THE DRAKHARI
Scalebound Heirs of the Broken Clutch
"The gods abandoned the sky. We chose the storm instead."
"The gods abandoned the sky. We chose the storm instead."
“We do not hatch. We ignite.”
The Drakhari are dragonkin, not elves—descendants of the Second Clutch, whose unborn were shattered during the angelic war. Where extinction would have claimed others, their disembodied souls clawed their way into form—birthing a race made of breath, memory, and wrath.
They forged themselves through flame and instinct, not prophecy or divine will. They inhabit volcanic ridges, collapsed sky-temples, and elemental faultlines—anywhere the world still breathes ash and remembers heat. Their homeland is not sacred land, but living scar.
To be Drakhari is to carry the echo of dragons in your marrow. Their bodies are living memory—wrought in fire, callused by blood, and shaped by the Recalling.
The Recalling: A dangerous ancestral frenzy—triggered by pain, blood ritual, or dream-fire. Breath surges, memories flood the mind, and the body shifts. Some speak tongues never taught. Some grow wings. Some vanish in a blaze and are never seen again.
Breath Abilities (tied to lineage memory):
For the Drakhari, ritual is memory made visible. Every tradition is etched in scar, sung in flame, or carved into ashbone. Their rites are not fixed to place—they wear them, carry them, and breathe them across battlefields and molten roads.
Once per decade, a Drakhari may melt their oldest piece of armor in public flame, recounting aloud the moment they first knew fear. From this molten memory, they forge a new war-sigil—a flameborn emblem of their growth.
A septennial culinary ritual where memory is tasted, not spoken. Forgotten names are honored through flame-prepared dishes, grief is sealed through cooking, and offerings are made to the mythic Devourer, Saint Blade-Tongue. To eat here is to remember. To be judged is to survive.
Before major bondings or war marches, warriors smear their faces with ashes from their clutch’s forge-fire and sleep in silence. Those who dream of falling sky are called Cinder-Born—said to carry future-cataclysm in their lungs.
A ritual combat fought barefoot on volcanic stone at dusk. Two warriors clash for the right to carry a fallen drake-name. The loser must serve the victor for one moon or renounce the name forever.
Funeral masks made from the cracked forgeplates of the dead. Worn until a battle is won in their name—or shattered in a mourning rage rite called “The Skyhowl.”
Infants born of bondduels are anointed in scorched milk boiled over wyrm-ash. Their names are whispered—not shouted—into the altar flame, for even dragons must learn silence before they roar.
Drakhari magic is not cast—it is exhaled. Their power is called Drake-Echo: memory-bound breathforms drawn from ancestral instinct rather than arcane theory. Flame is not a tool. It is their inheritance.
Every Drakhari duel is prayer, inheritance, and promise. They do not speak in battle. Their breath speaks for them. Their screams are sacred.
No cards. No spells. No spoken incantations. The Drakhari do not borrow magic—they become it.
The Drakhari believe the Second Clutch was never meant to survive. The angelic war shattered their eggs. Their extinction was ordained. But they rebelled against erasure. Their souls refused silence. They birthed themselves from memory, flame, and scream.
They do not revere dragons as gods—but as ancestors, kin, and pain-bearers. The dragon is not above them. It is them.
When the heavens burned, they did not kneel. They roared. They remembered. In some broods, it is said the ash of the Second Clutch still drifts through the volcanic winds, whispering truths only the ember-hearted can hear. Young Drakhari who dream of scales they’ve never seen are believed to carry echoes—souls unfinished, lives broken mid-forge, seeking to be born again in flesh and fire.
They do not pray for salvation. They carve it into their bones. They sing no hymns. They duel their ancestors in dreams, and they carry forward every scream that was never heard. Memory, not mercy, is their doctrine.
The Drakhari live in broods, not blood-families—clans forged by ritual, combat, and breathform resonance. There are no kings. Only Flame-Holders—those whose memories burn brightest.
This section reveals how Drakhari live outside battle, bonding, and ritual combat. It grounds them not just as warriors, but as a people—defined by discipline, memory, and flame even in the quiet moments of daily life.
The Drakhari believe the soul is not whole unless its three flames burn in balance:
To neglect one flame is to dim the others. But to burn all three in balance? That is to become legend.
Among the Drakhari, a gift is never soft. It is an act of defiance, a declaration of memory, or a challenge to legacy. To give something that cannot endure fire is to insult the flame itself. A gift must be tested—by flame, blood, or ancestral resonance.
To bond with a Drakhari is to accept all their forms—beast, breath, and brokenness. These rites are not performed lightly. Each union is sealed through heat, chase, and breath, not soft vows or witnessed rings.
Those who complete the rite often mark their chest with a breathform tattoo coiled around a stylized fang or broken wing—signifying love not as surrender, but chosen rage.
Notable Union: Vireya Kaelvyrn, daughter of Queen Allan, is bonded to a Drakhari breathform master once mistaken for a leviathan. Their vow-stone still stands untouched near the Kaedrith cliffs—unburnt, unburied.
The Drakhari do not bury their dead—they release them. Their afterdeath rites are thunder, not silence. To fall is not the end. It is a return to storm, sky, and breath.
Corpses are wrapped in volcanic linen, painted with skydust, and cast from sacred cliffs into storm-chasms. The breath is expected to rise. The body feeds either cloud or stone.
“Even the devoured may rise again—if their flavor is remembered.”
Among the Drakhari, cooking is not survival—it is legacy. A sacred war between instinct and refinement. Flamecraft cuisine is treated with the same reverence as duelcraft or bondrites. To share fire-forged food is to taste another’s memory. To cook badly is to dishonor your line. To cook well is to be remembered in flame.
“Not all who burn are lost. Some are seasoned.”
Held once every seven years during the volcanic moon cycle, this sacred culinary festival honors forgotten ancestors, unnamed duelists, and devoured kin whose stories were lost to fire. It is a rite of indulgence, grief, and memory—where food becomes flameborne tribute and sacred trial.
“We cook so the forgotten may eat. We burn so their names might rise.”
Some broods speak in hushed rumbles of a fallen divine butcher—a Seraveth who devoured drakes and was not consumed in return. His name is burned, not spoken:
They say he tasted Kaelvyrn’s final breath and called it sweet. That he cooked prophecy. That his judgment ruins false gods as easily as undercooked marrow.
In volcanic shrines, some leave offerings of charred bone, rare herbs, or whisper-flavored spices—not in worship, but in warning. To taste well is to survive. To be remembered by him is to be consumed in story.
Flamecallers who specialize in culinary rites are sometimes marked with a second sigil: the Split Tongue. They are feared, revered, and occasionally asked to name the flavor of a fallen soul.