Change Post
Oct. 3rd, 2025 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonspride|
KAIN HIGHWIND | GARGOYLE | ||
1st changeScales, claws, teeth, eyes, beginning of tail | 11/1/2014
2nd changeFire breath, some heat generation, tiny little ineffective wings | 11/31/2014
3rd changeTalons, wings, fire magic | 1/6/2015 | ||
 coinscurrent: 114 | spent: 0 | ||
(The image is obv. still WIP.)
Also: Potato Quality Apology, and technically out of date since the largest plate on the left side is broken off:
Color reference/scribbly model sheet here
For rather obvious reasons, shirts are no longer really an option. The scales look like a similar sort of metal to his canon armor, and his eyes display eyeshine in the dark. (Have a flashlight or other light source and there'll be a couple glowing red pinpoints reflecting back.) The nictating membrane closes in flight or when he's stressed/angry/threatened enough; it doesn't really do much beyond make it easier to keep dust/particles out of his eyes.
He's got a few dramatic headcanon-ish scars because finding an Archfiend alone with his face while off-camera is a pretty good recipe for getting mauled a bit. The main one's the massive sharkbite-looking one around his chest/shoulder, there's a couple other indented gashes on his side; he's also got an odd ragged line around the elbow of his left-forearm, and his left forearm is fully scaled.
After the Pitchforks, Torches, and Salt event (May 2015) he has the longest shoulder spine on his left side broken off two thirds of the way down, as well as a few of his back and tail spine-scales similarly broken off. His wings and back have some slightly odd-formed and black scales/skin in a splatter-pattern, scarring the chemicals thrown into the pit; similar scars appear on the bony headplate of his fog-form.
His transformation is completed as of the last change listed above!
Mandatory Changes:
*An affinity for fire magic: He can conjure small fireballs that explode on impact, and heat his own skin so that it burns to the touch and can light some more flammable materials on fire. He's still learning fine control and it will often react instinctively if he's cold, anxious, angry, upset, or frightened. He's gotten past accidentally lighting things on fire without being unusually agitated or angry, although he will go "living space heater" in colder weather or if he's upset enough. He's also immune to fire and heat.
*Weakness to Sunlight: If he's caught out in sunlight, he turns into a statue made of the same metal as his armor. Come nightfall or him getting covered up, the outer layer of it cracks and falls off; he's been collecting the shards and selling them to jewelers and metal shops. Due to some world-physics things it's not good for much more than small jewelry. It's not a very good source of income and mostly functions as a small pad that wouldn't cover bills. He usually sleeps like this on normal days, and some of his plating makes the cloaks, hoods, and such that some other gargoyles have opted for not good options. His clothes do not change with him. NOTE TO SELF: NO, HE DOES NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM ON FOG DAYS, AND CAN TAG INTO DAYTIME THINGS DURING FOG DAYS.
*Scales on the upper arms, shoulders, and back. They look like the same blue-violet metal as his armor, although during the day/when he's not a statue it's basically a cosmetic "metal" - there's traces of it enough for it to sound metallic, look metallic, and get some use for stray shed scales the same as his shavings. Also if he gets injured and ends up having to regrow large patches or molt, they're a bit translucent/fragile until he's spent time as a statue. It's good for surviving being a dumbshit while learning to fly, mundane wolves etc., and some mundane weapons, and is essentially an IC for "monsters are sturdier than normal humans". He postures a Hell of a lot and has "never admit weakness" snits, but isn't actually dumb enough to try and act like it's as solid as his old armor.
*Sharp fangs for teeth. The front incisors/canines are all sharpened, and the molars have converted to predatory shearing-teeth.
*Excellent Night Vision and sharper eyesight. He literally does have eagle-eyes now to some extent, although harpies will be able to see further/spot things before he does. It's adapted to the dark; bright light and sunlight is irritating to painful.
*Lizard-like claws in place of fingernails and toenails. His grew out into fairly impressive talons. He types by hunt and pecking with a piece of cork stuck on one of his claws, and is one of those people who has learned to hunt and peck fairly well anyway.
