Name

Father - Aern Kshau ^luar version (he does not have a specific page, I should rectify that)

Mother - Mirage Marad ^luar version

Relatives - Cloud, Vital; Yaeth, Tiiraen (all Outsiders now residing on Planet Twenty)

Minor - Keen Sense (sight) - Mirage's skills with photography long ago were partly due to her enhanced vision, able to detect detail and depth where others merely saw a blur. Splinter's vision is equally strong, he can discern minute differences in texture and color up close, and focus on type-sized print at twice the distance any normal person might (while not an eagle, this certainly helps him see a much broader amount around him!)

Minor - Human Telepathy - he can detect and send thoughts to other telepaths easily, and though his mind is not 'invasive' as some, he can sense when others are moving around his mind and can shut them out with concentration. He can send thoughts to those up to 200 meters away easily, and his mind is clear and can be reached by stronger teir telepaths at much longer distances

Minor - Priority Boost - while both of his parents were nimble and energetic, Mirage did actually have a 'hidden' alertness that may be related to her (and Splinter's) detection or interaction with the 'ghosts' around them. Able to act twice as often, and move twice the distance in the same amount of time as anyone else, this ability doesn't necessarily make him a blur, but he's very speedy and almost always acts or moves before anyone else does

Major - Dreamwalking - Aern has a way with showing up in his lovers' dreams, and so do many of his children. Splinter can use this power only when sleeping, obviously, but when he is in proximity around 1 mile of other telepathic people or creatures, he can sometimes actively slip into their dreams and observe, and if they're aware of him, also interact as though they were waking. Splinter actually seems to prefer the minds of dragons and intelligent animals, this works on any creature which dreams in very close settings (under 200 meters) so he's kind of used to sleeping near animals or Steeds just to get a sense of what they do when they're not awake (it's mostly hunting and playing)

Major - Residual Psionic Control - Back when Mirage was a very young child she could speak with the dead around her, and they sought her out. As she grew older, this ability faded, but the ghosts remembered. Her son can sense ghosts of zekiran origin or whatever else gives off a strong psionic or 'magic' aura, and when it's close or very strong (PR 0-3) he can utilize it himself. This power appears among many of the Luar even if they weren't Bred with it in their line, and is directly tied to the Weirdness below. Effectively any Minor power, and any Major teir power of PR 3 or greater can be actively used as long as the 'creature' which originally used it is still nearby (and generally ... they are), it's as though the ghost lets Splinter tap their abilities
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Minor - Birthmark - All of Mirage's children, not just the alluring pretty girls, have a birthmark on them somewhere. Usually this is only known at birth - because it's more often than not on the back of their head where hair will then grow in to cover it. Though this is a common mutation, it can easily be bred into more spectacular markings in pairs with multiple colors and patterns on their skin!

Minor - Smells of Cardamom - like his sire who smells of nutmeg, for whatever reason Aern's male descendants often have a pleasing scent about them, and even when sweaty or having exerted quite a bit, don't smell acrid or grimy at all (this can boost a communication skill to sway someone's opinion, but it also allows those who can sniff the air to track him very easily)
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Major - Missing Fingers and Toes - All of Aern's children have four fingered hands and four digits on their feet, and only after many generations might these digits return. They often vanish further if the partner is Technology tuned. However these missing digits don't come with any other particular power, they're just not present

Major - Short Claws on Fingers - however what is present are stiff, hard nails that on Splinter are straight and heavy (almost overgrown hoof like in fact) on the ends of his fingers (only). He claims that his toes can cut through any boot leather so he doesn't wear shoes, but he's lying they're just thick... His finger claws can impale flesh or scrape surfaces incurring 1 point each claw of either damage type. Somehow these long nails don't interfere with things like writing or typing, manipulation or the like

