The vaeance is essentially a wannabe dragon. That is what they were made for. While the origins are uncertain and obscure, it is known that they sought to copy dragons for some purpose, some say it was to corrupt and defeat the dragons. Though the attempt to copy the dragons, who came in much variety, caused the vaeance to be equally diverse in colors and shapes, the have some features in common. They have a double tail (dividing very near where it attaches to the body), they are generally smaller than dragons, and they have four wings. One pair is smaller than the other. Each pair attaches to the flanks of the vaeance, with the smaller wing above the larger.

I am not sure of this detail yet, but it may be that the double-wings allows an almost airplane like flight system. The small wing, above the larger one, will beat quickly, causing the air directly above the larger wing to be less dense. Thus, with a slight tilting of the lower, larger wing, the air beneath the large wing will become much more dense after speed is achieved. This will generate lift.

Vaeances come in five varieties which mirror the dragon varieties I will explain in my next post. There varieties are as follows, with the dragon variety it was intended to mirror following in parentheses:
Wind (Air)
Water (Water)
No Variety (Earth)
Unknown (Fire)
Death / Darkness (Star)

mm sounds very interesting So do they eat the same as dragons or different? Its a really good original idea!

Dragons and vaeances both are omnivorous, but greatly prefer meat. They will eat any kind except that of their own respective species. They will eat eachother's species, but doing so always increases the natural enmity between the two species.

These sound pretty neat. So the Vaeances and Dragons are enemies? You mentioned in your other post that there was only one Star Dragon...how many Death/Darkness Vaeances are there?

eruheran

Well, vaeances were made as an attempt to infiltrate and corrupt the dragons. This failed for two reasons. First, the vaeances were unable to adapt to most of the dragon kinds. Second, the vaeances were not as evil as intended, and many turned to good, but they were not so noble as the dragons. In times of great need, such as the arrival of men, dragons and vaeances would ally, but they always held one another in general contempt. A derogatory name for a vaeance is "half-dragon."

I just realized I never answered eruheran's question about the number of Death/Darkness vaeances. The real answer is: nobody really knows. In the Red World, their existence has been forgotten except by the most learned. I have one in my story but not even he knows that he is a member of the most powerful vaeance race ever to live. Maybe he is the last one, maybe there never were others, I don't know, but I have a feeling a few others will turn up either still extant or in the pages of history books.

So they created by your Satan character? Are they ever ridden? You said they weren't evil enough, are they still all evil, just not as much as they should have been?

Their origin remains a mystery, but I am almost sure that either Aerykun or Narok (the arch-villain/Satan characters) are responsible. Where they got them no one knows, but their initial mission was to thwart the power of the dragons for good.

Vaeances had become very rare by time we get to my actual book. Their ancestors suffered higher casualties than the dragons in the first war, which would explain a lower population. There weren't ever as many vaeances as dragons anyway, I suppose. So no, some vaeances still exist, but their numbers are few enough that they have been largely forgotten.

In saying that they were not evil enough I would mean that they didn't actually thwart the dragons and wound up joining them. They still have a much greater tendency toward evil, their leader Fealin is hated by all soon after the first war with men. There is one good vaeance on record though, and he is a character in my novel. I suppose that a proverb for the Red World to indicate scarcity would be, "as common as a vaeance." There aren't many roaming around anymore.