Ravenous Rapid

[Mason Nighith]

Species name: Ravenous Rapid

Class: Striker



Images (if any):


Physical Description: Ravenous Rapids are generally in the dark blue or green family in color to help camouflage in their jungle or forest terrain.   They can also have black in their markings. They have two spiral horns facing behind them and a small head. Their eyes are large and almond shaped and can vary in color but are usually brown to amber. Their tails are long and wispy with a single blade-like fan on the end.  Rapids have four legs and smooth bat-like wings coming from their back.  They can be good ground fighters, but generally prefer to be in flight in almost all situations from hunting to fighting to traveling.

They have large wings and “rudders” (small fin-like flaps somewhat like sails) on their legs, back, and tail in order to turn in midair and in between the trees that they live among with precision.  Their wings are extremely flexible with thin, hollow bones in order to contort to avoid trees.  Their legs are strong their feet have claws and four toes in order to launch and bank off of trees as they travel through the woods.  Their entire bodies are long and flexible for this very reason.  

They are usually lithe and athletic as they are flexible and quick.  Females are larger than males.  In height, the largest female will get a little larger then a Night Fury.  They are longer than the Night Fury by twice the body length.  They are thinner and more flexible than the Night Fury as well.


Typical Behaviour: Puzzle solvers, they love a good mystery. An aerial pack hunter, they use strategy to catch prey and defend their pack. They come up with new and clever ways to hunt new things. Curious and adaptable, they will try and eat just about anything.

They are curious and fearless. 

They are quick tempered and strike first and ask questions after.  Their family structure is social as they stay in a pack their whole lives and work together.  

They are social and protective.

They live in mountainous areas, choosing the highest ridges to live and flying to the forest in order to hunt, they prefer to have the value of height when they bed down or have young.  As parents, they are protective and doting, especially if the young one has potential.  Male Rapids care for the young just as much, and in some cases more, than the females.  Unfortunately, if a baby Rapid become ill or is disabled, they will likely either leave it to die or drive it away.

There is almost always a female pack leader who plans the hunts and makes decisions for the pack. Because they are larger and have bigger attitudes, females tend to be the leaders of Rapid packs and be the highest in the pecking order.  The leader will communicate a plan to the pack to flush prey out or surround a herd and the pack will execute it on her command.  

Alone, they are less effective since they are conditioned for hunting in a pack.  


Abilities: Extremely high speed flier in short bursts and moderate speed flier for longer distances, shoots very hot blue fireballs, hot enough to melt and kill just about anything. They are fast learners and accurate fliers. Rapids are very adept to weaving through trees with their flexible bodies and banking skills. They have keen sight under a canopy and keen hearing.

Highly adaptable and observant, they can learn to hunt different animals quickly and are willing to eat almost anything.  

Shot Limit: 6



Drawbacks: Not big on being tamed, doesn’t like to feel like a slave to people.  They must feel like an equal or a team rather than being controlled. They also must share the goals of their rider for the most part and will have to be convinced to do something they are not keen on. They’ll make a trade if you’ve got something they want. It must be a mutually beneficial relationship, so friendship with this dragon takes a lot of work. High potential to turn on you if they feel they are not be treated right. They can have quite a temper if they think they have been slighted. 

They are not physically strong.  Although Rapids are very high speed fliers, they can only keep up the speed for short bursts.  They cannot see very well in extreme darkness or extreme light, as they hunt under the canopy of trees.  Curious and fearless to a fault, they often run themselves into danger and do not back down when it's time to flee.  

Their wings can be more easily damaged because they have thinner hollow bones in order to be more flexible.  They have moves that are effective while pack hunting, but do not naturally have abilities as a single fighter.  


Blind spot: They have to turn their heads to see directly behind them. 



Training Methods: This dragon must always be on equal grounds with its training or rider. They must agree to learn things as long as they feel it benefits them as well. If it feels slighted, it will become obstinate. Never lie to this dragon or you’ll lose their trust forever.



Habitat: They are not rare and have migrated toward Berk for the last hundred years after becoming a bit scarce and then repopulating. They are forest dragons who hide and hunt among trees and live in high mountain caves just above a forest. 



