First, your Schattarnek is born. This is an event that happens to everyone at some point, and it is often regarded as deplorable by some beings. At this point, your young dragon has no wings and cannot fly. Its wing-spikes are at the moment just stubby shoulder-spikes. A young Schattarnek's fur is usually muted shades of the colors it will be once it's an adult, but it is not unheard-of for a young Schattarnek's adult coat to be slightly different than its hatchling-pelt. Some dragons have even grown adult coats that are the chromatic opposite of their hatchling colors. Your young dragon is likely happy, playful, and clumsy. Paws and ears are too large for their own good. Thankfully, this stage lasts but a mere two weeks, after which your bouncy bundle of easily-distractable joy will be an adult. It is rumored that there is a different, very special hatchling image for young Schattarneki that emerge from the egg with very solemn natures. These serious, quiet baby dragons are decidedly rare, so rare that they get their own hatchling image. Go nerds! There is a 50% chance that your baby Schattarnek is female. Sometimes it's really hard to tell these things when the buggers are little, so you usually have to rely on what the egg-caretakers tell you in regards to your dragonet's gender. So far, they've never been wrong. So far. This example picture is of an adult female. There is no adult male example picture. You'll just have to look one up on the Guardians listing -- they do look different. Anyway, adult Schattarneki have their full-sized wings and can fly. They will remain at the "adult" phase indefinately, unless their Guardian requests a very special, hand-drawn, 100% personalized "Elder" image. Adults will never go back to the Hatchling phase. Who would want to, anyway, when you can do things like gamble, stay out past midnight, and have little screaming dragonlings of your own? Not me. The Elder stage is something very sacred, special, and permanent. Elders are long-furred, have Oriental-like whiskers on the muzzle, and sometimes their ears flop down. Each and every Guardian may request an "Elder stage" picture for their dragon if they so desire, and each Elder image will be drawn seperately. No templates here! However, there's a rather large, nasty catch to it. Elder Schattarneki cannot breed (would you really want them to? ::shudder::) and they can never go back to being Adults. Moving a Schattarnek to Elder stage is irreversible. Additionally, the Schattarnek in question must have been an Adult for at least three weeks before their Guardian can request an awesome Elder image. This Elder looks nothing like Falco the Luckdragon from Neverending Story. Home | Adopt/Sands | Growth | Appearance | Culture | Breeding | Forum | FAQ Residents | Abandoned | Guardians | World of Splintyr | Store | Contact Lakota Splintyr is a member of the Nexus / Kshau Protectorate All characters, images, and text, including Schattarneki and Splintyr are the property of and are copyrighted to Crystal Carlson and DragonByte Studios © 1998-2005. All rights reserved. ...