TLDR or not: Say Hello to the new official subspecies of Zorgoias, The Spireborn! ^^ I hope y'all like these big fellas! I've been excited to release these guys for a while.


Important statement for these guys I want to put up top:

**Spireborns and Pygmies are now 100% open and free to make AND sell if desired, as of September 2024! Go have fun!

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Y'all get a Veldram history lesson as well so have fun!! In the earliest days of Veldram, one creature stood as the apex predator. The Zorgoia. An utterly massive beast with thick scaly hide, sharp claws, and blunt tail barbs. They were a lot more feral and territorial than most. Veldram was a hot, rocky, desert planet, and most of the creatures there were adapted for the heat relatively well. Then on one fateful day, a stray meteorite plunged into the planet's surface, creating an incredibly small crater in the ground. While such anomalies were common, and the meteorite was far too small to do any damage, the contaminates that it carried would ensure a different fate. The meteorite held a virus unlike anything the planet had ever seen; a bizarre, parasitic, crystalline substance, which crept deep beneath the planet's crust. Overtime, the virus began to spread rapidly, overtaking the planet internally little by little.

While heat from the planet's core still radiated, it began to cool down the planet overall and push magma outwards through massive volcanic eruptions. Parasitic crystals soon entwined with the superheated rock far below. The planet itself began to cool at a rapid pace, sending Veldram into an ice age era. Unfit for the new harsh climate, many creatures began to die out. The Zorgoias, a species that relied on the heat to survive, were forced to look for shelter elsewhere, lest they become extinct. Many perished in the wake of the unforgiving cold, while few found refuge in unexpected places. While many found their homes in deep caverns and the rare warmer habitats that still remained, others fled to the poles. Little did they know, the poles were the worst place for them to go. The spire jutted out from both ends of the planet over hundreds and thousands of years, like a toothpick skewering an olive. It's gargantuan size would continue to grow upwards for eons before it would finally come to an end, falling dormant as it stood.


Creatures would later dub the massive growth as "The Spire". While this strange formation would inevitably ensure the planet's survival, it would not ensure the survival of the creatures that came in contact with the virus, or anything else that it contaminated. The virus would quickly overtake stone, foliage, water sources, and eventually the wildlife. Almost everything that the virus consumed would be turned into an immobile husk, overtaken with a crystalline form that would easily shatter and fall to pieces, killing them in the process. Water glittered and glowed with the foreign substance, easily infecting anyone that drank from it. The Zorgoias were no different; however, this did not lead to the extinction of them all. In fact, some were able to miraculously adapt to the virus, in time.

The inhabitants of Veldram would later discover in their years of growing intelligence that the Spire was not entirely a death sentence to anyone that neared it. It wasn't just a virus. This Spire held an immense amount of magical properties. It was from this substance, this 'virus,' this spire, that all of the magic flowing through Veldram to this day, originated. The Zorgoias, some of the only, were those most adapted to it's properties. All of this snowballed into the Zorgoias and Zorgoia subspecies that you all know today. From the cold which eventually died down into a more temperate climate, Zorgoias grew fur, shrank, lost their clawed hands and feet, and gained sophistication quite quickly. Zorgoias were renowned for being the most adaptive species DNA-wise, and for good reason.

So what about the Spireborns? Who are they, or what are they, and how do they play a role in all of this? Why the history lesson just to talk about them? Well, to reveal the Spireborns, I needed to give context as to what the Spire is and what it does, and how Zorgoias who live near the spire differentiate from the rest.

While most Zorgoias adapted overtime to their own separate subspecies, reacting in different ways to the influence of the Spire, Spireborn Zorgoias are the only ones who survived and thrived with full exposure to the Spire's virus. Unlike Gemfused Zorgoias, who are created via infection of the Spire's virus in a short amount of time, Spireborns adapted and reproduced naturally with the influence and energy from the Spire itself. The once-scaled creatures that roamed caves and harsh climate near the Spire evolved to walk upright primarily, kept their hardened claws, retained their size, and took on small visual changes in comparison to the common Zorgoia most know today. These Spire-dwellers mostly keep to themselves and the depths of the various tunnel-like caverns that wind deep underground close to the dangerous crystalline growth.

Spireborns are incredibly intelligent for being a 'sheltered' race of Zorgoia. They are clever, they are quiet, and they are resourceful. These Zorgoias feed primarily off of the magic that the Spire provides, but can eat just about anything they desire if they wish. However, a Spireborn cannot live ideally exclusively off of 'normal' food; They must consume magic to survive. Because of this,

Spireborns have a natural defense against most magic, and many have found it difficult to harm a Spireborn whatsoever using lower-tiered magic against them. Spireborns, opposite to every other Zorgoia (aside from the Taur) is naturally bipedal. Where common Zorgoias are born on four legs, choosing to walk upon two legs later on in life if they wish, Spireborns are reversed in this manner. Their appearances in both bipedal and quadrupedal states vary greatly from the other subspecies. Because Spireborns are magic-fused Zorgoias, they are incredibly in-tune with wielding magic and elements, much like the Pygmies. While they are organic creatures, unlike Pygmies, they have the highest control over their magic out of all of the subspecies.

Spireborns tend to prefer sticking around the Spire, or contaminated areas that most creatures stay far away from. The Spireborn Zorgoias have full immunity to the Spire's virus, making them legends among the few Veldram species that know about them. These intelligent Zorgoias thrive in small, underground communities, living by strict laws. They worship the Spire as if it were a tangible deity, and treat it as such. While many see them as misguided, they are set in their ways and see those that have been 'touched' by the Spire's effects (infected, or worse) as beings to be well respected. Many know the Spire's virus to be a curse, but Spireborns see it as a gift, as they become one with the Spire's greatness, the source of which all magic that makes them thrive derives. They protect the Spire and anything it's virus contaminates, which ironically both preserve's the areas which the Spire has infected and keeps most creatures from becoming infected themselves. Outsiders are strongly discouraged from getting too close, or trying to destroy the spire, impossible as the task may be.

Spireborns rarely stray from their homes unless they are hunting, or a curious few, as they are very social with their own. A Spireborn's lifespan is four times longer than a standard Zorgoia, meaning they don't need to reproduce often. Because of this, on top of their sacred isolation, they are rarely seen.

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I'll be making some designs of these guys at some point next month, I'm itching to draw them more often!

Feel free to ask any questions about them in the comments below, or via notes. ^^
To answer a few quick questions people might have:

1: Do these guys have the 'appearance adaptability/freedom/variety that the other zorgoias do?'
A: Yes!! They will just keep their core appearance (bodyshape, the spiked lip, and claws)

2: How big are they?
A: Very, very big. Their default forms can stand at *minimum* 15 feet high.


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