Major - Short Spines on Arms - the Kshau standard, for a long while if a person on Zekira had a set of bony spines along their forearms it was about 80% likely they were a Kshau. These thick and slightly curved spines on Splinter are much heavier and cannot move, and true to his name they do occasionally fracture and break into smaller splintered bone bits (which yes, is painful, but ... he just digs them out and lets them regrow, given his last ability...). These can do both scraping and bashing damage at 2 points each spine. Unlike Aern's and unlike his finger count, Splinter has 5 of these on each arm
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Special - Natural Immortality - His parents are immortal by virtue of being revived and implanted into undying flesh (... well, mostly undying), but the children of Luar like them are all very naturally born into their bodies and those bodies do not grow old nor stop functioning from damage done. His ability to regenerate is quite strong, he can lose his lower leg and it will be fully functional once more in about a week's time. So minor cuts and bruises are nothing to Splinter, and he acts like he doesn't even feel it when he might fall and break a bone. The children of Luar remain 'young adult' looking though there is always a sense that they are much more than they appear, to normal folks, just something about the way they stand or their eyes, older than they look by a long shot

Special - Weirdness Magnet - The combination of parentage as unusual as they are already, the powers available to him, and the presence of long-dead ghosts that are very interested in interacting... All this brings a lot of weird right to Splinter. The ghosts on Planet Twenty are fewer and farther between but still present, and it seems like in the decades that they've been on the world, more have come to it via unusual methods. Though his father could likely claim to be a Genrehopper, Splinter attracts those types too, as well as dragons, other alien visitors, and perhaps even some odd events that might not occur unless 'the stars are right'. The ghosts are the most useful things to him, as they offer advice and conversation, information about the old world or their new one equally, as well as their powers for him to access. But Splinter has begun to understand that even after all this time - he is several million years old just like most of the Zekirans from their ship - there are new things he doesn't know how to deal with yet... and those things seem to gravitate to him!

Duties - Splinter was very good with Steeds for a long, long time on Zekira... Until the population shifted and the Luar decided to more or less sequester themselves away from society. They did so with their own batch of Steeds, on the now-expanded Black Point island of the Outsiders.

Now, Splinter is responsible for herding and upkeep on both food and burden beasts, but also with a strong flair for racing 'whatever has hooves and might fly too' he's not picky as to whether he's on the ground or in the sky when he's riding around.

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"He would never have fit well in our era, Mirage," was what Aern told her, when they watched their immortal child leap from the top of a tree to the cliff edge and then immediately flip down the hundred-spans tall cliff to the rocky waters below it. Without a scratch, no - no that wouldn't be true. He seemed to revel in the ability to shake off damage. One time he'd come to the complex with his arm dangling at a weird angle, but by morning it was fully healed and he almost claimed not to remember what happened to cause it.

Reckless? Perhaps. But not so much that he would endanger others with his antics. Splinter would be a tall, handsome, strong man in all ways, tough and hardy, and with a keen mind to balance his extremely curious and bold nature. In other words, he was a true son of Mirage Marad and Aern Kshau.

Only, those two had died hundreds of years before, and were still living in secret on the island claimed by Archeria off the Kiran coast. It was a lush place, barely tamed, but had a big complex on it where she'd assembled these people out of their component parts. When Splinter was born, it was certainly time to celebrate, but Mirage wouldn't remain stable for very long as he grew into adulthood.

So Splinter remained with his father, for the next ... many - many - thousands of years. He looked enough like Aern's line to be able to claim kinship, though with his secrets needing to be kept, he didn't claim that Kshau name, and there were still hundreds of families that were able to trace the Marad name proudly too. As he lived among the population on Zekira he went from 'Outsider' Luar, to Tuantana as a land-holder, and then Pelatih when he passed Status exams and proved his worth around Steeds.

Since he could work easily with the animals, he always did have work. Well, for a good chunk of history. But when things started getting strange, when the world had shifted into what some gloatingly called its "prime", the Steeds were endangered - never having been wild in the first place, their existence was purely thanks to the desires of the people who bred and raced them. So Splinter did what he thought was right: he brought several of them of different varieties back to their island. Placed samples in storage - Archeria's clone and splicing systems were still kept up even if she'd been moved around somewhere else by that time. Splinter took it upon himself to make sure that the breeds of Steeds - the grounded ones, flighted, even the fragile flutter-winged beasts and the extremely unusual water-bred ones - had samples if not a breeding herd on their land. He championed others to do the same, in fact.

