Winter Gather 2020 Critter Notes!

[Shard]

Mainly from Shard!

***

“I didn’t know it would do that, I swear,” Melissa said, hurriedly, “it wasn’t my fault, honest to god I did not know it-”

Keenan stopped her with the briefest of head-nods and finger-raising. She was at least aware enough of her surroundings that she caught it, and knew she was rambling. But her hair was tied back and bobbing like mad in her jittery state; honey colored frizz that had grown somewhat in the few years since the Rookery had started. They had known one another considerably longer than that, he knew her mannerisms and she claimed she knew more about him than most - and was right.

But the woman next to Keenan didn’t know much about the blond genetic engineer who was all but vibrating in her distress in the office’s open archway. Likewise, Melissa didn’t know who the ... less than - more than? human woman was there, but she had both a regal and roguish look. In addition to being a rabbit. That white-furred woman glanced with brilliant green eyes at all of this, red eyebrows bouncing around and making her look even more confused.

A few of the people at this table, Melissa did recognize quickly enough - realizing that this was a group that had clearly come from Twoarth and Carramba’s campus for whatever reason. Ah, right, she glanced beyond at a cluster of students, it was field trip time again. Mel did her best to try and calm herself, but then her busy-bee mind dragged her back to the fact that one of the storage chambers in the Rookery’s lower areas was completely infested with something, and she was trying to discern its origins in the lab when...

Zora Domina’s cheery giggle turned to a raucous laugh, and Melissa first thought it was at her, but no it was because of something her telepathically-communicating dragon had said. That dragon was currently in humanoid form sitting next to her bond at the big oval table in this conference room. “There is odd magic at work,” the dragon-faced Calmath said.

The tall-dark-and-scary dragonmage Lucas sitting next to Zora faintly rolled his eyes and smirked, “when is there not?” He got an elbow in his side from Zora. “No, really - when is there not odd magic here?”

“When it is Vortessence,” Keenan said, smirking in reflection of Lucas’s amusement. “Magic works less smoothly here than it ought.”

Melissa was growing more agitated by the moment, when another of those definitely-not-human furry types indicated he noticed her distress. “With due respect, professor Lane,” he addressed Keenan the only way he commonly did, as a Carramba High instructor. “Your friend is trying to get your attention.”

“Yes, she usually does,” Lane muttered with a more broad grin very briefly flashing on his thin lips before he turned to face Melissa properly. “My dear it-”

“You have to see it,” she said, and though she’d mostly calmed with the attention the others were giving from the table, her voice was edged. So they all got up and followed her down, the service elevator grinding and making some juddering trembles as everyone crowded onto it, before smoothly descending into the lowest levels of the Rookery.

What met their senses first was that it was blissfully cool there, in this half-natural cavern that had been opened up below the mesa’s main areas. Normally there were electric lights offering a steady glow to the room, but right now, they weren’t even in use. It wasn’t dark...

Colors were flashing, alternating red - green - blue - green - yellow - orange - purple - white. It looked to a few of them, Zora and Lucas and Keenan anyway, that someone had dolled the room up with Christmas and Wintertime decorations, which was fine, since at least on their worlds it was suitably winter time as well. In fact, weren’t there some folks up in the Rookery proper as well as over in the Ranch, having their own celebrations today?

The lights weren’t coming from the ceiling, where three long sets of paired florescent lighting units hung dark and unused. They were coming straight from the floor and walls, where dozens of strange oval mounds stood surrounded by what looked like the crusty Antlion nesting material. Yellowish, crunchy when stepped on, it definitely had that feel. But...

Keenan just looked straight at Melissa, but then gazed past her: Jade was here? Well, this was typically her domain with the food preservation she did. The brighter glowing lights on the floor didn’t prevent him from seeing the fainter grey-green and sickly yellow lights that came from...

“Myc?” He said, and at that word, Jade became aware that she had visitors.

“Oh Mister Lane, there you are, I was... um,” the plant-shaper glanced around at the draconic and feline and rabbit-looking attendants that surrounded the founder of the Rookery, and though she was normally bold as brass, Jade became a bit subdued in their presence. It wasn’t often that such anomalies visited, most of the Rookery was human.

Some of those that weren’t human had a large eye and three more on their low-hung heads - Vortigaunts, one of which was in the nook beyond where Jade stood. This one had of all things, a chef’s hat perched on that oddly shaped head, and wore an apron over his yellow-brown body.

“Ahh, nach’lih kallah-vahh comes to observe the delightful celebratory occurrence before us!” The Vort exclaimed, in their typically rambling fashion. “This one’s companion Candycorn has become a king of his kind overnight!”

Melissa’s yellow eyes begged Keenan to reassure her: no, this wasn’t her doing - she had discovered some stray egg-like thing up in another part of the Rookery, and was tracing its origin. She explained this over the next few minutes. The chemical trail led her here to the storage room, which Jade proclaimed had not been like this the night before.

