Defunct drakes (Patreon)

Northern drakes are now defunct and any existing designs will be shuffled into one of two categories. Tropics or Southerns.

The decision wasn't made lightly, however it was an easy one (despite having finally sketched the entire northern ref sheet out)

I'll try to as briefly as possible, summarize the reason for this decision.

1. Northerns were made only to satisfy a small practically nonexistent group of people.

2. [tldr]

The tldr;

On the original planet Emain, where all Abyss stem from, there are polar regions but nothing but Mistavians inhabits those regions and only in the summer months.

Abyss drakes are known to have 3 parent species, I've discussed this innumerable times.

These parent species are:

1. Mistavian dragons, the true dragons of Emain. Sentient, SCALED massive 4 legged, 2 winged beasts that communicated much like whales of Earth, with complex language and culture. They do NOT tolerate the cold. For 20 years now, the starting story of this world is Fern and Kisenya meeting /in the snow/ as Fern was abandoned in a tundra and Kisenya stumbled upon him purely by chance. Both were pups and both bonded and survived together until the Chaos war. If Kisenya hadn't found him or vice versa, they both would have perished in the snow.

2. Rift drakes, the main sentient race on Emain come in 2 variants. Aquatic [covered in millions of tiny scales] and avian [covered in a proto-feather like filament that resembles fur, and they have feathered wings they can glide with.] Neither of these have a northern variety and as reptiles, they avoid the cold naturally.

(it is pointless to mention but the arkalians--the other extinct race on emain was also a flesh covered species of reptilians--no fur or feathers)

3. Veil drakes, the engineered offspring of Mistavian and Rift drakes are covered in 1 of 2 coat types. Fine tiny scales resembling skin, or fine tiny scales with filaments growing between each scale to provide a meager amount of warmth.

None of this has changed in over 20 years and the last update to Emain itself was when Abyss were accidentally born from the illicit mating between veil and rifts. Only Veil with the filament growth were compatible genetically with only the feathered rifts. Therefore all Abyss whether engineered or natural born, are only from this genetic material. It was stupid of me to create northerns to placate people I cared nothing for, when not even in their ancestral genetics, did "heavily feathered or furred" genes exist. And like the removal of breasts from drakes many years ago, it's time to nuke the Northerns as well.

Another reason is my personal bias and hatred of the north has impacted relations between the 3 species of Abyss. Notably, tropic drakes have slowly become racist towards the northern cousins, with southerns and tropics getting along fine. Racism among them was never allowed, so my personal hatred of snow impacted the lore in this way. It doesn't make sense for them to hate each other when they're meant to be breeding and repopulating their race. Despite the fact that I HATE deserts IRL, I do not and never have hated Southern[southeastern] drakes. They provide many resources to tropics and vice versa and they have very solid relationships and pleasant coexistence and no problems mating or bonding with each other.

Since I have so many reasons and since there is simply no logic in it, I am eliminating the Northern variant as of today. Anyone whom owns one may claim either the southern or tropical region for your existing design.  Eventually I will update the drake ref forms and exclude northerns permanently from all media. any I own myself will be changed to tropic or southern depending on coat pattern.

This also means that the patterns on the forms will be split now between south and tropic, giving the now two regions, more options for patterns and colors.

*If people come up with a 3rd variant for abyss drakes I MAY consider it, but it's not likely, as I think southern + tropic covers all the bases pretty nicely.

Remaining LIVING Emain species are as follows:

Abyss Drakes: Southern, Tropic, Aberrant & Augmented

Qothari hounds: the scaly dogs used for war, few remain scattered and there are established breeding programs on Io to keep them from going extinct

Rift drakes: a handful of elders remain on Io. They aren't capable of breeding and only exist to teach and pass knowledge. They are functionally extinct when the last elder dies.

Various birds and fish eggs were frozen and brought to Io for breeding programs. DNA was saved from a few dozen species native to Emain and with science they have brought a few back to life but it is a long and slow process and they aren't "built" for life on an alien moon like Io. Regardless, there are numbers of them alive. Some in pet trade, others in the food industry.

Deceased known/previously drawn species from Emain:

Mistavians [the first to go extinct]

Veil Drakes, all died fighting the global wars and holding back chaos for the citizens to flee the planet.

Rift Drakes, all scientists and otherwise useful members of society stayed behind to secure the future. They gave their lives to preserve what little they could.

Emain chargers: a beautiful horse like creature, sadly too large to transport to Io.

Clover beasts, desert dwelling massive predators with a catlike build and a head like a deep sea abomination

Athelion sprinters, a type of race horse [not a horse at all]

Arkalians, 'Adiago's' race of people. First to be infected with chaos. They lived on an island the size of australia and were wiped out within months. Their thin frail bodies couldn't cope with the chaos virus whatsoever.