Diet: Will eat Fish sometimes but usually feasts on red meat, mostly a land hunter



Created by: Mason

[PIME2]

Hi there, there are a few things which I feel need to be changed or thought about, or at least thought about.

For starters, the name doesn’t really fit a strike class dragon, but more importantly it is far too similar to ‘Terrible Terror’ while having no physical relations to the tiny dragon, so you would need to change the name. I would suggest thinking about what other strike classes are named and what themes your dragon fit in with, because those are really the two things thought about Dreamworks when they choose names.

Secondly, why are the dragons restricted to blues? I know you said it was because of how it’s fire was blue, but that doesn’t really make sense. I could understand why it might be limited to dark blues or dark colours in general, as most strike class dragons have a stealth nature to them and so have darker colours to blend into the night sky, but if they go all the way up to teal then that element is completely removed. I would say either remove this detail or limit it further to just dark blues.

In regards to their abilities, they definitely should not have the hottest flames, especially since they’re already so smart and fast. Remember Deadly Nadders have hotter flames than Night furies, but night furies breath is more ‘explosive’.

The other things that I think should be talked about are all connected to the same issue so I think I’ll talk about that rather than any specific part of the app. The reason why we give members the ability to create custom dragons for them to be able to play is if they have a specific idea of something they want to play that is unique and none of the canon dragons can adequately cover.


Your dragon hasn’t got many characteristics that distinguish it from being just a generic description of a strike class, it sort of feels like what you would get if you put a Skrill and Night Fury together, but removed the things that made either feel unique. And the problem with that is that there’s no real justification I can see at this point why this dragon shouldn’t be categorised as ‘rare’. We use the term ‘rare’ on this site to mean ‘dragons which are over powered and so only people who have rped for a long time on this site can play them’, rather than just ‘dragons there are only a few of’.

For this dragon to not be rare you would need to think of flaws that would counterweight the inherent overpowered nature of the strike class, as personality flaws are not sufficient. When you boil the class down, their description is basically that they are the strongest, fastest, smartest and rarest dragons out there.

Best example of a custom non-rare ‘strike’ dragon is the Sky Reaper, designed by Arren. Sky Reapers have the same strength in the air, same intelegence and same offensive capabilities that as all other Strikes, but Arren made enough additions to the concept that it was very much a unique dragon (I think of them as Sky Sharks xD) and, more importantly, Sky Reapers were at an extreme disadvantage on the ground or in the sea. Here is the link, you might get some ideas of what you could do by reading it, or maybe even consider the idea for character.

berks-dragons.proboards.com/thread/728/sky-reaper

So, all in all, I would suggest going ahead you should either try and sort out a consept in your head of how to make this dragon more unique and separate to the other Strike class, while at the same time making sure it still fits the base descrition of Strike dragons and has physical flaws that make it more acceptable as a ‘non-rare’ dragon, or consider looking at other existing non-rare dragons to use instead of making a custom dragon, from reading your app it didn’t seem like your character isn’t the type who needs a specific kind of dragon to work.

[Mason Nighith]

They are blue because most animals have a limit of color.  Most animals of the same species will all look similar. They are forest/jungle dragons, so blues would help them to camouflage. Night Furys are always black, for instance. I can make them more blue and green for camo if that helps.

Anything that is rare is more likely to have flaws. If something is pretty well conditioned and developed or "perfect", it would be more likely to flourish and multiply according to nature. The least perfect dragons species are more likely to die out.

In any case, I can change a few things to make it more unique and have more flaws.

I admit the name sucks, I'm less good at names.

I do have a good idea, I wanted to make a pack striker dragon and I have edited things to help make it more obvious.  

[PIME2]

Sorry for taking longer than I meant to, especially given how extensive it is. I just needed to find the time to actually sit down and write it all down, as well as get feedback from Red since she’s the person who’s most used to reviewing dragon apps. I’ll start with the inconsistencies in the app which need to be address and then after that talk about some of the more overarching problems I have with the app. And apologies in advance for me writing a lot.

