Dragonkin

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The dragonkin are a race of powerful and intelligent dragon-like creatures who were known to humans as powerful and malevolent creatures that spread destruction wherever they went. In battle, they have been seen to use exceptionally powerful dragonbreath.

The dragonkin are the original creators of armour and weaponry based on Orikalkum, a material which is known by adventurers as dragon equipment. They are also the creators of dragons and other related species.

There are two known factions of Dragonkin, the Necrosyrtes and Dactyl. The Necrosyrtes are Dragonkin who have succumbed to the curse inflicted upon the Dragonkin race by Jas and embrace its power, while the Dactyl are Dragonkin who resist the pull of the Stone and try to find a means to lift the curse.

History

At some point, the Dragonkin were enslaved by Jas and given the task of guarding the Stone of Jas. When one uses the Stone, the dragonkin feel pain and, eventually, become enraged, causing them to seek out destruction; they refer to this pain as the "Curse".

However, not all dragonkin fully succumb to the Curse. Some, such as Zorgoth, resist the curse and choose to focus on lifting it through experiments in laboratories hidden throughout the world, such as Crandor, Ungael, and Lithkren. As they are unable to reproduce, they attempted to create beings of the same lineage as themselves, yet not born of them directly, resulting in the creation of dragons.

While little is known about the Dragonkin, recent discoveries have helped to fill in some of the gaps in their history.

The Dragonkin Karuulm, who grew tired of the God Wars raging during the Third Age, moved to Mount Karuulm to begin his own experiments, taking notes all the while. Now, free from the criticism of other Dragonkin, he set to work on several experiments which utilised resources unique to the mountain. First, he created wyrms, after they had been driven to near extinction in the God Wars, followed by drakes, a creation of his own design. Both of these he saw as failures. Next, he created the hydras, which showed him promising results. Using the chemicals unique to the mountain, he eventually created an enhanced version of the hydra which showed even more promise, but was nonetheless deemed a failure because he could not replicate it. After this, he abandoned his laboratory on Mount Karuulm and relocated south to Mount Quidamortem after hearing of a unique lizard species, though it is unknown what happened to him afterwards. It is likely his work culminated in or otherwise involved the Great Olm, given its draconic appearance and attacks.

Another Dragonkin moved to the Poison Waste and created several serpents, one of which would grow into Zulrah. This Dragonkin was killed and eaten by Zulrah and its snakelings.

Fourth Age

Aivas, Tristan, Odysseus, Robert the Strong, and Camorra confronting the dragonkin on Lithkren.

During the Fourth Age, dragonkin who had succumbed to the Curse attacked human settlements, which prompted heroes such as Robert the Strong, Tristan, Aivas, and Camorra to drive them back.

One such battle took place on Lithkren, where the four slew a dragonkin who attempted to open the doors leading to the Lithkren Vault, ready to release the Dragonkin "ultimate weapon". Fearing what hid behind those doors, the heroes decided to split the dragon key this dragonkin left behind and hid the pieces around the world.

Fossil Island was discovered by the peaceful Dragonkin Skeka. Zorgoth eventually found Skeka and the island during the Fourth Age, surprised that she was still alive, but Skeka refused to let him utilise her island for his experiments. It is unknown if Skeka worked alone, but she is believed to be the creator of the wyverns due to their presence in the island's cave system.

Fifth Age

Zorgoth, a dragonkin, appears before the adventurer, Bob, and Dallas.

During the Fifth Age, an adventurer and the dragon expert Dallas Jones heedlessly opened the Lithkren Vault, whose key had been split by the Fourth Age heroes long ago. Doing so freed Zorgoth, who had been sealed behind the doors. Because humans were not willing to distinguish the aggressive dragonkin from the peaceful ones, he had grown to spite humanity and had perfected his ultimate weapon, Galvek, during his imprisonment.

The adventurer battles Galvek, while the leaders and heroes fight against brutal black dragons.

Seeing the threat Zorgoth posed to the world, the kingdoms of Gielinor joined forces and stood united against the dragonkin threat, planning an assault on Ungael, where the dragons of the world had gathered.

The assault was a success, resulting in the defeat of Galvek and Zorgoth, but not without many casualties from the united kingdoms, among them Bob the Cat.

During the same year, the Stone of Jas was unearthed in an Ancient Guthixian Temple beneath the Lumbridge Swamp Caves. The Mahjarrat Lucien discovered the Stone and took it from its resting place. With Zorgoth's death and a mortal abusing the power of the Stone, three more Dragonkin awoke from stasis at the Lithkren Vault: Strisath, Sakirth and Sithaph. They made note of Zorgoth's demise and the Stone's misuse, agreeing to bring terror to the lesser races.

Abilities

A Dragonkin in battle against Robert the Strong.

Not much of dragonkin combat has been seen, but what has been witnessed is evidence of tremendous power. During the battle on Lithkren in the Fourth Age, Aivas, Tristan, Odysseus, Robert the Strong, and Camorra slew a dragonkin, but not without tremendous effort and heavy injury, including the death of Aivas.