The night before was when Sean, Malai, Lucas and Zora, and the field trip students from Carramba’s Magic Studies class had arrived.

Those students had followed their instructors, but clung to the sides of this large room with a growing sense of unease. Even if they were students at a Nexus school like Carramba, this room was... pretty weird. Filled, as it was, with egg cases and crusted-over slime. The fact that the Vortigaunt nearby was delighted by such a thing was even weirder to them. But that Vort stepped past Jade and Keenan, butcher knife in hand, and lopped off the top from one of those egg cases. A brownish ooze slopped out from it. “It is filled with more than merely antlion larva,” he proclaimed. “It is filled with holiday magic!”

Keenan and the others hashed out just what had gone on here. While Melissa was able to discern DNA and genetics, what she couldn’t really do was track off-world magic sources. Most of the genetic material she’d teased out of that one egg sample up above in a lab was ‘from’ the local dragons. Well, not necessarily dragons - smaller creatures, the biggest of which was Candycorn, that Xeno... creature. He was busy playing with a cockroach, not at all interested in attacking any of the humanoids present, which was what Zora and some of the students figured it would be doing.

The broadest of the donor dragons was Myc, the shroom-dragon that shifted its weight from ‘foot’ to ‘foot’ in the corner. Jade Vortally reassured him that no one was going to harm him, and his glowing tail-tip shone slightly brighter with that.

The smallest was apparently a brightly white and gold colored dragonei, birdlike, feathery, and long-tailed. Melissa telepathically showed a genetically-based Vortal reconstruction of it, and Keenan knew it belonged to one of the ELLs, Fantell, who was up in the larger recreation hall with the families and people trading gifts. Those gifts were likely beautiful cloth scarves and garments, given that Fantell was one of the most talented weavers and tailors anyone could want.

And though it had been a little difficult for her to figure out which of those smaller dog-seal dragons was the source for some more genes, it turned out to be a visitor from the Color Guard, one normally over at North Aperture, and his foul-mouthed Glowstick companion. It was highly likely that Glowstick was the source of the actual glow to these eggs.

The last creature, though, had only showed up with Sean, and was only now becoming the focus of Melissa’s wide yellow eyes. It had been a blur jumping around just outside the conference room’s hallway windows, it had been a whoosh-lined fuzzy carnation blob that came down the elevator shaft without needing to join the group on the actual lift. Now, it sat nearby: a pink colored dragon that had long bunny-like ears and a tuft at the end of its tail. “It’s this one,” Mel proclaimed, “it’s the last of the distinct phenotypes!”

She did a happy dance when it looked like no one was going to scold her for putting the weird eggs together herself. While she had certainly been responsible for making some dragons in her time here, these were all something else entirely.

Sean looked at her bunny-dragon, “I didn’t know you could lay eggs this fast,” but the dragoness shook her pink head, long ears flopping rather a lot like her caretaker’s did.

“It was not me! I... did feel something, but it was more ...hungry than anything else!” The dragon disavowed any direct involvement in this process. She’d wanted to be in some kind of pairing again ‘at some point’ in her life, but they’d never found a good spot or time for it after the Run at Lantessama, her birthplace.

It was Lucas who said it, “proximity based spontaneous generation,” he muttered, “magically induced.”

“I thought that Xenos needed some kind of ... thing,” Zora made a wiggly protrusion under her loose shirt, an illusion of a chest-burster from a movie she’d seen long before. But there was Candycorn, brightly white and reflecting the holiday lights that came from his eggs.

“Apparently not,” Malai said, inspecting not-too-closely one of those egg sacs. “Truly it is a solstice miracle.” He wasn’t impressed with his own use of the word ‘miracle’, these things looked... troubling.

“This is not a Nectarium,” Keenan grunted, looking toward Cookie, the Vort. That same alien had scooped out whatever was in the egg sac and put it in a large jug, apparently treating it as though it was larval extract from the antlions - which would have created said Nectarium in the deeper caves below the Black Mesa desert.

“Ahh, it is not,” Cookie asserted with what passed for a Vortigaunt grin, as he dipped one of his two long spindly fingers into that jug and “yet the results are most delicious and delightful on the palate! Come, come, this one tastes of hot chocolate!”

The color that Keenan turned was surprising to anyone other than Jade, who had seen it once before...

***

Somewhere in another dimension, outside of time and space itself, on a floating asteroid with a storage room that looked exactly like this one, Baeris Kshau was laughing in her sleep: it wasn’t happening in the Healing Den, and she thought that was hysterical.

[Shard]

Here are the "parents" to this unusual nest... If you want to link to them the toyhouse pages will do for the time being.

