Physical Description

Tall and slim, the victi are by and large a fairly typical reptilian species with long necks, smooth scales covering their bodies, and a pair of horns on either their forehead or lower jaw. The heads are generally thin, with a pair of bright forwards-facing eyes looking down an almost-dainty snout. Their feet have long thin claws, both in front and behind, and a back ridge of larger scales runs all the way from the neck to their thick tails. These tails contain significant muscle and the tips are somewhat prehensile, often used to absently hold things, but aren't usually capable of fine manipulation.

Victi almost always dress in what seem outmoded fashions to other species with frills and brocade in evidence, but also dress in outfits patterned after or adorned with miniature instances of clockwork and steam-powered technology. This is done both for aesthetic and practical purposes, with the richest knights virtually bedecked in suits of this gleaming brassy outfit.

However, the victi are only a half of the pair that make up the species. For while the draconic-looking knights make up the majority of the population, there are also the kavr, the true dragons of Wist. Huge airborne creatures stretching from dozens to a few hundreds of feet in length, these ribbon-like forms fly without wings; their ethereal flight and electric-bright eyes clear evidence of their anomalous nature. Dragons in the technical sense of the universe, manifestations of a fear unique to their more mundane brethren. Their scales are glittering and iridescent, and long curling ribbons float around their body, leaving trails of scales and dust drifting through the breeze behind them. The end of the ribbons fray over time, but the butterfly-wing-like scales on them continue to follow the end of the structure for some time, before flaking away and sailing into the sky. When kavr age, they sometimes have wafting silken scarves made to imitate any of their frayed ribbons that are worn down too far.

Both victi and kavr alike universally have needle-like sharp teeth, reddish in colour. While neither species have real "wings", the kavr do have oarlike fins for balance in flight and victi mythology is so full of ancient tales of rare winged victi (Such as Vittoria, the pseudo-legendary First Sky Pirate) that it is now believed that this trait likely did once exist, but had fully vanished by a few thousand years ago at most.

It's important to note that despite these rather extreme physical differences, the two types both share the exact same genes, all differences between the two being purely anomalous.

Personality

While the kavr flutter in the peak top gales of Wist, the victi forge their lives in cities and castles of steam and machine in the valleys below. The two subspecies largely live separate, the more numerous victi having their eons-old civilisation thriving and populous in great mechanical cities, whilst the kavr usually live alone or in small family groups. Unwilling or unimpressed by the idea of participating in the trappings of the valley societies below, kavr nonetheless are not above buying or being gifted with their technological products, and it is not uncommon to see a dragon's cavern home bedecked with synthetic flags and soaring banners sporting an imported steam-core furnace stack that gouts flame and warms the stony abode on cold winter nights.

Despite this standoffish separation, the victi are renowned for their widespread adoration of every aspect of their ribbon-like brethren. Poetry and song, art and architecture, all based around this aspect of culture, to an impressive degree. Many victi even stick to their old steam and cog powered technologies specifically as they believe this home-developed technology to be a reflection of the dragon-power they so seek. Around kavr in fact, these reptilian beings of smoke and brass can get almost giddy and silly with excitement, and the secret fear of many a victi is that they will never get a chance to meet or befriend their far rarer draconic cousins.

A notable oddity in their society however, is the ancient and long-running tradition wherein victi knights kidnap kavr and take them back to their airy homes down in the valleys below. The prestige of having accomplished this is quite high to them, and so it is attempted very often. While it may seem unlikely that a giant floating dragon could reasonably be imprisoned in a flimsy wooden structure, it is considered a serious social faux pas to extricate oneself from this situation, it being a deeply enshrined ritual in both cultures. Instead, the dragon waits to be rescued from the knight who has carried them away!

While waiting for another kavr dragon to swoop down and 'rescue' them, most captives are outrageously doted upon by their adoring hosts, who will often build special rooftop annexes to house them ahead of time. The victi's attention is generally regarded as something between charming and bothersome by the kavr, especially when it is taking a while for rescue to arrive. Often, kavr courtship involves one partner deliberately being caught to induce their would-be-partner to seek them out and overcome their captors, though this has been known to lead to awkward situations when one kavr over-estimated the others interest in courtship or swooping down to "save" them. (In such situations, most victi are likely to send discreet but pointed letters to local kavr advising them to please come and rescue their guest in daring escapade before they eat the increasingly-poor knight out of house and home).

The far greater comparative rarity of kavr, however, (perhaps one in a thousand), has not stopped them from being far more active on the universal scale than their admirers, and they typically lead expeditions or negotiations with other species. Clannish and tight-knit, the kavr's trustful attitudes towards family and occasional unfair dismissal of the victi as "silly knights" has caused some alien groups to accuse them of nepotism in politics, leading to a long-running debate as to whether the species representatives ought to change and be more proportionate.

Kavr out in the universe will often have a retinue of victi, either in their employ or just tagging-along after them like music fans (It's customary to offer food and lodgings to visitors and followers in the kavr home culture, so many are able to keep this up for a great while before their money runs low and they have to get jobs).

Victi out in the universe are often found in places where there are many dragons of the universal types, either just passively present or actively engaged in learning about them, and they almost always collect dragon iconography to go with their old-style fashions and posters. Anomaly hunters sometimes employ them under false pretences to seek draconic anomalies out, as some have become quite skilled at such.