In an ancient battle against Robert the Strong, another dragonkin demonstrated the use of powerful magic, almost killing him. However, Robert managed to retaliate and slay the dragonkin.

Language

The dragonkin have a language, of which little is known, as they speak in the common tongue in their limited interactions with non-Dragonkin. The language and sentence structure is direct and simple, which follows something like below:

Subject - Adjective if required - Action modifier - Action - Object.

The only example of dragonkin language in Old School RuneScape is a shrine found in the northern portion of the Wyvern Cave, whereupon examining it will state "Forcae castil draekeun. Ortha lokur. Lith kletter ortha lokur. Draekeun fia Lithkren." This can be roughly translated as Forcae combine dragon. First steel. Superior green first steel. Dragon safe from Lithkren. Forcae is the name of the dragonkin who created adamant and rune dragons, while Lithkren is the name of a fortress built by a dragonkin, who the author of the ancient diary knew.

Most of these words were taken from RuneScape's Dragonkin Primer or other texts from RuneScape, which Old School Jagex Moderators have used in related content.

Translated

• Arakken = Dungeon
• Castil = Combine
• Chen = Razed/Destroyed
• Crasortius = Surrender
• Draekeun = Dragon
• Drakkerkin = Dragonkin
• Fia = Safe/Protected from
• Galvek = Fate
• Gres = East
• Hesente = Intruder
• Kath = Failure/Weakling/Runt
• Kalist = Catalyst, sometimes Stone of Jas
• Kletter = Green
• Kreath = Dark/Shadow/Black
• Kren = Fortress?
• Lith = Superior
• Lokur = Steel
• Ortha = First
• Tho = South
• Verak = King/Emperor?
• Vor = Pathetic
• Vosk = False User

Untranslated

• Askanth
• Carratas
• Dosk
• Falkar
• Hok
• Kalgat
• Kel
• Kuln
• Pthen
• Reageth
• Roake
• Sokun
• Traken
• Ven
• Volat
• Tescan
• Tesska

The Ancient Cavern

The Dragon forge

The dragonkin are known to have created the Ancient Cavern underneath Baxtorian Falls, as the several ancient pages from my notes suggests the cave appeared artificial in origin and suggested dragonkin involvement. The Ancient Cavern also contains a forge used to smith the dragon platebody and dragon kiteshield; this further supports the idea that the dragonkin created dragon equipment, as Bob states that they created a forge hot enough to work with Orikalkum.

Dragonkin's symbol

The Dragonkin are associated with a symbol with visual similarities to the Stone of Jas. It consists of a circle with a compass rose in the right half, and on the left half, a pattern identical to the one found on the Stone of Jas. There is also another Dragonkin symbol, which is only the compass rose without the Stone. This is because the Dragonkin symbol is actually a full compass rose, the half-stone-half-rose symbolises the Dragonkin's bonding to the curse of Jas. The symbol is seen on the floor in the hallway before entering the Lithkren Vault. The compass symbols are shown around the main symbol. The compass symbol is also seen on the floor of their castle from A Tail of Two Cats.

• 
  The compass rose symbol, which is the right half of the symbol to the right and the full Dragonkin Symbol.
• 
  The Dragonkin symbol representing their binding to the Stone of Jas.

Known Dragonkin

• Forcae, who created bronze, iron, steel and mithril dragons. He is mentioned in the Wyvern Cave on Fossil Island.
• Garak, a dragonkin who was known to have destroyed a number of small settlements near the border of the Wilderness during the Dragonkin Conflicts.
• Kerapac, an influential dragonkin mentioned in the old notes in the Karuulm Slayer Dungeon.
• Karuulm, who recreated Wyrms and created Drakes and Hydras. He wrote the old notes in the Karuulm Slayer Dungeon, which are compiled in the Mount Karuulm diary.
• Sakirth, one of three dragonkin awoken from their stasis by Lucien's theft of the Stone of Jas and Zorgoth's death.
• Sithaph, one of three dragonkin awoken from their stasis by Lucien's theft of the Stone of Jas and Zorgoth's death.
• Skeka, a dragonkin who lived on Fossil Island and presumably created the Wyverns.
• Strisath, one of three dragonkin awoken from their stasis by Lucien's theft of the Stone of Jas and Zorgoth's death.
• Zorgoth, featured in Dragon Slayer II and the creator of some metal dragons as well as Galvek.
• Unnamed dragonkin:
  • Dragonkin (A Tail of Two Cats), defeated in the Fourth Age by Robert the Strong.
  • Dragonkin (Dragon Slayer II), defeated in the Fourth Age by Robert the Strong and his allies.
  • An unknown Dragonkin mentioned in the Stained journal, creator of and later victim of Zulrah.

Trivia

• Dragonkin share a similar appearance to the Skeksis from the 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal. It was confirmed by Mod Mark during the London RuneFest get-together (28 January 2011) that the Dragonkin were actually based on Skeksis, due to his love of the movie The Dark Crystal.