Dragon Knight

‣ Sometimes you just gotta have a messed up dragon boy as your blorbo.

A science fiction setting where mostly fantasy-esque characters and races find themselves navigating through space.

This story focuses mostly on Ikamo, a Gyallian who became the vessel of an eldritch entity known as The Hunger after dying in war combat.

Dragon Knight Spotify Playlist,

Ikamo Ambient Spotify Playlist

Setting

Outer Space & Factions

The Genesis Station (TGS)

One of the largest space stations in this particular Galactic System, home to a wide variety of companies, political embassies, and public service resources. It has become a big center for trade and commerce, similar to a major metropolitan city.

The Station itself is a series of large discs that stack and float above each other and interconnect through a series of localized warp platforms. Other interstellar buildings and stations have over time connected themselves to the station on a more permanent basis. They are all held together by a Gravity Nexus - a device that simulates gravity at the perfect interval to keep a series of interstellar objects in place.

There are various platforms and bays where space ships of all shapes and sizes can dock, do business, and receive repairs.

Many of the folks who work on TGS are permanent residents. Housing is usually set up by whatever company or service you are working for.

BioFusion Works

A research company focusing on biological modifications and the efficacy of certain procedures. They work closely with local health departments to secure research candidates and offer alternative surgeries for free or cheap.

The ethics of this company is debated hotly amongst medical professionals, but everything is done above board and to local laws specifications.

Inter-Galatic Navigator's Guild (IGNG)

One of space's most beloved accreditation guilds - the IGNG provides top tier navigators for all factions, governments, and private parties. They are affiliation agnostic, and leave it up to individual certified navigators to decide where their allegiances lie.

To become IGNG accredited, an individual must undergo rigorous training and pass a series of tests before they can officially be guilded. Once a Navigator passes their exam, they are awarded with a special compass that always points towards the Intergalatic Center. It also bears the IGNG emblem and their personal ID number, serving as their badge.

The IGNG is responsible for standardizing directions and interstellar maps, as well as terms used to talk about directions, like as follows.

Intergalatic Center (Intercenter)
- Points specifically to the established "world center" - likely the location of one of the first space-faring species.
Galatic Center (Galacenter)
- The center of a particular galaxy.
System Center (Sy-Center)
- The center of a Star System - usually, the local Sun.
Planetary North
- The northernmost point of a typical planet.

An IGNG's compass can read all of these particular directions, if tuned correctly.

Navigators are highly valued, and well paid. Few go into deep space without an IGNG guilded navigator - if you are traveling somewhere, especially somewhere new, it's a good idea to bring one along.

The Hunger

An Eldritch entity that embodies and controls all of the black holes of the known universe. Cursed with an insatiable hunger, it roams space looking for things it can consume. Unbeknownst to most except other entities of similar power scale, The Hunger is bound to locations of existing black holes.

Occasionally, The Hunger will choose a vessel. This vessel will be imbued with epic boons beyond mortal comprehension, but at the cost of losing their sense of self. The more a vessel calls upon The Hunger's power, the more control The Hunger has over them and their actions. This allows The Hunger to move more freely and consume more.

Boons granted by The Hunger can include the following

Create Black Hole - The Hunger allows the vessel to create a black hole the size of their choosing - it will behave like a normal black hole, but can be dispelled by the vessel and is not inherently permanent.
Control Gravity - The vessel is able to control a small space of gravity, allowing them to pull and push things around.
Revivification - The Hunger will continually revive and restore it's vessel if it dies.
Eldritch Sight - The ability to see points of interest with more clarity, at the cost of broad perception.
Open Portals - Using twin black holes, the vessel is able to jump locations of both short and long distances.
Airless breath - The vessel is able to breathe and survive the vacuum of space.
Tar - A black tar oozes from the vessels eyes, nose, ears, and sometimes their skin. Often times this tar appears when a vessel uses any of The Hunger's boons. This tar can be caustic or simply sticky, as chosen by the vessel.

Various Races and Peoples

‣ This is not necessarily a comprehensive list or a complete look at a particular races' worldbuilding.

Gyallians

The Gyallian Army logo

Draconic shapeshifters, Gyallians are a proud people who can take on a draconic form whenever they so choose. In ancient times they lived on Tehare, but absconded to their own planet once space travel became more available. They are known for being extremely strong, militaristic, and isolationist.

Conventional wisdom has most people keeping their distance from them, as provocation can have serious consequences. There are only specific channels in which Gyallians will do trade with other species. Gyallian metals and alloys are highly prized, as they are imbued with magic and make them much more flexible in application, especially to other magical-inclined species.

As a species, each Gyallian has a draconic form they can shapeshift into at any time. While they are perfect shifters in that shifting almost never causes complications, the draconic form is extremely resource intensive and can only be used for a small amount of time. As a result, most Gyallians prefer to partial shift, which they also do with relative ease.

Research on how Gyallians shift is scarce, but it is mostly understood that it is a function of magic more than it is a function of science.

