine, and her wings tuck against her body comfortably when not in use.
Abilities: Kazul is proportionately strong, and with talons, claws, and an agile, heavy tail, she can be quite dangerous if she wants to. She’s not above eating humanoid creatures in a single bite, certainly. And, of course, she can fly. She breathes fire, which is magical in nature, particularly hot and difficult to defend against, though there are specific spells to counter it. She’s capable of doing magic in the sense of using spells and making potions, though she has no particular expertise and would need access to a spellbook for all but a few useful little charms. Any attempt to siphon off the magic she naturally produces results in a sneezing fit.
Inventory: None.
Suite: She’d like three floors (simply because she’s big for the most part, as dragon ideas of luxury are rather different from the human sort) in the wood sector. She may be a mountain creature by birth, but her time spent in the Enchanted Forest has been both soothing and formative, and also included fighting wizards. Dragons are very comfortable coiled around trees and other organic bits and pieces. Besides, she’s very fond of nooks and crannies. Treasure hoarding and absent-mindedness are hard habits to break.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person: Kazul threw her crown at the wall of the cave so hard the reverberation startled even her. That council meeting had gone on a little too long. The crown, made entirely of iron and easy to bend back into shape, was made for precisely that sort of treatment. No dragon, no matter how kingly, dealt well with the necessary evils of bureaucracy. She settled heavily on the floor of the cave with a smokey, self-pitying huff, indulging herself in petulance for a moment, but just a moment. Even the council couldn’t talk for that long without saying anything. Her tail twitched uneasily as the situation flowed over her.
The Society of Wizards was broken, but a few individuals went sadly un-melted, and that fellow with the long, silly name had apparently managed to finally get himself turned back into a human. Approximately human. Word was he was still faintly blue and occasionally honked like a donkey when excited, but he was bipedal enough to make trouble. There was a tournament and baking competition afoot down in the Enchanted Forest, which was slightly odd even by Mendanbar and Cimorene’s standards.
The King of the Dragons was allowed to take vacations. She’d established that years ago. Perhaps it was time to see what her daughter was up to out east. Maybe she could get that crepe recipe from Morwen and order Shiara to enter that baking contest as an excuse to get out of the castle for a bit.
She settled, after a long moment of consideration, to take a day down in the hot springs in the Caves of Fire and Night. It was a pastime mainly favored by dragons with far more gray on their scales than she had, but one nice thing about being king was that people were usually more pleased than anything else by the fact that the worst that could be said about a ruler was that she was a bit eccentric.
As she debated rising and heading down into the tunnels immediately, one of her young aids nosed the door open, a small, golden-green dragon who had yet to choose a gender or name. “Your Majesty? It... It may be nothing, but Roxim says he’s had an allergy attack, and no one could find any wizards, but...”
Kazul let out a short burst of flame that reached her abused crown and briefly made the tips glow orange, then stood, muttering complaints that the page politely pretended not to hear. The King of Dragons could take vacations, but it didn’t happen a lot.
Network:
[Kazul is used to posing for magic mirrors, and she knows how to look her most impressive even with just a little area to display herself. She sits back from the camera a bit, horns glimmering and teeth just a little on display while one wickedly taloned foot supports her chin.]
I haven’t been wrong-footed this way since I was just out of the egg. This kingdom isn’t the strangest one I’ve ever heard of, but I don’t enjoy not knowing who the useful people hereabouts are. I hate to go along not knowing a few witches and magicians I can consult with. Or who can cook. I particularly like cherries jubilee. And should you be pleasant enough to identify yourself, you’ll earn the gratitude of the king of the dragons. That should do.
Name: Siobhan
Age: 25
Contact: aim: blitztsunami | email: israfel1030@gmail.com | plurk: fiercebadrabbit | dw: fiercebadrabbit
Game Cast: None
Character Information:
Name: Kazul
Canon: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
Canon Point: Following the events of Talking to Dragons
Age: Several hundred years
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Forest_Chronicles
Setting: The Enchanted Forest and surrounding kingdoms are fantasy lands that work by explicit and self-aware fairy tale rules. On the surface, it’s a realm of dragons and princesses, knights and wizards, all at odds in more or less the usual ways. Magical swords are a common point of contention. However, the whole universe contrives to serve the needs of the genre-savvy. Inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest know never to agree to a task without understanding exactly what it entails, for instance, and children whose success has been predicted by soothsayers are sent to special hero academies. It’s wisest to prepare for clear eventualities, and when someone does step out of line with the conventions of narrative, there’s generally someone trying to fit them back into the mold. The clever are usually successful in playing the game, though. Witches who are insufficiently witch-like receive official complaints about the number of petunias in their gardens versus the number of invisible dusk-blooming chokevines, but the complainers wind up thoroughly cursed. The heir to a straw-into-gold spinning empire finds himself saddled with a few dozen babies belonging to girls too dim to learn his name, so he founds a boarding school with very high tuition. Great, predatory birds that attack maidens find that some maidens carry enchanted blades, too.