*scaly, talon-like feet capable of grasping. Digitigrade; the claw that makes it a grip/snatch from the air is separated up the length of the "foot bone"; when he's walking it folds against the upper part of his foot. The scales go up to his mid-thigh.
*Large, scaly wings capable of flight. He has a traveling/normal air speed of ~30-50 mph, but he's built pretty well for speed, and can manage 70-90 on "chase speed" for a couple seconds at a time. He has a ceiling altitude of about 9000 meters/just under 30,000 feet.
*Hunger and hunting instinct. He can push it back some by eating a human that was already dead, but it doesn't hold him over as long as his own kills. He's been going out about every other week picking off some of the petty gangs around Bavan. He could potentially push his luck for three weeks, but he'd be twitchy, hyper-predatory, and acting more animalistic on the third week, with a good likelihood of losing control if anything pushed him.
Optional Changes:
*Scales on any other part of the body. He has scales running up his forearms from the claws, up to about mid-thigh on his legs, and a few small patches along his cheekbones/jawline and around his ears.
*Spikes on any part of the body. They're in the form of heavier plated scales that jut out; the plates down his spine form dorsal spikes, there's a few pronounced bladed ones on his shoulders, with smaller ones on his elbows and knees. The other major ones are on the backs of his wingbones over the joints, with a set on the "wrist" that can be used for wing-strikes a'la a swan or goose.
*Any number of dragon-like facial features. He has a couple small plates that run along his cheekbones and jawline, as well as his ears having turned into metallic fin-frills like the ones on his armor; his eyes are also slit-pupiled.
*A long, reptilian tail. His ends in a tail vane that helps as a rudder in flight, but it's scaled and just heavy enough to use for some clumsy sweeps; he could potentially knock someone off their feet with it or whack someone with it.
*The ability to breathe fire. Actual firebreath is only intentional, but he'll get sparks if he's angry or frightened, and smoke fairly easily and often. It's thicker/darker if he's agitated, angry, or frustrated, and fairly clear/pale if he's calm. The breath weapon comes out in a small, fast-moving orb that bursts out with white-gold flames either on impact or about ten feet away.
*A proud nature - easily insulted and easily flattered. Honestly this is mostly an amplification of existing traits, and he IS aware of it. It's buffered some by his own tendency towards self-control and self-awareness, and the impact of it varies; a complete stranger or an acquaintance saying something that's expected in context nudges his mood some but won't be dramatic, while someone he's strongly attached to or something catching him off guard has more impact.
*A hoarding instinct. It hasn't kicked in towards objects really yet besides some inclination to build a useful resource base, but it's already overlapping with his protective/possessive instinct towards people. Anybody he's met more than once where it hasn't gone horribly can handwave an occasional flyover at night where he was out and "just happened to check on them" without actually landing/getting close enough for more than that pass, and familiar CR or people he's fond/protective of - particularly if they're in the Bavan area - may get brief flyovers several times a month.
Sensory Input/Functionality Notes
Date: 2015-01-19 11:19 pm (UTC)Color vision - tetrachromatic, still adjusting to it; he can't distinguish shades of red, but is also picking up on some other color range (UV) that wasn't there before and is still adjusting to it. It also makes some things stand out more. The slit pupil shape allows for better color vision in low light and better ability to adapt to different light conditions. Also some changes to eye shape besides the slit pupils that might look off if someone's really staring but are pretty subtle allowing the increased visual range and ability to pinpoint small details at a large distance.- Many flowers have UV-visible markings, as well as many birds, and most spiders/insects.
- Game tracking: They've found that raptors will track prey by being able to see UV-visible scent-marking spots/other territory-marking from the air
- You know those jokes about taking a blacklight to some people's rooms? It doesn't glow or anything, but would be a mildly visible stain with him not realizing what it is yet.
- There's some changes in skin when people're out in the sun a lot that're UV-visible as funny blotchy markings; it's been something he's getting used to.
- He won't be able to identify photos/TV images of people, and may have difficulties identifying things/people he hasn't seen since before his eyes changed.
(This one is waiting on an FAQ response, may be altered depending/dropped/idefk)
Hearing range - veers slightly lower/higher in range than middle-of-road human, but not much difference in sensitivity. Dog whistles are outside range. Some rooms full of electronics may be mildly annoying. If it'd show up as a "this is pretty well-documented occasionally in humans, if rare" that's about the limit.
