Draconic Description

The Adult Veylthar Dragon moves like a living shadow given purpose — a creature not fully formed from matter, but from reflection and absence. Its scales are deep obsidian-black, yet ripple with an oil-sheen iridescence that shifts from violet to green to deep cobalt when touched by dim light. Each movement trails faint spectral echoes — silhouettes that lag behind for a heartbeat before catching up, as if reality itself struggles to remember where the dragon truly is.
Unlike its Ancient kin, its body has not yet fully merged with the mirror realms it commands. Small fractures lace its scales, glowing faintly from within like veins of molten dusk. The light within those fissures pulses in rhythm with its heartbeat, creating a hypnotic cadence that unsettles those who gaze too long.
Its wings are broad and nearly translucent at the edges, like panes of thin shadowglass webbed with threads of black flame. When unfurled, they scatter reflections across the surfaces around it — ceilings, walls, armor — each reflection subtly out of sync with the real motion. Its tail ends in a wicked blade-like ridge of crystalline glass that hums faintly when it moves, producing an almost melodic resonance that dies quickly in the air.
Its eyes are not orbs but mirrored voids: smooth planes of reflective darkness that show observers not their own faces, but distorted versions — their tiredness, fear, or deceit staring back at them. When angered, those mirrors flare with deep violet light, fracturing into spiderweb cracks that spill shadow like blood.
The air near the dragon is colder than it should be, the kind of chill that comes from absence rather than ice. Footsteps and speech sound muted, as though the world itself holds its breath in its presence. Dust and light both fall slower within a few feet of its form, suspended by its silent gravitational pull — the stillness of a creature learning to command darkness not as a veil, but as an extension of its will.
 

Humaniod Form Description

Humanoid Appearance: “The Fractured Shade” The adult’s humanoid form is not polished or symmetrical like the Ancient’s Mirror Sovereign. Instead, it is eerie, incomplete, and uncanny — a shape struggling to hold itself together.
Physical Description
Its skin resembles smoky, translucent obsidian, shot through with hairline cracks that glow faint violet whenever it moves.
Tiny shards of shadowglass constantly drift off its body and dissolve into mist before touching the ground.
Its limbs appear slightly too long or too thin, with joints that bend at subtly incorrect angles if watched carefully.
Its eyes are dark mirrors — not reflecting faces accurately but instead showing an emotionally heightened version of whoever looks at them (fear, shame, longing, guilt).
The mouth shifts a moment after words are spoken, creating a slight dissonance between voice and appearance, like a poorly aligned reflection.
Hair manifests as shifting strands of shadow that move in slow underwater motions no matter the environment.
Much like its dragon form, the humanoid form casts multiple shadows, each delayed or advanced, creating a sense that it is walking slightly out of sync with time.  

Evolution to Ancient

At this stage, the Veylthar Dragon’s control of shadow is biological rather than supernatural — its scales refract light inconsistently, and its mirrored duplicates are unstable. As it matures:

• Half-Form Reflection evolves into the Ancient’s Living Reflection, allowing it to animate true shades of its enemies.

• Its breath weapon gains the capacity to burn away entire souls, creating fully independent Shadowspawn instead of minor slowing effects.

• Its lair begins forming mirrored pockets of dimensional space, the first echoes of the “mirror world” that surrounds the Ancient.

• Emotionally, the adult moves from predation to curation — beginning to collect secrets and reflections instead of merely devouring those who see it.