The heroes of the novels are paramount successes at beating fairy tales at their own game. The Queen of the Enchanted Forest was once a princess who tired of embroidery lessons and volunteered to be a dragon’s captive for the fun of it. Her son, in turn, knew to always be polite to dragons, and won back his stolen throne mainly by being pleasant and cautious rather than rising to the hero-bait. And the king of the dragons crushed her enemies and set herself up for a long and fruitful reign by taking advice and allies where they came instead of sitting on top of a mountain breathing fire.
While the world is full of small kingdoms and strange stories, most of the action immediately surrounds the Enchanted Forest and a few nearby regions. Locally, the major factions are the Society of Wizards versus... everybody. While a few wizards are outside the society and relatively benign, as spellcasters go, they are uniquely unpleasant. Their entire method of practicing magic depends on leeching power away from everyone else. Their staffs store both power and spells, and a wizard without a staff is very nearly useless, and very angry. The staffs usually just slurp up any magic in the vicinity, but magical creatures tend to fight the effects, and a wizard who attempts to absorb the magic of a fire witch will find his staff slightly exploded. In addition to being irritating parasites, the Society of Wizards are a power-hungry, manipulative lot, prone to stealing magical artifacts and individuals and orchestrating conflicts just to take advantage of the chaos. Fortunately, one can melt a wizard with a bucket of soapy water with lemon, or a single word if you know the right magicians. It comes in handy if you find them sneaking around your castle or kingdom.
They are absolutely banned from the Mountains of Morning, where Kazul rules. The mountains are barren and dangerous, full of odd monsters and foreboding giants as well as dragons, but the well-informed visitor is unlikely to have much trouble, unlike a wizard. Dragons won’t eat anyone they’ve been properly introduced to. Much too polite. Under the mountains, caverns full of dragons, dwarves, and far stranger things honeycomb the rock, stuffed with treasure and enchantments, tempting any adventurers who might want to come along. Some of those tunnels lead to the Enchanted Forest, if one prefers the underground route.
The Enchanted Forest is even denser with the strange and dangerous than the mountains. While ruled by a pleasant and reasonably wise human family, the bulk of the inhabitants of the forest are, as a rule, much more bizarre and brimming with potentially dangerous power. Talking animals, mischievous little imps, carnivorous plant life, and floating blue winged donkeys that used to be small brown rabbits are among the oddities one will regularly encounter, all with varying degrees of sentience. Even the air thrums with magic, and the trees and moss are bursting with the stuff. The forest’s geography is both magical and distinctly lively, shifting various features back and forth in space and twisting so the unwary will wind up thoroughly lost. Notable witches and magicians are generally alright, like the cat enthusiast Morwen or indefatigably loquacious Mendenbar, to note some particularly useful individuals. The removal of magic (as occurs when a wizard makes use of his staff; there’s a reason they don’t get along with people very well) causes the plants to die and the forest to lock itself in place, allowing all sorts of adventurers and princesses to go unenchanted/uneaten. Can’t have that sort of thing. Besides, the wizards took it upon themselves not only to kidnap the king of the dragons but to steal the sword that controls and channels the magic of the forest in the hands of the king.
So war was inevitable, and the wizards, after a very long stalemate, lost. The Society of Wizards was largely exterminated in the final victory, and control of the Enchanted Forest returned to the royal family, including a queen who had once been Kazul’s dear old volunteer princess. She got another one out of the deal, a young fire witch who seemed bound to be the next queen, thanks to her fractious entanglement with Prince Daystar.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to make cherries jubilee quite yet, but all in all, everyone is busily living happily ever after.
Personality: Kazul was born to a good family, but lived an unremarkable if successful life for her first few centuries. She chose her name and gender fairly early, inherited an extensive treasury and library from her mother, and quickly established herself as a respectable sort of dragon. She thought quite well of herself then, but in a realistic way, assuming that any greatness that came her way would come with age and possibly luck. She focused on careful status jockeying of the kind dragons cannot neglect and built herself a network of friends and allies of a less than traditional bent, including as many witches and giants as dragons in her machinations. There was no particular purpose to her maneuvering, just habit and the fun of being right and important (and, of course, dangerous). She was once a very ordinary dragon, if one possessed of a unique and persistent cleverness under the surface, and with a gift for social maneuvering.
