Rift Plate 022 · Lantern Codex
Aetherwing Drake
A sky-sovereign drake controls lift and falling air, treating height as territory and descent as judgment.
- Plate group
- Lantern Codex
- Classification
- Elemental Dragonkin
- Field account
- Recovered
Recovered natural history
Field record
Balloon encounter
The Drake was resting on a ridge of cloud above the storm. Stars from another season shone through its wings.
One movement hit the balloon with the weight of a falling lake. The creature descended beside it slowly, choosing who to take when the ropes parted. It would not follow into common lightning.
Claimed air
It makes shelves of cloud and sets a ceiling the birds won't cross. Intruders are inspected first. Then their lift is taken and the lanes of descent are arranged. It waits to strike until escape has become a fall.
Mixed, chaotic weather disrupts that control. A conspicuous object falling through its territory can also draw it away, apparently as a challenge to its height.
Read the environment
Signs of its presence
Level cloud terraces hold despite different winds above and below. Birds stay under one invisible ceiling.
Dropped objects drift sideways or pause before falling.
Survival doctrine
Field precautions
01
Enter dirty weather
Get into chaotic mixed currents. They spoil the pressure lanes and burden the Drake's wings.
02
Challenge the height
Drop a conspicuous bell or streamer, or a polished object it will notice. It may turn from living prey to the challenge. The same trick won't work twice.
Recovered Field Plate
01
Primary form
A long drake stretches across the plate on multiple thin wing planes, with little visual weight below them.
02
Detail studies
The pointed head, extended tail, and crossing wings make the full silhouette read as speed and span.
Continue through the folio
022 of 100 recovered plates