Aetos

- Aetos -

These are the character/profile details of the character: Aetos.

The core intention of Aetos is to be a Maverick Expy.

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Set up:

Aetos is part of a unique fantasy setting originally, though he should be able to fit into any fantasy setting with minor tweaks. Here, I'll explain only the parts of the setting that are directly relevant to him.

In short, all of this is optional context for anyone I might be commissioning to draw Aetos.

The fantasy setting takes place on an earth-like world. It's several times larger, but its lower density maintains earth-like gravity, but one thing that can be said about its size is that it allows for multiple huge continents to exist without touching each other or even being near each other. This means that influences spread extremely slowly if at all and require to be very strong, constant influences on par with godly revelations to ever reach more than a portion of the world.

Other than the distant gods themselves and their respective religions, the only notable things to spread across the globe that's relevant to Aetos is 'the mythical dragon' and the idea of 'Nexuses'

The myth of the dragon is something that is often revered across the world and it's not entirely clear how all of the continents each have myths on dragons despite the vast differences in cultures, though interpretations on dragons may vary from place to place. Only select islands and archipelagos scattered about lacked dragon myths... It's often theorised that dragons used to exist, but fossil remains are never found.

The "Nexus" on the other hand is a large, incredibly secure structure often resembling a gigantic citadel or an underground palace. It's purpose is to exist as a safe, secure meeting point for all races to co-exist peacefully so that they can trade, share knowledge or at least not get in the way of others trying to do exactly that. Even races who hate each other most usually conform to the rules of the Nexus... Those who built the currently standing Nexuses are of different races, at least for different Nexuses, but all of them are lost to time and no longer alive... Nexuses can easily be identified by its enormous, thick stone walls, watch towers, underground network accessible only to their security and otherwise being full of an entire village of buildings made of various materials for various purposes, though residential buildings make up a much smaller portion of a Nexus than what is usually expected from a usual kingdom or citadel.

The reason why all Nexuses are enormous is because; a Nexus either survives having conflicting races within its walls and grows huge rather quickly, often requiring a certain size, work force and quality to work in the first place, or it doesn't and it crumbles instantly. There are vastly more failed Nexuses than existing Nexuses.

Overall, each Nexus is maintained and secured by a single, relatively peaceful race (peaceful humans, elves, dwarves, etc. Never a relatively hostile race like hob goblin.) and they usually run it using fairly forgiving ideals such as 'fair freedom', 'take your conflicts outside' and 'innocent until proven guilty' including the general idea that they don't go after criminals of one race, but may consider going after criminals who have wronged multiple races...

However, there is one more identifying feature that is especially important and notable.

Dragons are seen throughout the nexuses as guards and other staff members, but mostly taking on the role of security... However, these are not the same dragons, but rather, dragons that were created from an unidentified range of several species across the globe by powerful biomancers that were a part of all successful Nexuses, implying that all of them are loosely connected somehow, or simply had the same idea. They resemble the myths as much as possible, at least in shape but potentially not size since none of them are bigger than various sizeable land mammals such as horses and bulls.

They could've created nearly anything for their workforce, but it's clear why they picked dragons. They're almost universally recognisable and are often recognised as a symbol of many positive things, varying from place to place, but two common ones are; security and charisma... From there, nearly all dragons were made with the intention of de-escalating conflict rather than using brute force, despite being more than capable of doing so. Each one should appear as an individual that everyone can empathise with to a degree, hence why their faces are much more nuanced, expressively muscled, than the flat poker face of a feral snake and why they were given emotions and intelligence more like a human and less like a worker ant. On top of that, they found it easier to simply copy existing brains, than attempt to make a hard coded "drone brain" that works like an ant, but is vastly more complicated - no Nexus was advanced enough to do that despite the incredible feats each one managed to pull off.

In short: Dragons are the creation of biomancers to massively bulk up a security work force that keeps Nexuses - places where all races can meet and trade regardless of prior relationships - safe and secure through primary means of descalation, only using force when necessary, in which the dragons were inspired by the myth/legend of dragons which is somehow known across a larger-than-earth sized, earth-like planet.

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Appearance/physical:

Aetos is a winged quadrupedal dragon, matching the general shape of what is known as a 'western dragon' though within the setting, his actual name as a species/subspecies is kept under wraps by the Nexus officials, so much so that he doesn't know what his kind is called other than just "Dragon".

Aetos stands at about 6 feet tall from foreclaws to head and has a 6 foot torso length, as well as a 7 foot long tail. Neck length is undecided but should be relatively stocky but not too short. From left shoulder to right shoulder, he is about 3 feet across, give or take. Wingspan is huge, perhaps large enough that he doesn't need to fully extend his wings to fly.