He alone knew that there were still-roaving herds of now-wild Steeds where Saxxon's great carnivorous beasts had been bred. In fact he alone, well, aside from Saxxon himself, could talk to or 'tame' them. He did not take samples of those massive Steeds with him, when they finally left Zekira some 75 thousand years after his birth. They were fine on their own. They were immortal like the Luar.

Splinter tinkered with genes, but for the most part left the breeding and technological aspects of all of it to others with the education or patience for it. He vastly preferred to be with a dam as she delivered a foal, making sure that the wings were sound, or that their legs would be straight. And also preferred to run along side them, leaping to their shoulders and taking wing with the flock leader, or dodging around trees on the swiftly moving deer now found among their animals.

He let Jolie and her kin take care of the water-born ones, though like Aern he still loved swimming, just not as much as his sire. There were plenty of things to do in the vast Planet Twenty grasslands and hills, and up through the mountain that they now named after their homeworld. The Zekiran Colony thrived in as much as any Zone on their homeworld had, though it had a population on it that virtually all remembered their home world.

And then there was that time... The time when Treason that weird shapeshifter with way too many parts and far too much color, helped bring Mirage back to life properly. That was before they'd founded the place on Planet Twenty, but a lot of people hadn't realized it. Splinter knew, because Shatter had told him.

Shatter, his sister. Who lived and died before he was born, but was - always - his invisible friend wherever he went. Not entirely true - he had found her spirit while at one of the Kshau Circuit races, she always loved being near Steeds too, but in a more fashionable manner, organizing races and doing announcing for their broadcasts. She'd confessed to him that she always wanted more out of it, but had to keep up appearances.

Some of his dangerous stunts, therefore, were allowing his long-dead sister's spirit to just run wild with an immortal body even if briefly...

Like Treason had carried Mirage's mind all this time, Splinter held on to Shatter's gently. He wondered if many Luar had such ghosts lingering around them, but never really found reason to ask about them.

**

He was tending one of the local long-legged deer one afternoon, down in the marshes, when another of the Zekiran ghosts seemed intent on pestering him. He waved them off for just long enough to make certain that the deer's leg wasn't going to have lasting damage, having slipped on a mossy stone and been found wallowing in pain nearby. The local Kin would keep their eye on it, but all it really needed was some time to rest up.

Splinter gazed into the aether, and listened to the excited spirit saying some unusual things. There was a dragon place, there was a busy place, an important place.

He was no genrehopper. But there were others that certainly could move between realms. And that's what he did. Good thing, too. It was an 'important' place, with dragons! Splinter had seen a lot of them around of course, the Cheetah Kin down on the Plateau and more recently others here and there, along with the Zekirans themselves, had a good bunch of dragons.

None were like these.

And this place! He'd seen some 'cities in the clouds' before, on distant long-dead worlds, but wow. This place, not just Nidus Asteri, but the world, or this portion of the Empyrean Stair, was quite the locale. But the moment he set eyes on the dragons coming from this brood, the fantastic floating islands and dramatic waterfall of epic proportion ceased to even matter.

They weren't hatchlings, though they didn't seem like adults either. Splinter was reminded of an era when he'd first started interacting with the world at large on Zekira, wandering the big city Zones and small farms alike, and people would look at him as though he was a fresh-faced teen.

He was a hundred and ten, but who was counting?

So this amazing shiny blue and white dragoness... she looked at him the same way, but so was he looking at her. "Like a mirror," they both said, and the dragonet gave a tittering giggle.

"Not so much," she nosed at him, almost eye level already even though she was clearly not fully grown. "Your fur is darker than mine."

"My... My fur- my hair?" He swept his long-nailed hand over the top of his tall standing hair, "yeah mine's kind of oppsite yours."