Gyallian language is comprised of a strange combination of spoken word and special noises that can only be made by fellow Gyallians. This is more of a physiological restriction than anything else, as Gyallians have the biology to make more animalistic sounds.

Think of a combination of Elder Scrolls Thu'um and Jörmungandr's speech from God of War)

Teharans

Humanoid peoples from the planet Tehare. Ancient humans settled the planet millenia ago and grew and adapted with the innate magic the planet possessed into elf-like humanoids. They are as varied as your typical human, but are more magically inclined.

Each Teharan is born with elemental abilities. They categorize these as Major and Minor elements, where your Major element is your strongest connection. Teharans are very adept at controlling their Major elements and often take up professions and skill sets that leverage their expertise. The level of mastery that a typical Teharan has over their Elements varies, but the Major will always surpass the Minor. Some Teharans don’t even actively use their Minor Elements.

There are 13 Elements that Teharans can have - Fire, Wind, Water, Earth, Sun, Lightning, Ice, Nature, Spirit, Illusion, Shadow, Light, or Dark.

‣ In this context, "Light and Dark" can be interpreted more as conceptually Angelic/Demonic, but isn't necessarily an indicator of an individual's alignment.

Teharan Shapeshifter (name pending)

Shapeshifters that can shift back and forth between a humanoid and animal form, and stay in either as long as they want.

Story

Death and rebirth

Ikamo is a career soldier who serves the Gyallian army, loyal to his planet and the military's cause. He has high honor ranks, but isn't necessarily in charge of coordinating any large teams. He's a good soldier and is easy to point in a direction to get a task done, but he's not a master strategist.

During one particular mission in the outer reaches of space, Ikamo met an untimely end to (enemy forces of undecided origins). In the midst of his death, The Hunger reached out to him and offered him a second chance at life. Ikamo took it, not really understanding what he was getting into, and subsequently destroyed (enemy forces of undecided origins)'s whole operation.

News of Ikamo's death would eventually reach his friends and family back home, but the Special Operations unit of the military realized Ikamo's abilities through The Hunger made for an excellent suicide soldier. Unable to truly stay dead, Ikamo uses the powers The Hunger gives him to destroy key military locations, and at the same time keep The Hunger "fed."

Ikamo is mostly unaware of what exactly the grand goals are for him being sent out and obliterating military bases with black holes, but he likes being useful. For a long while, he is satisfied with the knowledge that he is "doing a good thing."

The Genesis Station

At some point, Ikamo is tasked with boarding The Genesis Station (TGS) with the directives to investigate and steal a certain set of research notes being done in a lab run by BioFusion Works. A break in the norm for him, Ikamo was initially skeptical about the change - he felt it was a task better suited for someone much smarter than him. Nothing if not a good soldier, Ikamo took on the assignment and was placed on the the The Genesis Station as a security guard for BioFusion Work's on-site laboratory.

Ikamo spends several months here attempting to reach his objective, but hits a few social snags.

First of which, he encounters an old childhood friend - Daymen, who is employed on TGS with IT. With how rare it is to see a fellow Gyallian, Ikamo was glad to see his old friend thriving away from home. Daymen ends up being a good influence on Ikamo and pulls him out of a lot of his more dangerous nationalistic opinions and tendencies. It's enough to make Ikamo question if what he is doing is really in his and other species' best interest.

The second snag he hits is meeting a Teharan woman named Kiera - a scientist working with BioFusion Works. Outgoing and a bit of a strange personality, Kiera's speciality is in understanding the various forms of shapeshifting on a biological level. She has done many self-modifications to change her genetic makeup in an attempt to become a shapeshifter herself. At present, she can make small changes to her appearance, like getting slightly sharp teeth or giving herself darkvision, but little beyond that.

Ikamo develops feelings for Kiera, and between that pursuit and reuniting with Daymen, he begins to question what he's really doing for the Gyallian military. At some point, he decides he's abandoning the mission in favor of forging a new life for himself.

The Hunger disagrees with him - no more missions means no more food, nothing more to consume, at least not in the way it had been fed up to this point. Ikamo loses control of The Hunger and causes a catastrophe in the center of the TGS - tearing it asunder and causing irreparable damage. There are many civilian casualties, and several ships in the surrounding area get caught in warp pockets and wormholes caused by the unstable nature of The Hunger's black holes.

Satisfied with it's meal, The Hunger allows Ikamo to run.

STS Merkavah & Underground

‣ While originally written to be it's own independent setting, Meredith and I decided it would be more fun if our guys were put in situations together. This segment is shared with her.

Ikamo is currently on the run and stowing away on the STS Merkavah and terrorizing it's crew. He doesn't mean harm, but doesn't want to get caught.

To read more about the STS Merkavah and this setting, check out Mer's page

Fantasy Dragon Knight

Dragon Knight used to be in the same setting as Tehare, with a full fantasy theme and subplot to accompany Malotz's crew. Since I've long abandoned the setting, Dragon Knight has evolved into a space-fantasy, but retain some differences from the original.