History

In the past, there were dragons. Dragons of every kind and shape that can be imagined. They soared across Wist, filling the skies with whirls of wings and fangs and tail. So many different kinds were there, that the long-preserved writings on their varying forms and classification has been adopted by the universe to categorise most of the forms of its own dragons. Written by long-ago Victi and carefully documented and copied through the ages, these books do not simply claim to describe the dragons that were, the old victi, but also their fate.

The victi's histories state that their forefathers the every-dragons became bad and wrongful, arrogant and certain in their eternal dragondom, and fair veneration of their dragon gods ceased. Jealous in their godliness, those gods stripped the dragondom from all victi-kind, and the vast whirls of dragon forms were reduced merely to that of the victi as they are today.

Of course, all such distant histories are at least somewhat suspect, especially when they are so convenient to more recent narratives of the victi culture; and many external anomalo-ethnographers cast extreme doubt on the validity of these claims. But they are the histories, flawed or not, and thus ought to be told.

Only the kavr, the fluttering banners of the mountains, remained true enough to the gods to be permitted to remain dragons, for they are said to have never abandoned the old ways. Indeed to this day, kavr are famous for venerating every god that they are capable of, even outside the traditional kavr/victi pantheons, so perhaps there is a grain of truth here.

With the dragons all but gone, the victi became long gripped by new obsession with dragonhood and dragons, wherever they are found and whatever the form. They are devoted to the concept and its imitation, firmly stating the beauty and grace of dragons of all kinds and forms fervently. The societal obsession with such however, and the ancestral rarity and distance of kavr compared to the victi nations below, have led to a crippling fear that the dragons will one day be gone. Few openly admit it, but every traditional victi has at least somewhat felt the clutch of fear that they will never see a true dragon, whether that will be a shimmering being of the sky, or a far-flung anomaly in the depths of space. But ever they hold the kavr dearest, and the kavr hold them dearest, for they represent a shared history (Or at least a shared tale).

In modern times, the rituals and strictures of their ancient culture has faded somewhat. The kavr reached the universal communities above, contacting the aliens from amongst the stars and bringing back great gifts of technology that even now are transforming the lives of the victi below.

There has always been a divide between the nobles and knights of the victi, and the everyday people below; the common worker could never afford the expensive and time consuming ways in which the elaborate rituals of celebration were carried out by their lords and ladies. Instead they were forced to pool their resources and celebrate dragonkind only in festivals... but the stars above have brought wealth and time and cheapness to the dragon-lovers below. The opening with the universe the kavr achieved has provided all with at least the ability to imitate aspects of culture once locked away to the rich and powerful, and inevitably this has changed the culture!

While a noble of the old families might have a clockwork and steam-powered mansion on a balmy lake-beach, carved every inch with ornate depictions of knights and dragons dancing in battle-combat, even a low-paid stocker in a tourist trap half a galaxy away could at least afford cheap felt and plastic replicas of their forefathers war-gear, and a bedroom plastered with posters of dragons.

The kavr made first contact with the community of the universe, and for a very long time they were the most present in it by far. However, once large populations of kavr began to leave Wist the victi became more aware of the stars above, and followed them en masse, spreading out to a much greater degree. There they discovered that even strange and alien dragons were a delight to them, and enthusiastically followed them too, even if their hearts are ever with the beauty of their kavr firstmost.

Many victi who had scattered to the four winds around the universe, however, eventually began to feel lonely or unsure, so far separate from their old cultures despite assimilating into the new, and many were quite unhappy at the difficulty of purchasing traditional outfits. They began banding together on special occasions to share and trade, until eventually the great dragon re-enactment fairs began to take shape. Victi from all kinds of universal societies have these festivals, where for a few weekends all can play out a weekend or two as if they were still on Wist, and every manner of garbs and costumes can be found and bought and sold, the outcast recreating their own culture anew.

Home Planet

The planet of Wist is as shrouded in legend as its peaks are shrouded in fog and clouds. Rippled with jagged, yet not too-high mountains, the terrain varies from rolling lush fields between dizzying drops, to endless deserts of sinking sands, to dense jungle barely penetrable even with the great advantage of modern technologies. A place of utmost beauty, famed for its tourist vistas and picturesque views. Many "science fiction" films are in fact shot here, though sometimes dragons flying in the background have to be removed with computer editing. Despite the great technological changes, there are still some quiet enclaves where victi and kavr live peacefully as they have for millennia.

Subspecies

None / Unknown.

Special

None.

Trivia

• Even wealthy or important victi away from their ancestral worlds will often substitute actual clockwork or steam powered technology with much safer electric-powered replica costume. But when you're at home, there's no replacement for the real deal.

• "Knight" is actually a kavr term which they used to call victis that they do not know the name of, or that they are particularly vexed with. They generally meant it rudely, but the word was the same as the victi word for "bravery", and subsequently victi love to be called knights, conjuring thoughts of heroism and valour.

• Victi fashions of all times and ages love pockets. They enjoy having places to keep stuff, and strongly dislike any outfit without a pouch or pocket, often having tail-bags for keeping more things they might need at any moment.

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