Her life took a surprising change when a princess volunteered to be her captive. While untraditional, it turned out to be very useful, and Kazul began to be a bit more openly flexible in her approach to getting things done. The spindly little human was intelligent and industrious, an excellent cook (Kazul had a special weakness for cherries jubilee), and turned out to be a dab hand at uncovering conspiracies and mysteries. Kazul’s world expanded just a little almost without her noticing it, and she endorsed and aided Princess Cimorene’s investigations, turning her critical eye on dragon society and politics she had formerly let slide by for the most part. She began to invest herself more deeply and think more particularly, though she wouldn’t have admitted the effect that a little human and a few untoward puzzles had on her.
And then she wound up king of the dragons. (It is worth noting, for the benefit of the squishily human, that “king of the dragons” is the name of the job, and has nothing to do with the gender of the dragon who holds the position. Queen of the dragons is a very dull sort of job, and the position is usually vacant.) Her success at the trial came as a complete surprise, especially as she was recovering from poisoning at the time. Her old belief that she was fundamentally ordinary and had to play by the rules fell entirely by the wayside. Kazul’s ego expanded accordingly, as did her occasional bouts of righteous temper. Being royal ought to be some fun. But there was a sorry side to the event that educated her as well. Cimorene uncovered the fact that it was a longtime friend who had poisoned the last king and conspired with wizards to win the throne, quite stripping away any lingering naivety about the honor and traditions of dragons. Kazul was set to be a very young (why, she only had a handful of grandchildren), very confident, and very untraditional king. Her first act was banning the wizards entirely from the Mountains of Morning, just to make a point. She hadn’t even been crowned yet.
And then she was kidnapped by vengeful wizards, trying to start a war they could take advantage of. And to make matters worse, she had to be saved by her princess. The experience tipped her already dragonish temperament a little further toward the readily homicidal. It certainly didn’t help that she was, like all dragons, allergic to wizards as well as enraged by them. The incident deepened her grudge and hardened her general resolve. She went from a young, untested king who had mainly her own force of personality to lean on to a ruthless warrior with a wealth of unique experience at a go. And it deepened her bond with Cimorene and the other helpful humans, even if being rescued made her grumpy. She’d always been fond of her little two-legged friends and willing to find them useful, but they moved into a category shared mainly with her grandchildren. She felt responsible for them, wanted to protect them, enjoyed the chance to get angry on their behalf, and kept it mostly to herself that she thought them a little bit slow. Kazul was perfectly happy to be a king, but it did damage her ability to form friendships that weren’t at least a little condescending.
Thus tested, Kazul became a particularly unique king, allying herself freely with humans, especially the royalty and magic-users of the nearby Enchanted Forest. She didn’t trust entirely in the superiority of dragons in all things, just most, and valued politeness on her part almost as much as on everyone else’s. She never doubted her own effectiveness, and did, undeniably, develop quite problem with stubbornness, especially when angry. Her temper was generally unguarded and she occasionally had to be restrained from breathing fire on everything that annoyed her, but anyone who’d dare disagree with her had fairly immediate cause to regret it. She almost never had to eat anybody to prove a point, but if someone were to suggest a nice half-dozen sandwiches in lieu of an offending wizard, they’d be disappointed.
Ultimately, the wizards got their war, but it was them against the combined forces of the dragons and Enchanted Forest. The battle still managed to drag on for the better part of twenty years, during which Kazul came into her own among her own people, rather than just impressing the two-leggers and harassing wizards in the toothiest way possible. She solidified her power, she wiped out her old enemies, and she saw her plans come to fruition. Self-satisfied and unshakably confident, undefeated and to her mind undefeatable, she became even more intimidating than a multi-ton, fire-breathing dinosaur usually would be. And a bit insufferable, unless you were very good at etiquette battles.
But she could be affectionate still, if only in a dragony sort of way. Her human friends had her as mentor, guardian, and frequent houseguest (it wouldn’t really occur to her to worry about how the cook would cope with that), and she was fondly tolerant of her grandchildren, if stern, frequently taking short trips to see how they were doing. She had a sarcastic streak that only got wider as she came into sufficient power that no one was going to complain, and her little bursts of fiery anger persisted, but she knew the power of politeness and reason, the only way to get anything done in the Enchanted Forest. She took advantage of the library and treasury of the king of the dragons to feed a natural curiosity that had been with her since she was a hatchling, inheriting her mother’s pretties and looking forward to a life of calm respectability.