Flight notes - Basing partly on bats, there's a ridiculous range of maneuverability and ability to control flight surfaces and be energy-efficient in flight. There is some supernatural augmentation to make up in normal form for some of the muscle mass conflicts, but less than it'd look. Also assuming that some of the fire magic goes towards cheating a little on air currents, essentially providing extra "updrafts" that are controllable, because there's no way in hell something his size and weight with sanely proportioned wings should be able to be airborne.
Vocalization/Sound shifts - He's still learning to make sense of and try to control this; he has some growls/rumbles/hisses/other sounds that have a bit of a range, usually crocodilian-ish, along with a few odder warble/whine/other noises that are too deep/scratchy to be birdlike. He can do a pretty impressive draconic shriek if he's angry enough or loses control. None of this has any use beyond maybe creeping out or startling normal humans.
Diet - Hypercarnivore/obligate carnivore. He can manage some fruits and sugars and get away with baked things occasionally, although anything whole-grain would make him sick, as would most greens and vegetables. His normal diet besides "does eat people" is mostly rabbits and deer.
Fall molt - he'll start shedding larger scales and the skin over his pebble-scales around September/October. New scales are translucent when they're growing in, gaining the metallic tinges as he statue-sleeps at night.
Notable Possessions
Date: 2015-01-19 11:22 pm (UTC)He has the arming doublet and the rest of the underclothing from his armor still, he just isn't wearing it anymore. This is a pretty good reference; his armor's probably erring closer to the more-complicated 15th century, which means that at-current there's some bits of rusted/battered/damaged chain and (going by the design of his armor) scale on parts of the sleeves and the lower part of the gambeson/arming doublet.
It's pretty much black fabric, with some funny threadbare/worn patches from where it was in the most contact with the metal of his armor, and yes, outside of the arming doublet and vest, it really does look questionably meant to wear outside in public by itself, even if it's pretty covering.
He keeps a good-sized duffel-bag with him normally. The typical contents are some basic portable medical supplies, a couple bottles of water, sheathed hunting/skinning knives, some extra canvas sacks for carrying cleaned meat, and a couple wrapped packages of smoked/preserved meat, labelled via pins - blue for wild game, red for human meat. The latter he mostly keeps in case of finding someone who's been putting off feeding for too long, if they're something that CAN eat meat. If he's been out game hunting there may also be some bones/hides.
Fog Form/God Boons/Special Notes
Date: 2015-01-19 11:25 pm (UTC)Routines and Habits
Date: 2015-06-12 07:03 am (UTC)-Other nights he's at the bar from nightfall to around midnight; he usually has a corner table where he works as his own bouncer and keeps track of book-keeping, as well as occasionally just making idle attempts at carving bones from game-hunting. (He's not horribly good at it.)
-After midnight varies. Some nights he'll go on the wing game hunting outside Bavan and doing flyovers checking on some of his familiar CR; anybody he's met more than once can handwave seeing him doing this occasionally. Every other week he'll take a night within Bavan and pick off someone from one of the more dangerous petty street gangs. He kind of abuses some of his memories from the It's A Wonderful Life event to keep track of and avoid police patrols, but he's also caught that they...don't...particularly care about monsters "doing their work for them".
-He can occasionally be found a couple times a month at dumb hours of the morning running what errands he can around the city. One periodic errand is leaving some of the preserved human meat from the smokehouse at Rin's church, to help with their supplies. He's stuck sometimes leaving shopping lists for his housemates if there's something needed that comes from stores that keep sane hours.
-If he's not out hunting or running errands, he's probably trying to work on getting the house to be more livable; clearing the grounds, setting up leftover meat from his hunts in the shed-smokehouse, and doing upkeep inside. (Valgaav he WILL recruit you for this if you're awake at the time and around.)
-On non-fog days, he sleeps as a statue on the roof of the house. On fog days, he usually curls up in the master bedroom to sleep, although he's more likely to sleep on the master-bathroom's tiled floor than the bed... less likely to damage it with claws/scales when shifting in his sleep.