Drake

  Known as the closest living relative to true dragons, and the first wingless species of the draconid family. Drakes originated within the eastern part of the Golden Desert. They later spread throughout most of the mainland areas and would eventually migrate to the barren regions of the eastern continents and Aetheria.   Many draconid lineages share direct ancestry to the drake as a clever and adaptable creature. In most industrialized civilizations naturalists have categorized the glassback basilisk, hydra, grootslang, and ninki nanka as relatives which branched out from the drake.     Drakes are surprisingly gentle creatures, for being walking hell engines. Their muscle density and titanium hard plates gives them a weight of twenty tons, and an internal body temperature that should kill them in mere minutes. However, due to an organ that they have adapted from the true dragon’s fire glands, they are capable of redirecting the heat within their bodies to a single focal point. Beating like a second heart, this organ redirects their heat both to their scales, and to a strange tube within their tongue.   This ability allows the drake to do three things at the same time. They draw a lot of energy and nutrients directly from the sun, which means they need to eat less. They shield themselves with a scorching hot aura that can melt the skin on a human hand, if they touch their scales. Lastly, they can eject fire directly out of their tongue. Like a weaponized spice joke.   With an internal biology that works like a refrigeration system, they also keep their blood cold. Chillingly so. Which helps them survive for months without eating and weeks without drinking.   Sluggish are their movements, as a result of their extremophile nature. They are practically immortal to any attacks that are not magical, or manage to strike their belly or the inside of their knees. Allowing the drake to peacefully graze in the sun for days on end, before wandering off to wherever the wind takes them.     Back when the terror reptiles of the New Lands were first discovered, naturalists all over the Commonlands had their hearts skip a beat. The drakes are reminiscent of ankylosaurids, despite having nothing in common. With one originating from Equilibrium and the dragons from Hell, they do not even share a single ancestor.   One might mistake the lighter colours and softer boneplates of an ankylosaur as a drake child, due to the draconids' similar yet darker hues of red, brown, or black.   Drakes are surprisingly beautiful for a walking tank. With scales that glisten with luster in the sun. A broad skull with ridges running from their nose to the neck. Some even paint their trunk-sized front legs as a source of beauty, due to the large hump of bone and muscle that protrudes from their back, just below the neck. This hump serves as organic pistons that help the drakes move and even sprint for short distances, despite their gargantuan mass.   Their tails are short and stubby, and certainly carry no clubs on their ends. This limb is considered a remnant part of their dragon heritage, which oddly enough sways like a dog’s when they are happy.   The most majestic part of the drake’s appearance would be the horns. Just above their wide maws filled with flat teeth, they carry a pair of massive curled horns that run from their brows and up to the length of five lances from their heads. A part of their purpose is to protect the creature's wise eyes from filth and sand.     Among draconids, the drake is one of a few species that have managed to adapt so well that the biomes of Equilibrium were stabilized by their presence, instead of ravaged.   They have few natural predators, even though there are some extreme apex monstrosities that do hunt them on rare occasions. When they do perish, usually of age, a set few mechanisms happen. Because of their longevity and weeks on end spent in the sun, the shell on older drakes begin to wither and crack. This allows for mosses and flowers to start growing on their bodies, which also soothes them and informs them that they do not have many years left on the world.   As herd creatures, the drake families, which range from eight to twenty members, escort their elders to a drake graveyard.   The graveyard is a place of gathering for many species that live within the same steppe or desert biome. Attributed to the chemicals and nutrients within the body of a drake, as they decay, life begins to grow beneath their bones. Leading to large patches of green oases, where critters can thrive.   The drake herds themselves serve as sanctuary caravans for grazing species. The warmth they radiate, their peaceful nature, and the fact that the compost they leave behind fertilizes the soil, makes them nature’s perfect escorts.     Drakes are usually not too keen on making contact with mortals. They generally give civilization a wide berth and thus are drawn to the most extreme locations of their inhabited desert or steppe.   Ironically they are somehow still tameable, but due to their semi-intelligent status, and memory which lasts through the three hundred years of their lifespan, only the beastkin have earned their respect.