"I think it's just right," she replied. "I am Neve, I would love to see this world you live on, and visit your friends. Even the one with you now."

He was a bit surprised, Splinter half-closed his eyes and let Shatter 'see' the dragon. His arms - hers - raised to touch the velvety blue snout and he gave a chuckle that was both of theirs.

They would return to the Zekiran colony, and there, she would help him herd and find far-ranging creatures with ease!

Dragon: Neve Diemicana-Pariyani (Snow [Portuguese])
Gender: Female
Size: Medium 11'9" s / 40' l / 75' ws
Colors: Blue, overall a pale sparkling sky blue with a dusting of bright white scale markings on the velvety fur; white belly from neck to mid-tail; wingsails and tail webbing granular semi-translucent sky and denim blue darkening to a more shadowed color at tail; floof snowy white with pale blue tips; eyes blue; claws grey; antlers creamy bone
Features: Imperial / Asandus hybrid as shown, highly unusual wing format fusing with spines and webbing along back and tail; added floof on head, chin, neck, shoulders, and behind legs; head is deer like with large thick antlers, external ears, and added floof
Powers: Winged Flight - somehow, even Splinter isn't exactly sure how, she definitely flaps with those amazing fin-like wings, and does a super good job of streaking through the skies. In fact in high winds, buffeting from all sides, she's markedly stable, and can still hit a straight line through an area even with a storm going around her
Teleportation and Sneak Attack - when she really needs to be there right now, Neve can teleport up to 20 miles at a time, or to a known spot, which is usually their roost up on the frosty mountain peak. She can carry 'whatever is clinging to her' with this power, but can't do it to things that aren't actively touching her. The 'sneak attack' is done in a similar manner, and she doesn't even displace air when she moves to Right Behind You. She's twice as tall as any given Zekiran, at the shoulder, so how she manages this is her little secret
Verbal Speech and Telepathy - she uses her voice and mind interchangeably though obviously can reach silently with her mind across a much greater distance. Her mental voice is not quite fragile, but has a simlar sparkle to it as her lovely ticked shiny fur, and her vocabulary, while extensive, is often used for poetry and storytelling
Shapeshifting (human) - she's going to need a little practice with this, before walking around on two legs. But she can nearly-fully become a biped, she would like to be able to granularly choose to keep wing parts, tail, and such, but at this point if she is prodded to shift it's into a pale sparkly blue white-throated white-haired woman... Who could most certainly be Splinter's sister...
Body Heat Control (self only) - she is able to easily maintain her body temperature even in dire conditions, and since she's quite large compared to her bond she can include him in this warmth simply by virtue of 'being warm' (not that he suffers from frostbite, but he does run around with no shoes and his feet get cold!)
Functional Magic (light production, telekinetics) - if she really concentrates, she can produce a minor glow of a softly blue-white light around herself, or pick up objects (they can be quite heavy or bulky) though she isn't really adept with it and besides she can shapeshift to have hands to turn a light switch on...
Venomous Bite - you'd never know it from her demure and soft muzzle but those teeth definitely have a venom to them that can incapacitate a large creature for a brief time. It won't kill them, but it does a lot of damage quickly enough that she can take a quick nip at a big roaving creature and within minutes finish it off with a true bite after it can no longer kick or use its own defenses. There are a great many such animals living on Planet Twenty, which is good because dragons her size (and those bigger Glenn types!) need them for their meals - and they're part of the 'herds' that she and Splinter maintain now
Parentage / Family: Shajahanth + Comitero
Origin: Nidus Asteri / by Dragonflight
Other Info: Imaginative, Lazy - pff. Well, lazy is as lazy does, but when you're able to move instantly and have the size and dragon-shape she does, their job is almost always 'already done', that's why she looks like she hasn't done much today, honest! She does love listening to the Kin tell stories of their exotic former homes or their escapes from human captors, as well as the tales of dragons from other worlds. Some day she hopes to have her own stories!

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