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escapismmaxing · 2 days

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rainwing headcanons!! + history rewrite and canon tweaks

physical headcanons!!

they’re kind of small i think, mid sized. very long certainly, i imagine them lounging around in trees like jaguars

maybe THIS is my most canon compliant design actually

manes of long hair aren’t uncommon, but not every dragon has them and very VERY rarely a rainwing will have hair trailing down their spine and ending in a fluffy little tail,, rare but possible

speaking of their tail, it doesn’t really get “thinner” or taper off at the end simply because that’s reallyyy not how prehensile tails work, so while rainwings don’t have thick tails per se, their tails do have a semi consistent thickness

their horns are long and slender, they’re considered very elegant and they usually stay close to the head/neck of the rainwing to not get caught while tree gliding

their frills are HUUUUUGE i'm always disappointed when i remember how small they are in the canon drawings

like NO their frill obscures their neck most of the time, also covers their ears, and it is very prone to being very expressive

the membranes connecting the spines of the frills also come in different shapes!

their frills also sometimes have butterfly like tails where part of the frill near the face hangs really long and thin? if that makes sense. like a swallowtails tail, but on their frills

i also shrunk their wings a little,, still long for gliding purposes but not necessarily wide/tall since those would just get unnecessarily tangled in trees

their little fangs stick out of their mouth,, oh so little

social/family structure,,,

more communal living!! we love it

rainwings are very communal and lack the family structure of sibs, so they’re comparatively more communal than mudwings

monogamy is slightlyyyy more common, but it’s still not necessarily the norm. rainwings and their polycules,,,

i think they keep track of who their kids are!! sorry but that’s just my belief. i think parents (even if they’re not committed or mates or whatever) will somewhat co parent their kids

they’re incubated all together, but parents keep track of where there egg is and how far along it is and when it will hatch etc, and then they will be there when the egg hatches to make sure nothing goes wrong

even if the parents aren’t there, it is someone’s job to be there and make sure the dragonets hatch successfully, and then they are safely transported to the dragon equivalent of daycare

childcare is such a big job market in the rainwing queendom,,,,

i think depending on the parents, they will raise their dragonets in their home, but these dragonets still spend a LOOOOT of time in the daycare. i think dragonets are just very widely cared for by basically everyone, some pairs of parents just spend a bit of extra time with their dragonets, but they’re never raised 100% secluded from the town

grown dragons will divide the dragonets into age groups and teach them stuff

tree gliding, fruit finding and identification, flower identification, flower drying, leaf weaving/thatching, etc

also oral storytime! very important

grown dragons stay very communal, they don’t really couple off and move into their own “houses”

they have couples and polycules and just kind of go into the next generation, raising the new dragonets in the same communal way

and a history rewrite,,,,

basically i wanted to give them a reason they were so exclusionary in the original five books and this is what came from that

i didn’t like the rainwing racism was like,,, right? obviously some rainwings can be “lazy” or whatever, but the fact that all of them were + not the smartest + not really empathetic was just like,,, not the move imo

maybe about a century before the sandwing war of succession, the rainwings experienced their OWN war of succession, except they didn’t drag other tribes into it and it was kept within the queendom

a queen died and had many daughters who could take the throne, and then the daughters started fighting over this

(this is where it’s somewhat necessary for me to input just a general dragon headcanon,, i think they live for sooo fucking long. like 150 years easy. they don’t mature at 6 they mature at like 25-30. so these wars of succession last for SO LONG because the daughters won’t fuckin die (from old age)!)

so the rainwings fought with each other for ages, and during this war (with a deadly biochemical weapon like their venom) a lot of things like literacy, written history, math, etc, don’t seem as important, so they’re somewhat forgotten because parents are more focused on keeping their dragonets alive and safe

also a lot of scrolls and stuff are literally destroyed

and then this is also the reason for really low literacy rates

post their war of succession, they establish the “court of queens” which is kind of like a voting ruling body, but they don’t always like each other a whole lot and are prone to argue more. also being queen actually DOES mean something (a bit more than a tie breaker)

i’ll align with the book here again that i do think anyone can be on this council, but then queen is chosen from the council members and by the council

and each newly coming in council member does have to prove themselves in their rainwing skills

again, following this war, there was a lot of focus on internal repair rather than fixing relationships with other tribes, so they became very exclusionist as the other tribes saw them

so the stereotype of the rainwing ranges a bit more,, paranoid, exclusionist, lazy, etc

somewhat soon after their own war of succession, the sandwing war of succession breaks out, and they go FUCK NO and hide in their rainforest just trying to recuperate

this is why they’re so self contained when the DoD encounter them

they’re aware of the disappearances, and they’re worried, and they’re putting in measures to try and prevent them,,, but also they do NOT want to fuck with another tribe. please. just let them rest

and they were aware that glory’s egg went missing, but they were like “FUCK one of those snakes got in here” and changed the designs of the hatcheries or something

fitting this into canon

i think it fits pretty neatly?