For starters, you describe the dragon as being confrontational, aggressive and disliking authority. Elsewhere though you say they are social, protective and work in a pack manner. Remember with Orcas and Wolves are is an alpha that the others in the pack follow, social systems always naturally turn towards some form of hierarchy, so its kind of a contradiction for a species to both naturally dislike authority and has a pack mentality to them. I would suggest choosing one trait or the other, either they’re aggressive loners who strive to be individuals, or beings that are willing to defer to those above them for the benefit of the group.

Similarly you describe them as reckless and fearless, but this is a character trait that goes against the fact that they are supposedly stealthy, would hinder their accuracy (as they would be more inclined to attack before aiming) and given that their only defence in combat is running away, means they aren’t in a position where not thinking before risking getting into a fight isn’t a luxury they can really afford.

Speaking of which, having thought about it, I don’t think I can allow cartilage wings. There is no way a cartilage skeleton could support the weight of the wings any megafauna, let alone have the structural strength to be able to withstand the forces necessary to able to keep a dragon in flight. A better idea might be to instead go for the idea that your dragon has hollow bones like birds, meaning they are lighter weight but more brittle. Oh and in regards to your picture, what was drawn both do not look like bat-like wings and could definitely not support that dragons weight. www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/medium_1x_/public/import/2014/images/2014/05/Batwing1.jpg?itok=uEkyMvFf

Couple more quick small inconsistencies which need to be addressed, first,if they have trouble in cold temperatures how do they survive on Berk? Second, why does it have a blind spot between it’s eyes, the image you showed looks like they have forward pointing eyes with no real obstruction caused by its face, so how could the dragons blindspot be right infront of it (also it’s a pretty fundamental design flaw for a hunter to not be able to see whats right infront of him) Finally, and the fire blast is still kind of OP, NFs don’t have that powerful a fire.

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Now that those are out of the way, the remaining things I want to talk about are not so much incongruities like everything I’ve mentioned up till this point, but are still issues I feel like need to be talked about.

I have always felt, and in all honesty the picture kind of confirmed, that the Rapids are way too similar in design to Night Furies for either Red or my liking, a (relatively) large, four legged, dark coloured, large bat-like winged strike class dragon with high speed, a powerful blast and high intelligence. And before you say that a lot of it is because of the class, I would like to remind you that of four canon dragons which are strike, Skrills and Snow Wraiths look nothing like Night furies and while Woolly Howls have the same anatomy layout (four legs, bat-like wings) they still visually have massive visual differences between them (I can’t help but think of it as the child of a NF and an Ankylosaurus for some reason xD).

To me, visually, Ravenous Rapids look just like leaner Night Furies with horns, a variant tail and variant wings. There’s nothing that really stands out to me in its physical form. This is part of the reason why I feel like considering a four limbed design might be worth considering. That and since it’s not a dragon that wants to use its legs, there’s no reason why it should have separate front legs and wings. Skrills, bats and birds all get on fine without them; the first two even use their wings as arms.

Also the size, while theoretically allowable, is kind of impractical for a creature which hunts in habitat of difficult terrain for flying. The point with a night fury is that it flying unobstructed in the sky, only occasionally having to deal with tight spaces and difficult manoeuvres.

I think I will stop there for now, I feel like I’m rambling and ripping apart your app.

If you want to continue editing this app I am happy to keep reviewing it, just recognise I will take some time to reply and (as you can see) when it comes to the custom dragon applications we try to be thorough, probably a lot more thorough than with any character app. If you do not like where my review is taking your concept or are impatient about the amount of time this prosess is taking and don’t mind deep down what type of dragon you actually use, I’d like to remind you that there are already a large number of existing dragons (both canon and custom made) in our book of dragons and the How To Train Your Dragon Wiki, so it might be worth at least considering one of them.

But as I said if you have your heart set on a dragon of your own creation, I am willing to continue reviewing. With this whole design though, I would suggest you think about birds like Goshawks, four limbed dragons like Skrills and other animals like bats or microraptors when considering any redesign. The consept you have been describing is of a creature who has evolved to mainly fly, so he probably should take inspiration for creatures that mainly fly too

[Mason Nighith]

They are aggressive when it comes to being controlled, like with people controlling them. That's what that means, they resist being "trained" or tamed. I never said they were like that with one another.  I added more to clarify. 

