Drakein are a diasporic people whose bodies were originally engineered during the late Vivisected Period as living models of draconic law. Though early scholarship classified them as "dragon-derived organisms," this reflects the assumptions of their creators rather than the reality of their nature. Drakein are not the offspring of the Hexarchons, nor true hybrids. They are constructive translations of draconic principles into mortal form — dragons in theory alone.
The earliest Drakein were produced through collaborative experimentation between Gamoran and Human courts, at the height of proto-dragonology and weapons research that would ultimately culminate in the Engine of Severance. They were conceived as controllable analogues through which scholars could study the presumed mechanics of the Hexarchons' bodies and powers without direct divine risk. Their uses included scale and tissue penetration trials, tolerance testing for heat, pressure, and divine resonance, breath and roar containment experiments, regenerative and redundant organ studies, and behavioral modeling of "reduced draconic cognition."
In practice, these programs treated Drakein as expendable biological instruments. Mortality rates were extreme. The impossibility of disposing of so many remains — resistant to decay, heat, and chemical breakdown — became a quiet logistical crisis within several facilities.
Despite their treatment, historical records and later Drakein testimony confirm that they were people from the beginning. That they were not recognized as persons was a failure of the societies that made them, not a property of the Drakein themselves.
There was no single decree that officially granted Drakein personhood. Recognition emerged unevenly as a result of riots, revolts, escapes, and moral fractures within the research institutions themselves — particularly during the period surrounding the Flinch, when confidence in Severance projects began to erode.
Notably, many Drakein were imprisoned alongside the Melasani, another population subjected to experimental confinement during this era. Shared resistance and escape attempts created enduring cultural bonds between the two groups that persist in certain communities today.
Before these upheavals, most Drakein were confined to laboratories, military barracks, or fortified compounds. Some were later incorporated into super-soldier and arcane corps, fighting in late imperial conflicts, Candorman Hold's fall, and other terminal wars of the pre-Cataclysm world.
The Cataclysm marked a profound rupture. With institutions collapsing or abandoning facilities, many Drakein were released without support, left to escape on their own, killed in place, or simply forgotten. Those attached to human forces completely lost the political structures that had defined their existence, while Gamoran units fragmented or were reassigned. The sudden absence of oversight forced Drakein communities to define themselves for the first time outside the framework of utility.
Within a few years, the first clutches of naturally-born Drakein appeared.
Modern Drakein society recognizes two broad lineages. Forged Drakein — those created through arcane fabrication processes — carry deep cultural reverence and mourning in equal measure. They are honored as survivors of the period of experimentation, and many bear physical or psychological scars. Even those outwardly unmarked are often described as carrying a perceptible gravity: a collective memory of expendability that does not fully leave the body.
Hatched Drakein — those born through natural clutching — are widely interpreted as a sign of continuity and healing. Their existence demonstrates that Drakein are not merely artifacts of sorcery, but a self-sustaining people. Hatched Drakein tend, on average, to be healthier and to present with greater physical diversity, though neither is universal.
Artificial creation of Drakein still occurs in secret in certain corners of the world. It is considered profoundly taboo, particularly within Drakein communities themselves. The act of Forging a Drakein outside of recognized cultural contexts is not merely illegal where laws apply — it is understood as a repetition of the original violation, and treated accordingly.
Among Drakein, magic is most commonly referred to as Breath — or Dragonsbreath in older dialects. It is understood not merely as elemental projection but as an expression of one's internal law into the world: a shaping force that can manifest through voice, heat, vibration, pressure, or other phenomena depending on the individual.
Drakein bodies include resonance organs associated with voice and breath, and scale structures responsive to emotional or energetic states — both of which bear directly on how Breath is produced and channeled. The specific expression of a Drakein's Breath reflects something true about their internal nature. It is not chosen so much as it is discovered, often through crisis, silence, or the slow accumulation of self-knowledge.
The cultural interpretation of Breath is a site of ongoing tension. In more traditionalist circles, Breath is approached as something to be mastered and directed with precision, mirroring its historical use as a controlled weapon or measurable output in research contexts. In more reformist or diasporic communities, Breath is framed as a personal voice — less a tool of function and more a declaration of existence. Neither position has resolved the tension between them, and most individual Drakein carry some version of both.
Early Drakein culture cannot be separated from the ideological frameworks imposed during their creation. From their first moments of awareness, many were subjected to intensive behavioral conditioning, propaganda, and doctrinal instruction designed to position them as instruments of divine study, warfare, or service. Training regimens framed obedience as proof of purpose, while dissent was characterized as structural instability — a malfunction rather than a position.
The long-term cultural effects remain visible. Even in communities generations removed from direct control, echoes of this conditioning persist in language, ritual, and self-conception. Some Drakein traditions emphasize discipline, hierarchy, and functional identity, reflecting inherited narratives that worth is measured through utility. Others consciously reject these frameworks, cultivating philosophies centered on autonomy, interiority, and self-definition.
These divergent responses are not simply ideological disagreements. They determine how communities organize, how elders transmit knowledge, how Breath is taught, and how personhood is understood. A Drakein raised in a community that frames Breath as precision instrument will move through the world differently from one raised in a community that frames it as voice. Both are Drakein. The distance between them can be considerable.
What persists across most communities, regardless of orientation, is the understanding that their history is not incidental to who they are. The Forged are honored. The Hatched carry the proof that it was possible to survive into something new. The tension between utility and selfhood remains a quiet but persistent current running through Drakein cultural life, shaping even those who believe they have resolved it.