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.
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