Can we have some more Aerakyn Lore please?

After a somewhat heated discussion tonight, I think we all came to the conclusion that we need some more lore for our lovely new race. All we have to work with is the Lore and Legend book and the racial quest (unless I am missing some?). I have formed an Aerakyn themed guild and would loved to know more about what their lifestyles were like before Kerafyrm came along and nabbed them. How old can they be, what sort of culture did they have, live births or laying eggs? (lol). I'd imagine the blending of two long lived races would make them quite long lived themselves, but who knows?

Mind if I provide a few observations? Nothing from Norrath, but things that make sense. Well, some things from Norrath.

First thing is the Aerakyn aren't a very old race. It could be that none of them have died from natural causes. If the race has been around for 200 years...then you can say on average the race lives for at least 200 years. If the First Aerakyn is still around...he is the first. A lot of the firsts in Norrath live an abnormally long time. Like the first Dal king and queen lived for thousands of years, but overall Dal usually one live for 1 millennium, not several. Off hand I'd say the race is so young you probably have no idea how long you'll live till the older members start dying off. Being told at this point might be just someone's best guess.

Culturally its hard to say, but you can make some small observations from their behavior in ToV. First, they think of themselves as dragons. That seems absolutely absurd because they don't look like dragons at all, but they say it every chance they get so... They also seem to be very proud, and arrogant as a race. Also they don't seem to mind doing grunt work for actual dragons. More than likely they see themselves as better than the "lesser" races but below actual dragons. Probably they see themselves as equals to the other dragon kin, or slightly above them. Kerafyrm's defeat might of dealt a sever blow to their racial confidence.

Live birth or eggs? Well, considering that their mother is suppose to have been an elf..live birth. Magic does a lot of strange things but I don't think its going to change a live birth race into an egg laying race. Eggs would make it slightly easier to have a single female produce enough offspring to make a race, but you still have the problem of raising the offspring. Getting enough adults to take care of them...it would be just as easy to explain that the dragon got enough females and knocked them all up since you'd need enough adults to care for the offspring anyways.

More of a question would be does the race continue to breed true? Can Aerakyn breed with elves and/or other races and produce more Aerakyn? Or half Aerakyn? Or since they are a magically created race are they sterile? Being sterile is actually very common in the real world for half breeds. Or maybe the Aerakyn can continue to breed, but only with other Aerakyn? Possibly even that the first few generations have enough magic to keep breeding but eventually that magic will dwindle and they will lose the ability to breed with other races?

Considering the scant lore we have about races breeding amongst each other the only thing I can say is halflings are the most successful race when it comes to cross breeding. There is lore from EQ2 (and the early portions of EQ1 that are considered part of EQ2's lore) to say that halflings can breed with dark elves, dragons, ogres, and possibly humans. Being able to breed with dark elves probably means the rest of the elves as well. There aren't any explicit mentions of gnomes or dwarves which surprises me a little.

Though there are mentions of Euradites and dwarves marrying. Possibly even children?

on a racial scale, I think it's 'they are born of dragons' is supposed to be less of a 'I think I'm a dragonkin' and more a 'my lineage is from a dragon, you can't possibly match me in power'. same way if someone was descended from say Genghis Khan so naturally just assums they'd be some kind of great tactitian cause it's 'in their blood'.

as to their allegiance with Kera/Awakened army...that's entirely because Kera possessed the Scale of Veeshan. it's like a racial leash. the person who had the Scale, pretty much owned the Aerakyn. kinda like the Harness for the Drakota.

Considering dragons are 'true' immortals as far as age, and elves are insanely long lived themselves..I'd imagine an Aerakyn lifespan is on average prolly a few millenium. the oldest of the race lived long enough to see the entirely race come into the numbers we've seen, and was still alive and apparently quite capable of pissing off Kera enough that he personally came to kill him. so I imagine several Droags/wyverns/wurms/drakota didn't come back before Kera decided to intervene.

they also seem to enjoy the militant lifestyle, similar to Ogres. Daeron and the rest talking about 'they will be commended for thier victories' seems like the ability to fight and win is a big deal in their culture.

That doesn't fully make sense. Mainly because in the Nexus Core we destroy 3 tears of veeshan. They aren't unique items, and they certainly weren't created to control the Aerakyn. They simply amplify magic. Maybe part of Kerafyrm's inherent magic was to influence and that was amplified by the Tear. Maybe the Aerykin recognized the Tear as a dragon artifact and followed Kerafyrm out of devotion? Maybe they just revered him as the most powerful dragon they had known and followed him out of lust for battle, glory and power?

Also, we destroyed Kerafyrm's Tear of Veeshan but the Aerakyn continued to follow him. So it couldn't be some kind of magical control like the harness. If it was, you would of expected to see Aerakyn deserting the Awakened army after we destroyed the Tear but they suppored Kerafyrm to the bitter end.

the Tear and the Scale are different artifacts. the Tears are indeed magical amplifiers, the Scale was a different artifact that was the 'Aerakyn Harness' it was what thier forebearer used to control them, before Kera took it. the Scale is mentioned in the Aerakyn Lore and Legend book, and Daeron thinks that his distance from it/Kera was a reason why it's hold eventually weakened and broke.

Kera's defeat/the loss of the Scale is why the Aerakyn, now trapped in our thread, are spreading to the cities as our newest player race.

I did the Aerakyn racial line and here are some tidbits:

they all consider eachother siblings, as a big family, though there's no indiaction that they couldn't breed with each other. the Scale is what was used to make them part of Kera's Army, and they had no control over what they were ordered/forced to do.