Many animals are both hunters and curiously reckless, pack animals especially. Several hunters in nature are brave to a point that they will face something larger and more dangerous than they are, but are still good hunters. Wolves and badgers are a decent example of this, as are most big cats, ferrets, and some birds. Many pack hunters have this trait. Also, I never once described this dragon as stealthy, I'm not sure where you got that.   I said they hunt in packs. Pack hunters usually drive their prey or outsmart it, stealth and surprise are more loner strategies. They reply on speed and numbers more than stealth and accuracy. That is not really a contradiction.

Where did I say that their only defense was running away?  That is not in the app at all.  

I will get rid of the no bone wings, I thought that was an idea you liked when we last spoke about it.

I said they have trouble with extreme cold temperatures. I didn't say they died in them. Most reptiles are cold blooded. Technically, realistically, all dragons should have trouble in cold temperatures. Even the canon dragons from the show are not perfectly logical. In any case, I removed it.

The blind spot is behind it, I think maybe you misread.

There is a white Night Fury on this site. How is that one not too similar?

I didn't design it after a Night Fury, I designed it after this pre13.deviantart.net/87dd/th/pre/f/2013/180/c/c/water_dragon_____tattoo_design_by_alviaalcedo-d6b727p.jpg

Many custom dragons on here have similar qualities but were accepted.  It's also supposed to be a fantasy. Hardly any of the actual Berk dragons are realistic. 

A Typhoomerang and a Monstrous Nightmare look similar.  The Egg Biter and Rumblehorn resemble one another.  Scuttle claw and Deadly Adder look alike.  Gronckle and Hotburple.  There are more. Many of the canon dragons look similar to other canon dragons. It seems like I have to abide by rules that the films didn't as well as other customs on this site.

My dragon is longer, thinner, has a much smaller head, different feet, different color, and a different tail than the Night Fury.  The Striker class is smallest in number, it stands to reason that some would look similar after they discovered more.  Perhaps they are even related. 

I would like to stick with four legs.  Other dragons have four legs.  They are forest dragons so would have to have some stability on land, hence four legs.  In order to maneuver the trees, it makes more sense.  I said they prefer to fly but can fight on land.  Forest animals would have to be adapted to both.

There are at least two cat-like dragons, the other being the Moldruffle, I don't think having three is a huge stretch in this world.

In all fairness, I don't really feel as if you're reading the application thoroughly.  Many things you said are not actually in it or are inaccurate.  

[PIME2]

Lets start with the ‘I never once described this dragon as stealthy.’

Jan 7, 2016 1:23:07 GMT 1 Mason Nighith said:

Abilities: Extremely high speed flier in short bursts and moderate speed flier for longer distances, shoots very hot blue fireballs, hot enough to melt and kill just about anything. They are accurate, stealthy, and fast learners. Rapids are very adept to weaving through trees with their flexible bodies and banking skills. They have keen sight under a canopy and keen hearing.

If you don’t think a pack creature should have stealth or accuracy that’s fine, but you had said it in your app I didn’t pull that out of nowhere.

Thank you for adding clarity on the ‘being controlled’, it was just that you’d said they dislike ‘authority’, which implied more than you had meant it to. Now in regards to hunters facing larger animals then themselves, wolves do not do that in a reckless manner, a pack will rarely outright attack a bear or a herd of large animals because deer because the risks involved are too great, larger animals could easily cause severe harm to them. What they do, through the leadership of the alpha is try to scare the herd into running and then take down the weakest when they stumble.

Recklessness is a trait more found in the lone wolf who is more desperate for food as they do not have anyone to help them on the hunt, and use apparent disregard from their own safety to scare their prey into fleeing rather than fighting, or at least hope that they are lucky enough to be able to kill it before it can hurt them.

My point with the was more a point that, since they had weak wings and low endurance, the dragon is sort of designed to be a glass canon, strong in attack but frail. As such direct confrontation with anything bigger than itself would be extremely risky as all it would take would be one lucky hit for its wing to be damage and then it would be unable to escape if it wasn’t able to defeat the creature it was fighting. I will I did not effectly get my point across with what I said and I should have explained myself better. Similarly I will admit to outright misreading the blind spot thing, though that was the only thing I misread, everything else has been either miscommunication or you forgetting you’d said something.

