Time for another World of Green and Black Featured Creature. This one I’m really excited about, because we’re talking sky-dominators. These are a really important creature in the Drid world, and whilst this isn’t their first public appearance, they’ll play an important role in my upcoming Green and Black novella. I’ll get more into that at the end of this post, for now though, let’s learn about sky-dominators.

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Name: Sky-Dominator (also known as ‘Dragon’ in the Black Canyon)
World: Black
Material: Flesh
Thought Type: Untethered
Species Type: Flying Reptile
Habitat: Black Canyon, Mountains and Plains, Tropical Drid Rainforests

Sky-Dominators are the largest land-based predator on all the known worlds, as well as the largest known flying creature. They are a constant danger amongst Humans living near Black World Mountains and Plains, as young ‘dragons’ often need to drag off multiple livestock or people before realising they cannot eat Green World lifeforms. Humans near the Black Canyon claim that the largest, oldest ‘dragons’ do not harm Green life if left alone, showing that they are a cunning animal. Drids however revere these creatures, and it is their description of this creature, ‘Sky-Dominator’, that has been chosen as the species’s proper name.

Flying is easy for these creatures, as they can glide for hours without landing. Their legs and wing struts are also powerful enough to grab large animals and flap away in one powerful movement. Their jaws are powerful enough to carry away their prey, aided by a spike on their chest. They have also been observed holding prey in front of their heads with their forearms, however this impacts their ability to steer themselves.

They have a massive heart, surrounded by air sacks filled with a gas that can cause the air sack to float in the air for up to ten minutes if removed from a still living sky-dominator. Their primary wing membranes stretch from the back of their front legs, completely enclose the wing struts that are their middle limbs, and attach to the front of their back legs. They have smaller secondary membranes spanning between the back of their hind legs and tail. All their feet have two long claws coming off the wrist. On the front feet they both face backwards, whilst on the hind legs the claws are each on opposite sides of the wrist. These claws are fused into the membrane, allowing precise control. Despite their powerful wings, heart and air-sacks, they have great difficulty taking off, requiring a running start or a drop from a great height. They also must kill larger prey in one strike as they grab it, as the struggles of a large animal can easily down them.

Because of their difficulties gaining the sky, the only areas where they exist without Drid care are areas with both high mountains and open plains. The Black Canyon is the only area in the world where sky-dominators exist in large numbers without Drids. All other sky-dominator habitats are within flying distance of the Black Canyon, and sky-dominators are often seen flying between these far-flung areas. Strangely enough, the distance between the Black Canyon and the Drid Rainforests is too great for sky-dominators to travel, and there has been no recorded contact between sky-dominators from the Black Canyon and Drid Forest sky-dominators in written history. Despite this, it is still accepted by researchers both Human and Drid that sky-dominators were originally bought to the rainforests from the Black Canyon and domesticated by Drids during the Times of Myth. The most obvious evidence of this is that the thick tree cover of the rainforests make it almost impossible for sky-dominators to hunt, thus requiring Drid care. Reports from Drids who care for sky-dominators provide more evidence for this ancient domestication theory.

The Drid advisor to The Lord High Paldin IV of Ritantia in the Kingdom of Ramparossa (known to us simply as ‘The Advisor’) supports the domestication theory on the basis of sky-dominator telepathy mechanics. The Advisor was one of Humankind’s first Drid sources of information about sky-dominators, along with the chief sky-dominator shepherd of the Upper Stalax River Forest. Here is how The Advisor describes sky-dominator telepathy;

“Dridkind view ourselves as masters over all other telepathic creatures. However, when one attempts to connect to the mind of a sky-dominator, we discover that nature has in fact crafted saddles over the minds of our familiar animals, and like the Humans who ride bucking megaseus bare-backed, we learn what skills mastery actually requires.”

Unlike other Black World predators, sky-dominators do not use telepathy for pack hunting or mental manipulation. Instead, they open their minds during the hours they spend basking on high cliffs, looking for the thoughts of prey or potential mates.

The Advisor and Sky-Dominator Shepherd of the Upper Stalax River describe maintaining sky-dominators as a difficult, costly endeavour. However, their importance to Dridkind is so great that not only does every Forest seek to care for these creatures, but access to them is a leading cause of war amongst the different Forests. Due to the inability of individual Drids to move (see the entry on Drids for an explanation of their biology and lifecycle) sky-dominators are treasured due to the great distances they can travel in the amount of time a Drid can possess them. The Advisor called sky-dominators “the creatures that expand the universe”, and the Ramparossan Forest initially coined the term ‘sky-ships’ for these creatures. Though of course, the Upper Stalax River term ‘sky-dominator’ is the translation that stuck.

Entire books have been written about the relationship between Drids and sky-dominators. We shall end this entry though by comparing the sky-dominators of the rainforests with the sky-dominators of the Black Canyon. These so-called ‘dragons’ are larger than the Drid’s sky-dominators, and according to testimony from the one (unfortunately unconfirmed) story of a live dragon being taken to a Drid Forest, they are harder to possess telepathically. There are accounts of dragons being able to breath fire, however further study suggests these stories may be baseless myths. The only plausible account is that of the Mad Naturalists of Laiiko, who did report success in making a dragon breath fire, though the beast soon perished afterwards.

It should be noted that some of the experiments mentioned here were extremely cruel towards the beasts they were performed upon. It is well known that Dridkind normally expresses greater disgust towards unnatural harm caused to animals than Humankind, but researchers should beware that they become particularly enraged when hearing about the mistreatment of sky-dominators. Human naturalists and game hunters have been killed for suggesting cruelty towards sky-dominators many times. So far only one Forest, the supposedly callous Keepers of the Empty Forest, have expressed an interest in these experiments, but co-operation is near impossible due to their Forest not bordering Human lands. It is therefore recommended that all naturalists be careful when discussing sky-dominators with Dridkind.

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As I said, these creatures will feature heavily in my upcoming novella, The Strongest in the Forest. This is a loose prequel to my 2023 novella, Neighbour*, being set about 200 years earlier and being about the title character’s mentor, Strongest. It is my hope for both these stories to stand alone, but I’m not going to discourage you all from reading both of them.

If all goes well, the first part of The Strongest in the Forest will go live at the start of April, replacing the featured story for that month. Like with Neighbour, this story will be published in three parts, with a new part every two weeks.

I am really excited to be sharing these stories finally. I’ve had this world and eco-system in my mind for years, and writing these stories is a chance for me to really step into a completely alien state of mind. I just hope someone else finds this world as enjoyable as I do.

Looking forward to seeing you all here next month for Strongest’s story.

~ Jayde

* I regret trying to write in American English soooooooo much. Never again, and I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen back then.