Kera killed Dyn'leth, and thier Mother, whose named started with a V, but I can't remember it offhand, when he claimed the Scale. They are researching on either how to get back to their own Thread, or find if their 'homeland' the Serpentspine Mountains, might still exist in this one. Kera killed thier forbearer and mother in 'a single breath' so he came and did incinerate them both.

Qeynos isn't happy that they are there, and there is definately a kind of blame for the Awakened's seige of the city being pushed on them.

Oooh, I forgot to do the racial quest on Qeynos side, I shall do that!

Hang on here. If the Aerakyns all consider themselves related, that must mean that they don't seek out each other for a mate. I mean that would be...kinda ick.

How do they maintain their numbers then? Are the ones that we play the only ones left? Can they have children with the Dal or other races?

For RP sake, I think this might need a little clarification.

they refer to each other as 'brothers and sisters' and we know the enitre race cam from 2 of them. the magical nature of dragons apparently makes the 'inbreeding' idea pretty much non-existant.

Dyn'leth and the woman with the V name they call 'Mother' seem to be the first two, from which all the others spring. so unless those two are the ONLY two breeding and they laid a HUGE clutch of eggs in the thousands...I's say the Aerakyn can interbred with eachother no problem.

When I did the quest in Qeynos (don't want to spoil it for others), there were quite a few references to "brother" and "sister" in a sense that was more or less dealing with a cult (religious) much like groups of a single belief system may call each other "brother" and "sister" and in the quest, they called non Aerakyn "brothers" and "sisters".

you refer to the guy that sends you to the cult, and when you meet him in Starcrest as 'brother' and you refer to the others, outside perhaps the drunk one, as 'brother' as well.

Most of the Aerakyn origin lore actually comes from EQ1 (The Serpent's Spine expansion to be exact).

Once, there was a dark dragon named Lethar. He was not a nice guy. He had a mate named Selay. He liked to mess with her head. One way he did this was to illusion himself as an elf and seduce a High Elven woman. She became pregnant and gave birth to Dyn'Leth (the first Aerakyn). She was either killed by Selay or died in childbirth (I forget which), and Lethar enslaved her spirit to keep her around to torment Selay.

Well, Lethar and his twisted little son Dyn'Leth found a Scale of Veeshan (different than the tears of Veeshan from the Nexus). They found that with this scale, they could enslave other dragons. Dyn'Leth found he was immune to the scale's powers, and was starting to use it to control his father.

Now, in EQ1 a group of rogue members of the Claws of Veeshan create their own order (known as the Circle of Crystalwing) and use their powers to create a new race of humans touched by dragon magic, known as the Drakkin. These drakkin are also mostly immune to the Scale, much like the Aerakyn, and the CoC uses them to help take out Dyn'Leth. Since the drakkin don't exist in EQ2, these events likely didn't happen in whatever "thread' of reality that Kerafyrm snatched Dyn'Leth from.

This video is of the various raids in Ashangate, where the Scale is being kept by Dyn'Leth.

I reread the book from the Aerakyn L&L and yes, Lethar and Veldyn, the one they called Mother, had Dyn'leth. in their Thread, Lethar didn't abuse, or torment Veldyn. in fact they had many more kids besides Dyn'leth, implying this version of the two were more lovers then a dragon playing with a lesser race.

Veldyn or Dyn'leth aslo had the Scale of Veeshan, by which they ruled the Aerakyn. Dyn'leth took on a elvish wife himself, as did many siblings, and they had kids and thus the race propagated.

So the 'brother and sister' connotations could be implied that all the Aerakyn are related to each other, as cousins at best, or actual siblings. But Kera came and incinerated Dyn'leth (who reportedly assaulted him directly) as well as Veldyn in a 'single breath' and claimed the Scale, and thus dominion over the Aerakyn, for himself.

though considering cousins can interbreed..it's safe to assume that no matter how related, that Aerakyn can and probably do pair off with eachother. though Dyn'leth and his 'siblings' seem or were reported to have all taken elvish mates.

that could mean that's the only other race that breeding worked with..or that was just the preferance after their parents races/relationship.

I would just like to note...

The Aerakyn LnL book explicitly says that Aerakyn are half-dragon, half-Elddar Elves. Veldyn was an Elddar Elf grieving for the loss of her thread's Takish-Hiz. Lethar found her and turned into an Elddar Elf and courted her.

True, but the Elddar were effectively the stock all the other elves came from over time. They'd still be fairly close genetically to the elves we can play today so I'd imagine they can breed with them.

and the closest to the 'Elddar' elf right now I beleive are the high elves, the Koada'Dal.

Just as easy to argue that Fier'dal (wood elves) are the closest. The elves choose to re-name themselves when they left the Elddar Woods.

I personally see it as the Elddar kind of adapted to their new environs. The Feir'Dal, at least. The Koada'Dal kept to their cities of stone and culture, and thus retained much of their Elddar features.

What I found interesting is how we have these different races of part dragon, part lesser mortal or something. It would make sense if we were to scientifically classified these races (Aerakyn, Sarnarks, Exc.) 'Dragoniods'.

Aside that, while accord to several dragon lore a dragon race have a large life-span and considering that in this world death links to Vesspry Isles (dragon heaven) it got me thinking ..... would that mean the Aerakyns would go to Vesspry Isles when they finally die or would they end up with the rest of the mortals lost in the other plains of Etherene.

Considering that the other dragon-kin (drakota, drakes, droag and wyrms) are ending up in the Vesspyr Isles I don't see why Aerakyn wouldn't. Though where you wind up in the Ethernere is suppose to be a reflection of what was dear to you in Norrath. That is part of the reason I was confused as to why so many people that weren't native to the Feerrot ended up in the Eldion Jungle. Our Feerrot is practically deserted except for Lizardmen, but elves and gnomes are washing up in EJ?