Species Name: Shadow Dragon
Nickname: Living Shadow
Sub-Type: Drake
Rarity: Common
Stances: Quadruped - walk on all fours
Size: small
Breeding: Shadow dragons will breed during any half moon, with the largest breedings happening during the first half moon of the year. Mating can be aggressive, with females catching males and forcing them to mate before releasing them back into the gathered pack. Females will chase and catch multiple males in one night to ensure fertilization. Females carry the eggs for two weeks, recover for two weeks, and are ready to breed again during the next half moon.
Incubation Period: With egg for only 2 weeks before laying a clutch of 4-7 eggs hidden in the shadows of the new moon, when the night is at its darkest. Eggs hatch within 4 months. Infants use their own shadows to slowly break out of their thin shelled eggs. Males are much more common than females.
Hatchling Stage: Hatchlings will stick with their siblings as a 'pack', hunting and caring for each other and more often than not, led by the largest female. Small packs will join up to form larger packs. Their parents are long gone and do not raise the young.
Adolescence: If the pack survives until they have reached 7 months, they will start to split off, traveling in solitude, no longer needing large numbers upon learning to master their shadow manipulation ability.
Maturity: They reach sexual maturity usually around 18 months of age and begin to seek out others of their kind, once again forming packs that can vary in size from 2 to 20 or more. After breeding, some will choose to travel alone while others will stay in a pack, depending on the size and number of prey in the area. Older shadows are more likely to form packs.
Coloration: Generally black, scales appearing either dark purple or blue depending on the light. On rare occasions, chrome colored mutants have been spotted.
Habitat: Shadow dragons can be found all over the world, their original homeland unknown. They can survive in almost any environment so long as their is plenty of prey to be hunted and shadows to hide in.
Diet: meat of any size, though in times of crisis, they will eat anything they can get their teeth into.
Breed Personality: aggressive, temperamental, social, wary, untrusting of those outside its species
Language: Shadow dragons speak in hisses and growls and are incapable of roaring like the larger breeds. They do however have an intricate body language that helps maintain order in the packs, especially during a hunt.
Life Span: Shadow Dragons in the wild live to be around 30-40 years, though large shadows can survive well into their 50s if they have a strong pack. Domesticated shadows have been known to live into their 70s with good care.
Gender Differences: Females tend to be slightly larger and act more dominant than males.
Hunting Technique: Alone, a shadow dragon will aim for small prey, using a surprise attack. In packs, they organize themselves better to separate and surround their target, guiding it into an ambush. For prey smaller than itself it will simply bite or smash the target with shadow clubs, while larger prey result in the dragons using their shadows to suffocate the prey. Packs can take down massive prey using teamwork to suffocate the target while the others protect the 'kill squad'.
Human Handling: Unless hatched from an egg, it is very difficult to tame shadow dragons due to their natural distrust towards other species, though it IS possible with time and patience. However those lucky enough to obtain a shadow dragon as an egg have a much easier time gaining its trust. Once tamed, humans must establish a hierarchy with the shadow dragons or else they will not properly obey their tamers. Females in particular are harder to domesticate with males submitting more easily to human handlers and females tending to cause trouble.
Human Lore/opinion: Common creatures that are often viewed as pests as it is fairly easy for them to sneak in to human homes and raid the home for meat, making a mess of the place in the process.
Special Abilities: Shadow manipulation - can freely manipulate their own shadows at will, shifting its form into anything it wants, including but not limited to: Wings, fangs, claws, and clubs. Can also fuse entirely with its shadow, making it flat and two dimensional.
Magical Properties: none
Breath Weapons: none
Weapons: teeth, claws, shadows
Weaknesses: Bright, unnatural light. Usually light helps shadow dragons, as it stretches their shadows and gives them more to work with, however, surrounding a shadow dragon with strong light will eliminate its shadow and thus eliminate its power.
Average Shadow Dragon (standard units):
- Height: 2' 0
- Length: 3' 10
- Neck Length: 0'4
- Tail Length: 1'6
- Wingspan: varies upon shadow size
- Weight: 20-40 lbs
Famous Dragons:
~Due to the breeds availability, small size, yet difficulty in training, many celebrities have one as a pet so show off.
~Chroma - a Chrome colored dragon born naturally to a shadow dragon couple at the national dragon zoo. It is the first and only chrome dragon bred in captivity that was not given some type of potion to change its coloration.
~ Jenzi and Nikki - twin female shadow dragons owned by an infamous phantom thief who used them to help him steal numerous precious art works and items. The thief, nor the dragons, were ever caught though their escapades have passed into legend.
Notes of the creation of concept: The shadow dragons were released along side the canvas gliders. The shadow dragons were actually a very old concept originally created years before their release on ToD for the site Dragon Cave under the name 'shadow wisp' though the species was never completed. Years later, the spriter's skill had grown tremendously since their initial creation, and she completely revamped and re-sprited them - including designing a brand new sprite for dimorphism - for use on ToD. Their original design had the shadow dragons more gray and the ears more rounded, but the re-vamped version were darkened considerably, using purple instead of gray to shade, more shadows were added, and the ears were flatted for a paper-thin like effect.
They're like the velociraptors of the dragon world - small, fierce, and deadly yet smart enough to form packs if their target is too big to take down alone
Egg
Hatchling
Mature Hatchling
Adult