the general vibe of the rainwings is that they’re all a whole lot more scared/paranoid, but we still see a lot of the chilled out moments where they’re at peace

the council (again) isn’t lazy (at least not all of them)

they kind of exist along a spectrum where different members kind of have different vibes

it’s the same queens from the book, now just on a council

some of them care a lot about the disappearances, but they’re still scared/too cautious to get involved

some of them don’t reallyyy care, and they would rather just focus on the rainwings that are still here, tighten up the border to reduce disappearances and just hunker down

also they don’t have an army, and they consider themselves pacifists and really don’t want to fight anyone or organize an army considering their history

glory becomes apart of the council rather than directly becoming the queen, and grandeur is the official queen

a turnover of the council happens because glory is PISSED and grandeur just lets it happen lol

this is where the group competition fits in like it fits in in the book

so basically glory + the rainwing gang is challenging the council members because she thinks they’re so incompetent

not saying that kinkajou (a child) or tamarin (a child) STAYS on the council, but it’s just the start of the turnover for the council to get more proactive rainwings involved

grandeur takes a shining to glory and lets her lead the invasion as it happens in the book

fashion and jewelry!

although in modern days, rainwings incorporate some very gauzy, light, see through fabrics into their fashion as shawls and such, this wasn’t always the case

for a long looong while, the main components of rainwing fashion was stringing plants across and around horns, wings, tails, necks, etc

the main fashion was the changing scale color and pattern, which still holds up, but now with a little extra flair

jobs

rainwings grow exotic flowers and trade these with other tribes! with tribes that are farther away, trading dried or otherwise preserved flowers is more common since the flowers are indeed prone to dying

rainwings also make perfumes from flowers,,,, like that one fuckass queen she was onto something

their expanse of flowers and fruits also give them access to the most dyes! so any other tribe that produces a fiber frequently works with rainwings to get them dyed pretty colors

also also, rainwings make paints and trade these to other tribes

rainwings are pretty advanced healers, despite seeming a bit uh,, confused in the books. they just didn’t know how to treat a sandwing stab bc they haven’t dealt with sandwings in ages! but when it comes to other aches and pains and illnesses they have a wide amount of remedies

they also focus a lot on the mind especially after the rainwings are gotten back from the nightwing island

they study the effects of the no sunlight vs sunlight,, they see a lot of mental effects,,, basically they become wellness influencers.. KIDDING but they do start a “mental health matters” type thing lol

along with the healing, lots of potions and elixirs are created for healing purposes, and rainwing small magics (related to my animus magic rewrite, dw abt it, but basically a lot of dragons have the ability to do “small magic”) relates to potions and elixirs and such

rainwings are incredibly good mimics! so after they come out of their shells, they learn other tribe’s languages super easily and therefore are great verbal translators!

it’s very common for rainwings to work with other tribes on a queen’s counsel as a translator for foreign and inter tribal affairs

history researchers? like of their own internal history trying to recover stuff from pre their war,,

there’s also a lot of biologists/naturalists/dragons who are studying the animals and plants of the forest just for the sake of science

“royalty” and commoners

so, this “council of queens” is established after this war of the queen’s remaining daughters

i truly think this war was devastating, so they start on rebuilding their queendom right away

internal focus, accidentally icing out other tribes

they want to avoid the war happening again, so they stop passing down the throne through daughters, rather any female dragon can petition to join the council

and any GROUP of dragons can petition to remove a queen from the council

it’s a very,,, democratic? system

but it boils down to their being only a little bit of separation between royalty and commoners,, and it kind of doesn’t exist tbh

this along with the really intense communal feelings and being raised communally and raising dragonets with one another,, very close knit tribe

not a whole lot of class strife like icewings or seawings or something

superstitions

there’s a lot of beliefs surrounding different flowers, kind of similar to victorian messaging around flowers

i’m not really sure how superstitious/religious they are tbh,, again maybe a lot of this fell away during the war as more cautionary tales were told rather than superstitious fables or anything

but there is definitely a system of flower messaging

i think they hold all animals in high regard, and think they all have high intelligence (they just favor sloths)

some animals do have certain beliefs surrounding them

seeing an increase of frogs means the rainy season is coming soon, when they start decreasing the rainy season is ending

sightings of pods of dolphins around the coasts means generally good tidings and a positive short term future

i think they do have a lot of pet superstitions?

sloths are pretty common, so nothing super crazy there

but if a dragon has a big, jungle cat, other dragons will view them as very charming/caring, as it takes a lot of work to get a big cat to trust you

small amphibians or reptiles means that a dragon is detail oriented

snails and insects and mollusks are considered like an “old dragon’s” pets

so yeah! rainwings. this still feels weirdly,, incomplete? maybe it’s just because of how much i like them i just want to make them fully fleshed out which they aren’t really here. but i think they’re really cool, i just don’t love their canon all the time. yeah! idk. complex feelings. as always, hit me UP with your ideas anywhere you please i love hearing feedback :)

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