In last year's Nano, I did an utterly cliche and generally awful story about a kid who goes on adventures and finds a missing heir and overthrows evil. However, in this story I inserted two characters, which--since editing--has become a whole list of this race who interact with my MC. Because of this race, that one cliche Nano has become a trilogy. *winces* So anywho, this is the race. Please tell me what you all think. Honestly, too. Sometimes, I love this race to death, and at others, I feel like they are completely cheesy-ness

The Scale. A Scale is a type of dragon, more or less. If you have read the Dragon Keeper series by Donita K Paul, then think of a meech dragon. That will give you the best impression of what a Scale looks like.

Scales are dragon-men with small muzzles and large, sweeping tails for balance. They are built to walk on their hindlegs and are perfectly adept with speech and all manners of craft. Unlike the meech, they have no wings and--as a whole--no magical abilities. Instead, they rely on instinct and skill. As an example, I will use one of the char's from my story.

This Scale's name is Konri, and his title is quite simply 'The Heir of Scales'. In Avonloe, the capital of the Scalic race (Scalic being a term that I am still playing around with) there are many branches of rulers. First and foremost is the royal family. The king, the queen and their descendants. Konri is the son of King Nashon and will one day rule Avonloe.

In Avonloe, the term 'prince' takes on a whole new meaning. To the Scales, a prince is the greatest of all knights, a member of the king's innermost circle and a highly honored political figure. The princes themselves are some of the highest ranking officials and yet are subjects to the people and their foremost duties are to serve their king and the people. Not always in that order.

Of the Scales there are different types. A Desert Scale would usually have brown-to-grey mottled scales and would be able to live on much harsher conditions than a River Scale. Konri himself is a River Scale and has the ability to hold his breath underwater for roughly twenty minutes. There are also Mountain Scales and Forest Scales--supreme hunters of stealth. The Jeweled Scale is different in the fact that they have no natural camouflage. One might be bright purple or emerald green or gold. These tend to direct their attention to other duties than those in the field.

Most Scales will have a name four characters long: Konri, Trisk, Rylin, Zarek, etc. King Nashon is an exception of that rule because his mother was never fond of tradition--and also because I named him without realizing the extra letter problem.

This race--different from most dragons--also will wear disguises as humans and go out into other countries. These special masks and clothing allow the Scales to hide their tails and scaly, draconic features while still being able to move with ease. This is how my MC meets up with them. Some Scales, like Konri, prefer not to dress up.

Most Scales have strange weapons. One may used a blowdart tube, Konri has a large cutlass with notches in it for catching hold of his enemies' weapons, and still another has a metallic whip called a coil. Despite the fact that they are far superior fighters than the human race, Scales prefer to stanon-violent.

Many of the Scalic race are believers of Moshia (which is Hebrew--i believe-for 'Savior') and whole-heartedly follow him. All of the above list of names believe in The Shepherd, a name often used in reference to Moshia, but there are also a good many who do not believe.

I haven't read a lot of popular fantasy, so I can't speak for how cliche they may or may not be. However, in general I say that cliche shouldn't stop you from using them. Just try to add a unique spin, or do something unusual with them, to give your story a special flair.

I think they sound interesting! It sounds as if they might look a bit like dinosaurs, and I like dinosaurs. I especially like that they aren't magical; in my opinion, intelligence always tops magic. The ability to go disguised as a man has a lot of potential. I think the name Scalic sounds really neat; Scale is interesting, but Scalic has a historical intrigue to it.

How do they generally interact with humans? Do they serve humans, or are they equal? Are they warriors, or what is their occupation?

Did you mean to say 5 characters long?

I like them! You said their names are typically four characters long and then put down names with fives characters as examples. Is there only one Scale nation or several? Why do they hide their appearance, do the humans not know about them?

Nice race! I, like Philadelphia, have only read Narnia and a bit of LotR from the Fantasy genre. It is the first I have ever heard of a race like this. How do they hide their tails? Is it possible to detect a Scale in disguise, or are the disguises perfect? Can the Scales breathe fire? (just for the record, like Phili, I love the term Scalic. Very cool. )

So do your scales disguise themselves as humans similar to DKP's Meech? I'm trying to imagine the tail aspect to this. DKP didn't convince me on how the Meech hid their tails.

Oh wow, questions. Let's see: Yes, that was a typo, Philadelphia. I meant five characters. Sorry.

Scales are equal to humans, however there is only one major city--in the entire 'world--that is inhabited by them. Most of the humans believe them to be myth and superstition, so interaction with both races is limited. And, just like humans, Scales range from scribes, peasants, and merchants to warriors, royalty and diplomats. Most of the ones in the story so far are warriors, but also, the ones you meet are not in their own city and in order to feel safe traveling abroad, its a good idea to be someone who can take care of yourself.

As far as I know, only one place that is populated by Scales exists. But my stories have only been on one side of the world. There are two 'human' cities that I have so far and in one, Scales 'do not exist' In the other, a few of them come and go but they are still an oddity.

The meech are different, but all I remember on this is that Regidor walked around in a cloak that mostly hid his nose and tail. Besides that, he had magical abilities and could probably make people see what he wanted them to see.

I have to go now, but I'll answer the other questions later.

Yeah, that was the basic gist with Regidor. I'm just curious how you hide their tales. Like I said, DKP never sold me on that aspect of the Meech’s disguise, so I was curious to see how you would try to accomplish this.

In my mind, Regidor and Gilda's tales are thicker and bonier and don't bend as easily as a Scale's. For me--and this isn't a complete idea either--the Scale's tail, though thick, can be easily bent into position either down their leg or up their back. I failed to spend much time on this aspect but it didn't matter in my Nano, because the main Scale you meet always wears a long cloak, so you can't see his tail anyway, or any unexpected bulges. I'm glad you raised the question so that I can think it through better. The other Scales, might wear some heavy, or naturally bulging clothing while among the humans. In 'Scales' you either see the tail right away or, you see their very human face and automatically the brain locks on that. This means that you would probably see what you were expecting to see. Other then that, I'm still working on it.


The disguises are not perfect, but they are almost complete and anyone looking at them would see nothing out of the ordinary. For instance, the face masks are the biggest part. The nose would have to be slightly large, or else the mask would need to be pushed away from the face to hide a Scale's large nose. I'm not saying like a normal dragon nose. They aren't long snouts, just a bit larger than usual. They are more-or-less flat as well. Scales in general have high cheek bones and deep-set eyes. They will also be likely taller that the average human. If you are looking hard enough for a Scale, you might be able to spot them, but not always. And, like I said, not all of them disguise themselves, like Konri.

No, the Scale's cannot breathe fire and might come across disastrous results if they tried. I figured that almost every draconic creature breathes fire, so I left that out. They don't need it anyway. They can stand just fine on their own.