Andi Supalla
E-Mail: tserisa@gmail.com
Website: http://velvetdragon.com
Character Name: Tserisa Cerrisious Velvetwing; Tserisa Falcorin, Dark Dragon of Wylk; Tserisa Harrow
(She has been called many names in many places... ooooo. *wiggles talons*)
Nickname: Tserisa, Tser
Gender: Female/Genderfluid/Genderqueer (She or They pronouns.)
Species: Dragon (Void)
Type: Western
Species Name: Velvetwyrm
Form: Feral/Quad/Non-Anthro Only
Color: Black!
Image by Savannah Horrocks
Description
Tserisa is a pure black quadrupedal dragon with large wings. Her ears are long and expressive. She is slender and long; there is nothing stocky about her. She is velvety soft and has a very long prehensile tail.
Detailed Description
Head: Long, fine, elegant muzzle. Soft, flexible nostrils, good for flaring and snorting and sniffing.
Breath Weapon: Tser can breathe fire. (And citrus-scented non-toxic mosquito repellant. With aloe.)
Teeth: Tser is a herbivore, primarily a folivore. However, her teeth are anything but flat and dull; they are sharp and deadly. She has long sharp canines and serrated molars. (Some other folivores do as well, such as the giant panda.) Raaawr!
Eyes: No visible sclera (the white of the eye). Dark brown. Omega irises. Black nictitating membrane.
Omega Iris Diagram:
The top part of her iris descends to form a loop called an iris operculum, which can expand and contract. At full dilation (in the dark), her pupil is almost round, but has a divot at the top. When fully constricted (in bright light), her pupil appears to be a thin crescent. This type of pupil gets its name from the Greek letter Omega, as it looks like an upside-down version of the capital letter, without the horizontal bars.
Tserisa has a black nictitating membrane. It is non-reflective, and she can close it when she needs to be sneaky and stealthy to prevent tell-tale "eye shine". Though dark, it is transparent, and can act as "sunglasses", or to protect her eye during wind and rain. It also aids in protecting her eye from debris and damage, such as she might encounter during fights and action, it closes during emotional situations, as part of a fight-or-flight response.
Ears: Aside from her velvety texture, her most notable feature are her ears. Exceptionally long (longer than her skull) and expressive. They are most often held swept back in a relaxed state. When alert, she perks them forward, and they have great swiveling ability for catching every sound from any direction. When angry, she lays them tight against her neck.
Neck: Long and flexible.
Body: Slender and sinuous. She has a relatively deep chest, where her flight muscles attach to her keel bone.
Hide: Tser does not have scales, fur, OR feathers! Tserisa is covered in velvet, which is evolutionarily distinct from fur. Tser is just evolutionarily distinct, period. ;)
It is thick and plush but very, very short -- she looks smooth unless viewed very closely. She does not look furry, nor does she have any tufts of longer velvet anywhere on her body. She should not be drawn with any fuzz or fluff.
Her velvet is extremely soft to the touch and covers her entire body, including her wing membranes. It is so thick as to be water repellant, which is excellent for her home in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.
Wings: Tserisa's wings are very large and are “bat-like” -- membranes stretched between long wing-fingers. They are arranged very similar to most bats; five digits total, which include a dexterous thumb at the wrist, and four fingers between which the membrane is stretched. However, unlike a bat, the first and second fingers are not fused. The first finger (“index finger”) is shorter than the other three. Her wing leather is velvety soft.
Legs: Four.
Talons: Four toes on each foot.
She is anisodactyl; usually three toes point forward and one points back. However, the fourth toe of each foot is "double-jointed" and opposable, like that of an owl's outer toe, and can swivel forward to the inside, like a thumb. This allows for her to use all four feet to grasp and manipulate things, and assists in walking and running on the ground.
The wicked, black talons on the end of each long toe are obsidian-sharp and diamond-hard. Excellent for peeling pomegranates.
Tail: Her very, very long, whippy tail is prehensile (able to grasp) – extremely strong and gracile. It is often held with any number of curls and coils, rarely straight. Even when at rest, the tip is always curled up or down.
Further Reference Pictures:
By Luve/LouveLex
By Luve/LouveLex
By Luve/LouveLex
By Onnanoko
By Onnanoko
By Kalamu
by Allyson Brownrigg
by Katie Hofgard
Mates: Tserisa has two mates; a brown furry dragon named Honah Lee, and a red fox named Zlatohrbitek.
Diet: Herbivore, primarily folivore. Grass, leaves, weeds, various green leafy things. She also loves treats of fruit, nuts, and vegetables. She loves snap peas fresh from the garden, cucumbers, Asian pears, and pomegranates especially. She does not like eggplant or cooked mushrooms.
Accessories: Tserisa is a skilled battlemount and adventurer. She and her rider (her mate, Zlato) go on many quests and adventures together. If the commission is of this situation, she would wear a saddle, saddlebags, and a bridle. They are black with silver or iron-grey hardware. Although I do have an idea what her saddle might look like, I leave the design up to the artist. Note that it would sit up in front of her wings a bit, at the base of her strong neck, so that it wouldn't interfere with flight. She is picky about who she will let ride her.
Tser's hoard consists mostly of books and scrolls, along with animal bones (that she's found, not from animals she's killed), semi-precious stones and fossils and anything she thought was pretty, arranged artfully in her lair. She likes shiny and silver; she does not like gold.
Preferred environment: Fantasy, D&D-like, sword and sorcery, wild. Woods and forests, especially of Oregon (old growth, temperate rainforest, or the mixed conifer/deciduous forests of the Coast Range and Cascades mountains, or the wind-swept forests and cliffs of the Columbia Gorge). Moss and ferns. If in a modern urban setting, Tser is most often found in parks (especially the Portland Rose Gardens or Portland Japanese Gardens), or tea houses.