Artillerist Forage is a female CentiWing and the Nest Chief of Furtive Foothills. She is created by FourFlames.
Artillerist Forage
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| Creator | FourFlames |
Personal Information
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| Gender | Trans female |
| Pronouns | she/her |
| Orientation | Gyneromantic (lesbian) |
| Tribe | CentiWing |
| Age | 60 dyo (born 4952 AS) Fifth molt |
| Profession | Artillerist (counterweight winglet in the battle of Khan Peak, projectile guidance wing in the Second War) |
| Nicknames | Artillerist Forage (among others in her profession) |
| Theme Color | Sawdust brown |
| Theme Song | Goo Factory - Lorne Balfe (Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure soundtrack) |
| Residence | Furtive Foothills |
| Relationships | Messenger Leer (mate) |
Description[]
Artillerist's scales are a smudged sawdust brown, with blotty cinder-grey lateral stripes that form a masklike gradient around her eyes. Her underbelly and whiskers are a parchment color, with the well-groomed whiskers transitioning to brown at the ends. A few lighter patches appear on the sides of her body.
She has a hawkish snout, jagged scales, chin spikes which protrude acutely downwards, and horns which dive inwards at a severe angle. Being an older dragon, she is on her fifth molt, and has five sharp sets of forceps.
Personality[]
Artillerist has lived long enough to learn that not every dragon is worthy of her respect, and has never been enthusiastic about the virtue of patience, which other dragons often use as an excuse for their inability to address real problems. She can be relied upon to act executively and immediately in the face of a crisis, would die by the principles of honor and chivalry, and only bequeaths her undivided attention to any dragon deserving of it. She retains the sharpsight used in Artillery, and it is said that she possesses a kind of sharpsight for suspicious dragons as well.
History[]
Forage was born a curious male dragonet, and was affectionately named for her tendency to wander away from her parents. At the age of three however, she showed signs of more feminine behavior, and professed that she would like to be regarded as such.
At the age of five, before she was old enough to even adopt a trade name yet, Forage chose to be enlisted into the dragonet program for the Khan's Highland Artillery (KHA). She dropped out of public school to do this (she had no patience for the easy busywork anyways), and instead received later certification through her special education in the military.
She first served as a supplier in the counterweight winglet, working with other young dragonets to lade the catapult payloads with heavy boulders while the experienced adults handled targeting and firing the weapons. The work was supposedly character-forming, but bored her active imagination. It wasn't until her first active moments of war that she felt a true pride in the importance of her task.
On one of her examination days, a runner interrupted their sergeant with immediate orders to head east and await further instructions. The Khan had just been assassinated, and dispatches from the easternmost nests were tightening defenses along the River Raging in preparation for an artillery ambush. Her instructor ordered everyone to pack up and move as swiftly as they could towards the river.
That night, Forage waited in the dark, steeped in a vigilance she had never known. Her unit was entirely south of where the HiveWings flew by, and a different artillery team had the honor of shooting them down, although she didn't know at the time; but from that moment on, she understood what it felt like to be unsheltered from the possibility of death.
Forage experienced her third molt just a year after the assassination of her Khan, knowing immediately that her name would become Artillerist. As an adult, she enjoyed a promoted rank as a spotter in the projectile guidance wing with other graduates of the junior program, becoming part of the team which managed the positioning for the catapults. This was fortunate timing, for hardly had she finished the briefing program when Queen Wasp began a year-long siege on the periphery of the highlands.
Artillerist's unit was responsible for downing Vinegaroon Hive forces from the east, working as a team with the surrounding Nests to prevent them from reaching the capitol. It was taxing work; one serious lull in a dragon's concentration could be fatal. She can remember more than one occasion where the catapult ropes were sheared straight off by HiveWing stingers. In some scenarios, her very own counterweight winglet had to take cover in the belowdeck shelter while she and other soldiers engaged Wasp's army. She holds the entire HiveWing tribe responsible for the one wing which followed a winglet down there and ferreted it out to be killed. She was kept fighting by how furious the injustice made her, and her anger sharpened her concentration as a spotter.
After her Nest Chief was killed, Artillerist's peers urged her to step up and lead Furtive Foothills-- to which she agreed, on the condition that she wouldn't take office until the war was over and she was no longer needed on the frontlines. Her mate Messenger agreed to fill her place until then.
The tribe's eventual loss of the Second Centi-Hive War was incredibly demoralizing to Artillerist. Even after years of serving her Khan, she saw no way for the military to retaliate without the tribe being torn to pieces. She took it personally, felt like she should have done better. She began to consult other dragons who were more knowledgable than herself in a personal quest to expediently bring the tribe back to fighting shape.
She sort of hates the Mapwright Khan, privately thinking that of all the dragons to become Khan it should've been someone older and trained in a more pertinent career, but wisely chooses not to say anything of it.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Her coloration is loosely based on the Porcellio laevis isopod, or colloquially known as the "dairy cow" isopod.