I did like the cartilage idea when we’d last talked about it, but when I was talking with the other admins about it I remaindered how impractical the design actually is, the only ‘vertibrates’ that use cartilage as a main part of skeletal structure are sea creatures like sharks, who would be crushed by their own weight if they left the water. Finally I’ll admit I’d been a bit but you summed up my problem in your rebuttal, if your dragon lives in berk it shouldn’t have any more trouble with the cold than any other dragon, so it’s not really a weakness worth mentioning if dragons do have any cold problems.

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Now for the Night Fury stuff.

The White Fear is something that was accepted before Red and I joined BD and before the site actually started to have any standards to try to stop sueish designs. I do dislike that we have that dragon on our list and if I actually had unilateral control and didn’t care about the consequences I would have gotten rid of it years ago. The problem with the WF is that it’s in use by the member who originally created it, and removing it would cause a lot of damage to both his character and the characters who are close to his. And we don’t really want to punish him for a mistake the previous admins made, so for now we are accepting WFs as being in our setting, but are never going to let anyone use them.

All of that said, White Fears are still categorised as ‘rare’ so it is limited to long term members. The dragon you are applying for isn’t rare so can be used by anyone. We don’t have a problem because it’s too similar to an existing dragon, we do have other dragons on our site which have a similar but different look to canon dragons. My complaint is its too similar in design to the rare, badass, Night Fury, while it itself is not rare.

The Moldruffle merely has ‘cat-like’ personality, it’s physical appearance is more Snafflefang. The only other canon dragon which has a strong physical resemblance to an NF is a Woolly Howl, which is also ‘rare’. I know your dragon is longer and thinner than an NF, I commented as much when talking about how similar it was, the different colouring is cosmetic, and the wings as described are similar (bat-like) and the main reason they are different in the drawing is because you did not draw bat-like wings.

Now, in regards to practicality, I wouldn’t be surprised if I hadn’t gotten the design across properly, but I was meaning for the wings to also act as front legs, like with a Skrill, Monsterous Nightmare, Smaug (if we were to use out of bd examples), bats and pterodactyls. I definitely agree it would need the stability of four legs when on the ground, but it could just as easily work with a four limbed design there’s no ‘necessity’ in a six limb design.

I would not be making this argument at all if you were making a rare dragon. If Ravegous Rapids were meant to be categorised as rare, I would be completely be fine with them looking like NFs provided they had a distinct personality and design to them, even have them be related. But you are not making a rare dragon, you want something you can play, and under that parameter we cannot accept a NF-like Strike class dragon, especially when from a conceptual basis a four limbed dragon makes more sence than a six-limbed dragon.

[Mason Nighith]

I meant to take out stealthy and I did, but I meant that they are accurate FLIERS.

That doesn't change the fact that there are a couple of things you did pull out of nowhere, like that running away is their only defense.  I said they are curious and fearless. Foxes, cats, wolves, lots of animals are both of those things. I don’t understand why being fearless makes them reckless. There is a difference.

Confrontations with bigger animals are what packs do. Lions attack huge animals together. Wolves take down moose that would kill one f them but can’t stand against a pack. They have to be fearless and willing to take risks to catch anything.

Ferrets will approach anything much larger than they are without fear, but that doesn’t mean they are reckless.

They are not frail exactly; the wings just trade some strength for flexibility. Their bodies aren’t frail but flexible.

I could make them even longer and more ferret like. Also bigger than a Fury. Shorter tail.

Nearly every single dragon has bat-like wings. The drawing has been removed but not the description.

Banking off trees would require loose limbs as the wings would get caught if they tried to use them to maneuver around trees. They’d need their wings independent of their legs to push off trees and other objects.

I’m not allowed to make a rare dragon, otherwise I would.

[Mason Nighith]

I made them longer and thinner.

I also added behavior saying females are leaders and larger.

[Mason Nighith]

Can we please put this dragon on hold? I have decided I do want to make a rare species and with my 154th post will discover Mason's dragon!