Jun - Dragon of the East

[Ataraxia]

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"We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us."

The foreigner clearly did not belong in Impiltur. His presence was unnervingly judgmental, piercing eyes projecting an alien gaze on those around him that gave no indication as to whether he was preparing to hug or gut someone.

He stood tall and proudly despite being away from home, head held high and crowned by a grey mane that cascaded down his shoulders and contrasted with the bronze of his skin which was imprinted with the strong scent of something dusty and animalistic, perhaps also a hint of blood.

His nose was blessed with a single steel ring piercing the left nostril, and a metal bar was visible on his right eyebrow which emphasized his facial expression whenever the brow was raised. But the true works of art were the trio of ivory rings that adorned his left ear, and the precise markings that dug into their immaculate surface, as well as the dark and red tattoos that covered his shoulders, arms, upper chest and calves.

They were all created in the same tribal, passionate but methodical style that depicted tales from an unknown land on his skin. Small people and landscapes could be seen as well as beasts of all shape and form. The most recognizable symbol was the maw of a dragon on the vulnerable surface of his throat, baring its teeth at the world.




Khoronzon, the Flamebearer

Spoiler:

The wooden mask was fashioned in an exaggerated and nightmarish artistic design that was clearly meant to demoralize and induce fear in those who met its wrathful glare. It had been painted in white, so blood splatter could enhance the effect but beneath the cracking layers of paint the material was ancient and worn by shallow cuts and splintered wood and some of the punctuated devilish facial features were damaged, including a few of the large hungry oversized teeth that hung from the maw of the humanoid beast. Whatever the origin or legacy that the tribal mask had, anyone could sense its sacred value from the devotion it must had taken to preserve the mask through harsh terrains and combat.

[Ataraxia]

“To seek greatness is the only righteous vengeance.”

• In the ignorant eyes of the West, Taan was nothing more than a distant waste where civilization dared not set foot, where savagery and depravity ran as thick in the blood of its natives as the battlefields in which they conducted petty and endless in-fighting to assert dominance over each other. But to the East, Taan was recognized as a birthplace of strength which, when paired with the wisdom and knowledge of the East, could create women and men with the kind of might that could move mountains, conquer nations, or slay dragons.
  
  Vivica was such a woman, born in the steppes to a proud people now extinguished by the flames of Kaldrunoch, the Red Menace of Taan. The horselords whose name were lost in history were known for their harmony of spirituality and magick. And despite their small numbers, they were a force to be reckoned with that wielded immense powers in the martyred folds of their carved flesh. Their ancient draconic runes and tattoos were enough to differentiate them from the other tribes – who both feared and respected them. And to assure the survival of their bloodline, the scouts coordinated their movements of migration with that of the other nomadic tribes, erasing their tracks in the process to avoid conflict with them as much as possible.
  
  Nothing could prepare them for the menace that came. When the red dragon Kaldrunoch awoke in the mountains of Yehimal, the runic spiritualists were the first to dance with it, seduced by the potential secrets of Arcana they could learn or steal from it. Their curiosity was met with sudden and utter annihilation, but among the scorched plains of destruction, a warrior was born to remember the fallen. It is said that Vivica recovered due to the blessing of the pine tree, her magick unexpectedly drawing power from the fires that burned the land. What slaughtered her kin made her stronger, and every ounce of suffering was transformed tenfold into an endless rage and hunger for revenge.
  
  She left for the East, promising the spirits of her ancestors that she would return to Taan and liberate them into the afterlife once Kaldrunoch had been slain. In Shou Lung she presented her warpath to whoever listened, in search for a weapon capable of slaying her quarry. Years she spent battling warriors whose fame preceded them to conquer their weapons in hopes of finding the best that craftsmanship had to offer, but a day came when she realized that, blinded by her anger, she had not thought that perhaps the weapon she sought had not been crafted yet.
  
  The tale of how Vivica and Khoronzon met was not one she told her daughters and sons, but what survived the corruption of word of mouth in the ages was that she and he eventually returned to Taan to conclude the warpath, armed with a weapon crafted by Khoronzon and imbued with the dragon-touched magicks of Vivica. They seethed under the concealment of the moon, tracking the dragon’s path of destruction and feeding on the damage it left in its wake to fuel her anger. Kaldrunoch was lured out of its lair with the clever placement of an unthinkable sum of gold and faith in the red dragon’s greed, and Vivica danced again with the dragon on the Roof of the World.
  
  With the strength of her ancestors, she clipped the dragon’s wings with her axe and dragged it with her down the mountain where she executed the beast whose scales were no match for her weapon. From the skull of Kaldrunoch, she fashioned a war mask of bone to preserve its spirit so it may forever witness her fury first hand through her eyes in the battles she led in the future. Vivica and her companion lived to tell the tale, to the descendants she bore and he raised toward the new beginning of a lineage boiling with the blood of dragons who would show the world that no matter how grand a threat was to kin, all it took to achieve victory was one soul to never forget the ghosts of those that came before.