Arriving unexpectedly in a pocket dimension on top of a turtle, while not so far outside Kazul’s experience as to really confuse her, will come as an affront. She is the king of the dragons and does not approve of being at someone else’s beck and call. The memories of her brief but very unpleasant captivity at the hands of the Society of Wizards will make her nervier than she’d admit to, but at least she’s not being kept in a magical bubble, and that will pass. It’s mostly the principle of the thing, and the chance to find out interesting new things and meet interesting new people will eventually take the edge off her mood. She’ll remain irritable, but no one’s getting eaten, just bothered with questions or possibly imperious, snarky dismissals.
Appearance: Kazul is roughly thirty feet long, about a third of which is tail, which puts her on the large side for a dragon. Her scales are bright green and just beginning to gray a bit on the ends, hinting at the onset of middle age. She has exactly as many sharp, silvery teeth as could possibly fit in her mouth, three horns on her forehead (marking her as female), and green-gold eyes with slitted pupils. She’s comfortable reared up on two legs and using her tail for balance, and can even use her claws as hands if she’s very careful, but when she’s in a hurry she moves on all fours. A row of spikes runs down from the top of her head to the tip of her tail along her spine, and her wings tuck against her body comfortably when not in use.
Abilities: Kazul is proportionately strong, and with talons, claws, and an agile, heavy tail, she can be quite dangerous if she wants to. She’s not above eating humanoid creatures in a single bite, certainly. And, of course, she can fly. She breathes fire, which is magical in nature, particularly hot and difficult to defend against, though there are specific spells to counter it. She’s capable of doing magic in the sense of using spells and making potions, though she has no particular expertise and would need access to a spellbook for all but a few useful little charms. Any attempt to siphon off the magic she naturally produces results in a sneezing fit.
Inventory: None.
Suite: She’d like three floors (simply because she’s big for the most part, as dragon ideas of luxury are rather different from the human sort) in the wood sector. She may be a mountain creature by birth, but her time spent in the Enchanted Forest has been both soothing and formative, and also included fighting wizards. Dragons are very comfortable coiled around trees and other organic bits and pieces. Besides, she’s very fond of nooks and crannies. Treasure hoarding and absent-mindedness are hard habits to break.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person: Kazul threw her crown at the wall of the cave so hard the reverberation startled even her. That council meeting had gone on a little too long. The crown, made entirely of iron and easy to bend back into shape, was made for precisely that sort of treatment. No dragon, no matter how kingly, dealt well with the necessary evils of bureaucracy. She settled heavily on the floor of the cave with a smokey, self-pitying huff, indulging herself in petulance for a moment, but just a moment. Even the council couldn’t talk for that long without saying anything. Her tail twitched uneasily as the situation flowed over her.
The Society of Wizards was broken, but a few individuals went sadly un-melted, and that fellow with the long, silly name had apparently managed to finally get himself turned back into a human. Approximately human. Word was he was still faintly blue and occasionally honked like a donkey when excited, but he was bipedal enough to make trouble. There was a tournament and baking competition afoot down in the Enchanted Forest, which was slightly odd even by Mendanbar and Cimorene’s standards.
The King of the Dragons was allowed to take vacations. She’d established that years ago. Perhaps it was time to see what her daughter was up to out east. Maybe she could get that crepe recipe from Morwen and order Shiara to enter that baking contest as an excuse to get out of the castle for a bit.
She settled, after a long moment of consideration, to take a day down in the hot springs in the Caves of Fire and Night. It was a pastime mainly favored by dragons with far more gray on their scales than she had, but one nice thing about being king was that people were usually more pleased than anything else by the fact that the worst that could be said about a ruler was that she was a bit eccentric.
As she debated rising and heading down into the tunnels immediately, one of her young aids nosed the door open, a small, golden-green dragon who had yet to choose a gender or name. “Your Majesty? It... It may be nothing, but Roxim says he’s had an allergy attack, and no one could find any wizards, but...”
Kazul let out a short burst of flame that reached her abused crown and briefly made the tips glow orange, then stood, muttering complaints that the page politely pretended not to hear. The King of Dragons could take vacations, but it didn’t happen a lot.
Network:
[Kazul is used to posing for magic mirrors, and she knows how to look her most impressive even with just a little area to display herself. She sits back from the camera a bit, horns glimmering and teeth just a little on display while one wickedly taloned foot supports her chin.]
I haven’t been wrong-footed this way since I was just out of the egg. This kingdom isn’t the strangest one I’ve ever heard of, but I don’t enjoy not knowing who the useful people hereabouts are. I hate to go along not knowing a few witches and magicians I can consult with. Or who can cook. I particularly like cherries jubilee. And should you be pleasant enough to identify yourself, you’ll earn the gratitude of the king of the dragons. That should do.