Aetos is dark grey and light grey in main colouration. Dark grey makes up the majority of his body while the light grey is reserved mostly for the scutes that protect his ventral side, as well as markings and wing membranes on the inside. A deep strong red is his eye colour... The greys are subtly sky tinted to appear colder.

Refer to this to get a rough idea of how he is coloured: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/314739291408564234/695569141565751346/Aetos3.png

It can be seen here that his body colour be rather metallic in how it looks, designed to appear tough yet calm in colouration.

His form is very muscular and toned in shape, not unlike a marble statue. He should be at least as toned as a horse, only his scales tightly conform to the shape of his distinct muscle groups, even the limbs of his wings are toned this way. He's at least a thousand pounds of muscle. Most of his scales are comparable in texture to a pineapple or an african bush viper, some of the scales are similar, only a lot larger, becoming more like extended shards of sorts to give him a serrated appearance in some places such as along the back of his neck, with especially large shards accompanying his horns. His horns are grooved or ridged along the top, they're wavy, curving down near the base and curving back up towards the tips. The scutes protecting his ventral side round out like cylinders, but otherwise end in points like elongated footballs; it should give him a padded appearance for his underside. Unlike his darker scales, the scutes are soft and can be described like a soft leather cushion instead, or perhaps like "squishy marble".

This is a rough concept of how this rounded padded scute "hugs" a sphere in which the sphere is viewed from the side

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/314739291408564234/695569181135077396/Underbelly1.png

This is a rough concept of how a padded scute looks like when flattened out - as said, it's long-football-like.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/314739291408564234/695569198314815538/Underbelly2.png

There is one last colour feature. On his right shoulder is a marking that is the flag of the Nexus he works for.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/314739291408564234/695569162977804288/Marking.png

The reason why it's designed like this is to convey two things to the viewer/reader... The octagon should remind people OOCly of a stop sign; the outside of the Nexus seems unstoppable. The square is used to communicate a reliable, stable and secure centre, protected by the robust octagon... This communicates nearly everything a Nexus stands for... An octagon is also much closer to a circle than a square, so there is a vague meaning of 'unity' in the symbol.

The last thing to note are his deep red eyes, their shape. They should be sharp like eagle eyes, but shouldn't lack softness entirely, for the character is less inherently tough and more that he was forced into a state of toughness which he can still maintain automatically, but it conceals something much softer, even if that softness is cold...

In case it is missed, his wing web membranes are light grey on the ventral sides while being dark grey on the ventral sides.

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Personality:

As a Maverick Expy, his personality is going to be similar to AWSW's Maverick, or at least, this user's interpretation of him.

From the outside, Aetos has the personality of a distant police officer or guard, one carrying a one thousand yard stare that is both icy, piercing and distant, and a distinct lack of body language. He's firm and sharp, but generally tries to resolve and de-escalate things, coupled with a willingness to help, listen and cooperate despite his grumpy expression and demeanour potentially implying the opposite, making him a good enough fit for his job. Even when the going gets rough, he does not escalate fights and tries to settle them... He only starts to escalate things perhaps unintentionally when he is approached more personally with the intention of trying to know him, which can easily come off as prying to him.

From there, he is even more gloomy and abrasive, not rare for him to talk down to people or push them away with words. It can often be hard to tell what will exactly set him off though, but if you know him personally, you can likely figure out the topics that are touchy for him... If not, he has his bad days and his worse days.

Because of this, his circle of friends and loved ones are very small and tight, often restricted to his field of work and not beyond. He has had very few positive relationships with non-dragons.

This is perhaps caused by his crippling lack of self esteem... It doesn't reach down to the point of 'negative infinity' but it's low enough to frequently show undeserving cold or subtly embarrassed looks at any affection or generosity, mixed with some extent of denial or questioning... Because of this, he has effectively sacrificed his individuality, hobbies and emotions to serving the Nexus to the point of overworking, despite the Nexus' warmer side valuing individuality, safety and freedom... It's easy to see that he bottles everything up.

All of this is not helped by the fact that he has at least one enemy... But with said enemy being nowhere in sight, he can only sit with a sense of hopelessness, conflicting internally with his 'just do it' attitude mixed with 'I live to serve' attitude towards work - as a guard of the Nexus.

Aside from his grudge, even on the worst of days, he is only distraught and not truly aggressive outside of provoking circumstances. Yet on the best of days, he never shows a smile, each one taking an enormous amount of work to earn and each one being very brief, even if the feeling behind them is actually quite strong... He may even be hyper sensitive, only to always keep it in check.