A couple of weeks ago, the team went to a games convention in the city. It was an amazing opportunity to see other designers and Mexican industry folks, and an excellent chance to show off our games, miniatures, stories, you know the drill.

During the Mega XP (the con), we got a chance to share our own experience of our games. Our insights from when we play, when we print, and when we paint. I want to keep that ball rolling. For the schedule this week, we wanted to show off the ascendancies and realms you can belong to. Being the playful trickster scoundrel I am, we’re taking a detour. These are my favorite ascendancies from Dragonbond from the inside; from what I’ve learned seeing them grow to what I like to think about when I think about characters for role playing games.

Golden Gnomes

The Godao, golden gnomes of Allaria, are a highly creative people. Like their silver elf peers, they have an intricate connection to Fai, the aspect of Dreams. Their dreams are their own, but they carry vivid imagery that inspire their creations. They are practiced engineers and outstanding shooters whose friendship with the ellari has survived countless eons.

Personally, I like how the godao continually practice their engineering and work. Not every creation is a masterpiece, but each is worth the work behind it, and each serves a purpose. They are industrious folk whose work can be seen throughout Valerna. Godao heroes are valiant crafters and observant companions who always have a nick-nack in the works that can fix any problem. Yes, inspiration strikes the godao hard, but they work the rest of the days, just as hard.

They are masters of Golden Genius by nature. A magical engineering ability that allows them to create fantastic contraptions and artifacts without necessarily understanding how they did it. Silver elves share dreams, godao share creations.

Sky Dwarves

I promise, I’m not arranging these by size.

When I first got into Draco Studios, we were developing the dwarves that would be the commonplace folk to turn to for all things merchant. We wanted new, fresh and plausible, and to drift away from the established notions of dwarvenkind. Enter the Nwoda, sky dwarves whose bodies present crystals where there would be hair. Fascinating creatures who rose late in the history of Valerna and changed the skies forever.

These dwarves were to be free spirits, eternal explorers who made for the ideal cartographers of Valerna. I have always liked their spontaneous nature, the ease with which they go with the flow of events, though it never stops them from turning the tide. Loyal, wise and filled with jewels, traveling through the air. What more can one ask for?

Ogerron

The ogerron really hit their stride during the later half of 2021. We knew they were more than decorated meat tanks that fought alongside maghyri. So we played with it. We wanted something that complemented the maghyr the same way that vampyri had from different ideas of the vampire. The ogerron were never vampires, but they still had to showcase the weight of Id, the Vaala aspect of Will, as it relates to the rest of Valerna.

These proud orc-kin are a wise people who commonly feast on the flesh of their fallen foes. This consumption bestows them with the wisdom of their enemy, animal or otherwise. This wisdom comes in many forms, from a soldier’s strategic ideas, to a manticora’s experience traversing the Hollowdepths. They are storytellers and singers whose union grows in the thick of battle, whether past or present. They are incredibly loyal to one another, as well as to those who earn their trust.

Disclaimer: I have never willingly and knowingly eaten human flesh.

Tyverian Insect Tamer

I mean. Can you blame me?

Puka

Again with the only-mechanically-medium creatures and the insightful walls of text.

One of my favorite realm relationships in the whole of Dragonbond is the relationship between Ysvalian humans and the púka halflings whom they call their neighbors. Left alone, the Ysvalians would work endlessly, trying to accommodate everyone in their community. Similarly, the Púka would have run out their resources and probably be squished by the creatures of the frozen north. They would have been fine in the grand scheme of things, but they work so much better together.

Resourceful, spry and creative. Can’t get enough of them. Plus. as a baker, having a mobile bakery on a pig is my dream.

Bunkuun

Bunkuun communities are tall towers of seers and mages, of studious folk, and of many colored feathers that rain down from the trees. I’ve never been one for animal shapes, but taking a look at the art that the team has come up with has really touched a fiber.

I am thinking of owlish features, brown and gray feathers.

Outside the shape, I have always enjoyed the way we’ve developed the bird people of the Nahuac Coalition. They are wise and patient and never deny their birdness. Their structures are tall and proud as they mingle with the trees around them. I’d have to find a bird who chooses not to fly because it is basically exercise. Let me know in the comments if you know the one.

Those are mine, then. I hope this look into one writer’s experience creating a world with a team of other fantastic creatives also gave you some inspiration for the tales you’ll tell in

Dragonbond.

What about you? We’ve shown you so much of our stuff over the years, . Do you already have any favorites? Tell us in the comments.