Azdrazi

Origin

In times of yore after the first dragons took to the skies, men were rewarded for their everlasting faith to the Old Gods, what would now be called Dragaar in modern day. The progenitors of the mutants that would come to be called the Nephilim, prior to the conflict in which Dragur and his brood took flight to end the scourge of Iblees Draugardom was bestowed to those of great renown who served the dragons faithfully. However following the wars waged against Iblees the dragonkin suffered, the first of their own kind being turned against them while the very earth shook under the brunt of godly magic and tactless violence. Very few Nephilim remained, and with their forebearer sealed away there was nothing they could hope to accomplish any longer but to continue on, wandering the vastness of the world only to eventually be consumed by it in their hopelessness. Unable to pass on their traits, they dwindled and died out, alone and forgotten, with scarce hints as to what had transpired. The Age of Fire had run its course, and now it was to be a time of peace and tranquility once again as the plights of the ancestral races and the Four Brothers were forgotten entirely. Thus, the world came to flourish without the aid of gods, that is, until great upheaval once again shook the pillars of creation. Then came the resurgence of the dragonkin following the deeds of Mordring and the freeing of the Black Titan from his ethereal shackles, beginning the Age of Contempt and the resurrection of the numerous draconic species, most notably the Dragaar.

Transcendence

With regards to the process of conversion, there are a plethora of required elements. The body must first and foremost be doused in flame of a natural origin, and subsequently (prior functions just as well, though tradition dictates it must be performed after/during the dousing). Next comes the blood of a Sire or Draconic entity. Be it poured into their mouth as if it were a drink or otherwise directly dripped into an open wound, any method of introducing the fluid serves the function. The first method is far slower, and the second needs only enough time to circulate and reproduce for the process to be completed - during the transference, they are entirely crippled and wracked with pain incomparable to the rigors of the mortal world. Once the blood of the Mortal had been overwhelmed with that of the Dragon, the initial stage of the conversion was set.

Powers

From the dreary monotony of times before their nascence, the Azdrazi is a creature that sees no ends to their own development; from the day one first dies to the day their existence is wholly wiped from the longstanding memory of existence, their form subjects itself to an eternal series of metamorphoses. Each step is a longstanding choice; every foot forward brings the individual’s capabilities and ability to consider oneself a “member” of the descendant questions into a greater question of accuracy. On the first dawn of their Dragonsflame, they find their bodies inconstant - malleable and warm meat affording itself no challenge to reorganization as their innards and soul struggles to grasp the full breadth of the changes they have been afforded by their Gods, and the vehement intensity that accompanies its onset is normally accompanied by a change in mindset. In some, the traits of their family manifest as obsessive compulsions and being wont to particularism. Such is most often found in familial units of similar Dragonkin, most notably the flights of their Draconic sire.

Yet such a time does not last. If the soul finds itself capable, the array of changes and onset of the tumultuous rejection of entropy is began in earnest. His embraces’ cost is freedom; what was once the ability to act as they pleased and without restraint afflicts only the malus and crux of the burden hewn into their blood.The first step is one of penitence. What the lesser man saw as “polymorphing” became a natural process, in which the only “change” they may desire and will into being is the sequestering of natural features. This exposition and divergence from the natural form is a transition. Skin hued the colour of the being they consider to be their Progenitor, the loving father who permitted his light to enter a world so filled with taint and misuse for the sake of protecting the afflicted children of it. Horns, a display befitting a crown of steel and fire - weapons and ornamentation alike sat atop his head. Eyes from which they view the world in a new perspective - slitted, vertical irises that cast their clout and weight wherever they wander and lastly a hide thick like leather, proudly adorning the colours of the aforementioned “Progenitor.”

Time saw now peace for forms conjured from the primordial womb of Azdromoth. Those honored creatures, wreathed in crowns of bone and fire, saw the putrefaction of their boons towards the end of the Third Dawn; in the place of their humanity, they were granted a form of monstrous content - looming beings that reeked of cinder and ash, and all the terror the early world once knew when Iblees woke from his aeons slumber. Their hands found themselves as weapons of war, wreathed in the flames of kindling when they were so inclined. A maw filled with long and terrible teeth designed to do naught but consume and devour. their body bloated and huge, filled with contents inexplicable Perhaps once they were more than vestigial burdens. Progress comes at a cost. The form they found taxed them building up residual acids, rendering muscles inert after a brief passage of time; the next, most conceptually unnerving to the sound mind is the motivation to remain. What they were granted came as a boon, but the minds of its benefactors briefly lose their grasp on the sense of the Humanity. The realization that their enkindling burns away what remained of what they were, and with every subsequent transference it worsens. With all the time long since past, the kindred wait to see of what more will come. The natural course of all things but they is entropic, and the Azdrazi long since gone search for the process through which their venerated ancestors undertook.

On "the end," a conceptual fallacy:

“Within the span of millennia, a lapse in judgement is expected. You are meant to minimize the damage.”

Eternal warriors know no respite. Their crusade is an eternal goal, in which their heritage demands a service that transcends the mortal concept of “life” to an extent unnatural in their entirety; upon the time when the coil of blood and fire is extinguished, the remnants of their husk immolate till nothing commemorates their shame besides charred earth and the scent of smoke in the air. The crux of their infernal mechanism through which the form rejoins is alien and prone to wide speculation. Little research has afforded understanding, regardless of its endorsement or origins - but after their Reprisal from service, the form regenerates at the base of a monument or locale of great historical or emotional significance to the Azdrazi. Most common are the instances in which they wake from their slumber before a shrine to their Father, though if none such locale is available it may occur in a location of historical relevancy.

Written by Wolfie, Aerial, and Freema5. Source: [1]