First pass at designing a bandit dragon-man! A very silly exercise. Thinking about Tolkien’s somewhat vaguely-defined term “cold-drake” I developed the derivative ringwëthûllókë (bad Quenya: frost-breath-serpent), a lesser wingless dragon of the mountains that can magically breathe in atmospheric heat, an ability used for survival in their cold habitat as well as offensively.

Synthesised from talking & thinking a lot about fantasy, stegoceras, lammergeyers, the seasonal renewal of Tolkien fever and D&D’s weirdly specific dragons.
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Calaniquis is from a world where dragons are basically divine biological weapons, the issue of blood spilled onto the earth by gods in a titanic fraternal struggle. As their gore touched the mountains, the forests, the deserts, the very fabric of the earth itself was roused by the rage, greed and sorrow in that blood. Dragons were born from rock and hate and godflesh to blindly refight the war that spawned them. Each dragon is unique, not so much a living, dying creature as the distilled co-mingling of elemental forces. They have progeny in other ways, though. A field of fell influence surrounds them, a sense of overwhelming unholy awe, emanating especially from the eyes. Over time their transfixing gaze has the power to warp the will, & even the flesh of those captured by it. Their effect is singularly potent on one bearing unborn offspring.

In ages past, when dragons were more active and numerous, those born under a dragon's gaze--the dragonmarked--became a widespread and much feared menace. Besides their appearance and their hideous, inhuman strength, as they grew to maturity their draconic nature asserted itself, the desire for treasure, the lust for violence, an irrepressible will to cause havoc. Eventually, and at great cost, the houses of the dragonblood princes were stamped out, not least because they were weakened by incessant infighting among their various dragon lineages. Now, although they prove resilient against attempts at forced miscarriage few dragonmarked are allowed to live beyond infancy, their nativity mired in superstition and ill-omen. Most are drowned quietly or have their throats slit; exposure was found to be too unreliable, even dragonmarked newborns have a disturbingly keen knack for survival. Calaniquis was a rare and lucky child.

​Rumours of his impending birth coincided with the passage of a wandering troupe of entertainers. ​After a generous offer his family, poor and hungry villagers in a​n isolated​ high mountain pass, ​sold him ​as a marvel​. It was a deal well-made. Rumours of wicked foreign princes had an exciting scent that brought the crowds...but any supposed future threat only counted for so much, not nearly so much as the coin of a gawping goatherd or alewife. As he grew his adoptive family were far from as cruel as they might have been. They trained him at tricks and flourishes to increase he value as an attraction: gymnastic feats, lowland sword dances, slight of hand and circus antics. All of it he took to with an unnerving ease, but as he gloried in his blossoming strength and fed on the rapt attention of the crowd he felt around him the beginnings of a foreboding, that wicked rumours might be worth paying attention to. Whatever might have become of him in that patchwork carnival family was never to be. It all collapsed in a short hissing welter of black arrows, quick and brutal as the flash of torchlight on the red blade of a sabre. ​

​Times are lean in the mountains for everyone, even bandits, and Calaniquis' fascinating presence had squeezed out coins that thuggery could not shake loose. A felled tree had left their ragtag train of wagons stuck in some narrow nameless ravine, totally exposed to waiting archers, and the big men with their swords and axes who came in close to butcher the women and the wounded. Surrounded, standing alone in the carnage the young dragonmarked man discovered his nature, as he had discovered at three years old his own name in the stillness of his drowsing mind.... Calaniquis. Now he knew, without asking and with crystal certainty, what it meant. 'Bright frost pattern.' A creature formed from the blood-ice stuff of the high lonely peaks, the vortex of wind and snow trapped between frozen precipices that steals all warmth, all breath from the unprepared. He exhaled a long sobbing sigh and he left no telltale plume of vapour in the air. Then he breathed in, and with a great terrible hungry inrushing his throat pulled the bloodheat out of every man standing before him, swallowing it all up as a great burning mouthful of bitter mountain tea. Nothing was left of them but ice and meat.

He was alone now, alone as the mountains to make his own way. He was left with a deep, hollowing grief and a strange legacy. He could handle a sword, ensnare and intimidate a crowd, perform the act of something mysterious and powerful. Now he knew there was far more than performance to him. ​The coffers of the travelling players, the closest to kin he had ever known, were now his inheritance. As were the cutlasses and sabres of the brigands, and anything else of value he had the desire to carry. Looking at it all, he found that he desired it, very much. He keenly began to feel something settling about him like a cloak, a slow weight of fear and power he had only dimly perceived before. Heartbreak was shot through with a fragile, fierce animal joy. No-one will take anything from me again. Wolfish teeth flashed white against the white snow of a gathering blizzard, stolen heat throbbing with his heartbeat. ​I'll take it all.