[Dragon spotlight: the Jiaozi/Syldrion clan]
Jiaozi & Syldrion are two of my OG dragons. Jiaozi was my first adult dragon other than my progens (because you need 3 dragons to form a coli team), and I recently finished leveling him to 25 to be my golem workshop mage. Syldrion was bought soon after to be his partner.
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Jiaozi: Yuanzhang's official court mage. Eccentric, pompous, singleminded yet also incredibly prone to tangents.
Jiaozi is nominally in charge of the Kaiator Library, a massive underground library that extends for miles under the city. Under Jiaozi's direction, the library has expanded greatly but is not otherwise well-maintained, so large sectors of the library have essentially gone feral. Enter at your own risk.
(The Kaiator Library is my hibden tab for permas. The original idea was that all the dragons there had gotten lost in the stacks. However, by now, most dragons in there don’t have any lore connection to the Library. I should probably reorganize things…)
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Syldrion: Head archivist of the Kaiator Museum (a less prestigious institution than the Kaiator Library, but much better maintained, thanks in large part to Syldrion's tireless efforts). She's precise, exacting, and has a prodigious memory. She knows every artifact in the collection by heart, and she conducts nightly walkthroughs of the grounds to check for mimics.
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Cabeswater [firstborn of Jiaozi & Syldrion]: A brilliant alchemist. Also kind of a goof. Has a pet wartoad, TYRONE, who used to be Cabeswater's “lab assistant” until various incidents occurred and his partner Miscanti banned TYRONE from the lab. After that, TYRONE became Cabeswater’s assistant on field expeditions. Cabeswater claims he’s very helpful.
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Taco [son of Cabeswater & Miscanti]: As a hatchling, Taco was the unambitious and untalented one of the family. His siblings all had big dreams—they were going to be warrior-monks and great explorers, leaving their mark on the world—and left home shortly after reaching adulthood. Taco had no plans and no particular life skills. So he just stayed. His grandfather Jiaozi got him a job processing paperwork at the Department of Transportation. Taco spent most of the time staring listlessly out the window, but he couldn't be fired because he was Jiaozi's grandson.
After several months of that, Taco's best friend Clive was like "Okay, this is no good. We're getting you out of there."
Clive found a bunch of pet-related jobs (assistant cat groomer, waiter at a cat cafe, dogwalker...) and sat Taco down to apply to each of them. Eventually Taco got a position at a dog daycare, where he's much happier.
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Locke [fifteenth child of Jiaozi & Syldrion]: A surprise double (XYY overcast/turquoise). I was like “yeah, that’s nice” and mentally relegated him to the sale/fodder pile until I realized his father’s outfit looks so much better on him. I’m fond of Jiaozi, but his colors have always been a tad awkward. His emerald tert is too green; his sky primary is too light. His son is perfect.
But consider: I just finished leveling Jiaozi to 25. I’m invested. Also, we have history together.
“Sell dad, level up son,” said Spontaneite. “Problem solved.”
This is solid advice, but I didn’t do it. Instead I snagged a fullbody skin for Jiaozi off the AH (he’s one of my OGs, he has to be fancy), remodeled him completely, and his son stole his outfit wholesale.
Lore-wise, Locke is a huge nerd. He more or less grew up in the Kaiator Library. (This is partially due to parental neglect. His dad is constantly chasing one rabbit or another; his mom's a workaholic. However, even with the most attentive parents in the world, he probably would've chosen to spend as much time in the Library as possible.) Now grown up, he's a librarian with the goal of reforming and cataloging some of the wilder/deeper sectors of the Library.
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Cover images: Jiaozi and the family tree