Because Candycorn is not exactly a conventional xenodragon, or ... conventional anything really, these don't have to use the naming tradition in place for prior xdragons. You can if you want, it's not essential.

Cookie the Vort and Candycorn the Xenodragon <-- all count this as parent
https://toyhou.se/9329685.cookie-the-vort-and-candycorn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Jade and Myc -- OF NOTE, ... Keenan meets Myc once before, as shown in the blurb in the story above. It's at the bottom of this page! <-- shroom parent
https://toyhou.se/9329738.jade-and-dragons" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fantell and her (unnamed) dragonei <-- chickie parent
https://toyhou.se/9329659.fantell" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Spectrum and Glowstick <-- all count this as parent
https://toyhou.se/9329607.spectrum-and-dragons" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sean and Sundai the bunnydragon <-- bunny parent
http://droppin-the-fork.com/dragonsites ... sean-4.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Shard]

Xenobabies DO have stats and such, but since the giveaway for them is random, and it's possible that people will get the 'same' image, please tell me asap who you have, so I can consult my amazing list of info to make sure you get the right background info!


Dray got first rolls these, others may have power, gender/rank, and size variations but will be effectively the same flavor.

Bunny drone 2 - Charm, Easily sort small items, Cause giggling, Hive Mind; Candycane flavored; f warrior low; White and Red; 3’4s; punctual quick witted
Bunny drone 5 - Teleportation (long range), Plant and Flower arranging, Hive Mind; Candy shell with orange-flavored chocolate; m warrior high rank; 3’s; trailblazing, silent
Bunny Queen 1 - Cause drooling in humanoids, Stealth; Dk Choc with cherries; f queen hi; Black and Red; 4’s; Punctual
Chickie drone 2 - Telepathy, Flight, Uncanny ability to hide; Marzipan!; herm warrior low; Pale medium dark blues; 3’6s; indifferent
Chickie drone 5 - Speed running/movement, Cause giggling; Chocolate with marshmallows; herm warrior low; Browns creamy whites and steamy; 3’4s; just
Chickie queen 3 - Teleportation (long range), Relaxed in any situation, Scent-based emotion control; Inedible but is okay to chew on for a bit; f queen low; Gristle grey, bone white, blood red, something gold; 4’s; callous, flippant
Shroom 5 - Verbal Speech, Package Wrapping; Chocolate Peanut-butter nougat honeycomb; neuter scout high; Brown gold honey; 4’s; Cruel

[StarFyre]

I'mma end up putting together a collection.. somewhere.. but! I would like to acknowledge claiming: Bunny drones 1, 2, 4, 5, Bunny queens 1, 2, Chick drones 1, 2, 3, and Chick queens 2, 5. What will I do with them? Who am I foisting them upon? gods only know, I sure don't, but whoever it will be will be Sorry.

[Shard]

LOL bwaaaah hahahahah!

Bunny drones
1 Acid Immunity, Uncanny ability to hide, Scent-based happiness; Bittersweet chocolate; male drone low; Brown Yellow and Pink; 4’6s; quiet
2 Flight, Verbal Speech; Hard candy, very brittle; male warrior low; White and Red; 3'6s; Stoic, obsequious
4 Package Wrapping, Telepathy, Scent-based emotion control; Fruit and nuts suspended in white choc; f scout hi; White yellow pink brown purple; 3’6s; loving
5 Scent-based emotion control, Camouflage, Command Following; Fruity goo inside; m drone hi; Brown orange yellow; 4's; Manipulative, elitist

Bunny queens
1 Cause laid back attitude in anyone, Command Following, Uncanny ability to hide; Acid blood! Don't eat that!; f queen hi; Black and Red; 3's; Gluttonous, wayward
2 Empathy, Command Following, Stealth, Speed running/movement; Tastes of licorice (black, red, salt); queen f low; Red and Black; 3’6s; Subservient

Chick drones
1 Resin secretion, Scent-based happiness, Leaping; Smells like heaven! Tastes... like dog food.; f scout hi; Blue, Violet, Pink; 3’6s / patient, traditional
2 Scent-based emotion control, Decoration sense; Light and fluffy cake-like interior; m warrior low; many blues; 3'6s; Charismatic, Articulate
3 Illusion magic, Teleportation (short range); Toxic but not deadly, will make small creatures quite sick; m drone low; Gold Red pink; 4’s; quick on their feet, impetuous

Chick queens
2 Telepathy, Be ignored by any dragon /animal, Camouflage, Resin secretion; White chocolate and sprinkles; f queen low; Pale white shiny blue sprinkles; 3’s; inconsiderate, maverick
5 Teleportation (nexus), Stealth, Scent-based emotion control; Very sweet and sugary; f queen hi; Pastel Green, Yellow, Blue purple; 4’s; Violent, Flamboyant

Enjoy!