I... am hesitant to talk about this part of myself in the open.

The face most people know me as isn't quite my true face, but rather an organic construct made out of mana imitating flesh and blood, that was created for me based on the moment leading up to my death; white like the snow I died in, red for the blood that was running out of me, fur down my head and back because it was freezing cold, and space because my last view was of the clear night sky... All of it wrapped up in a deep psychological desire to be loved and treated kindly, which resulted in my fairly friendly face most people know me by.

My true form however embraces what I really am; Veluren Thanazel, Reaper-in-training and avatar of gentle deaths, for no matter if I dispatch prey through tooth, or claw, or magic, or weapon or my... usual predilections, the death I deliver is never paired with pain.

Death's reapers are created by being exposed to a type of sanctioned Lichdom, making me a Dracolich by any definition of the word, but with no corruption thanks to being "pure" in the process of doing it, we avoid the inherent mental corruption, megalomania and disassociation from positive emotion that most normal liches suffer from. Still... whenever I tap into the true scope of my powers, I always feel cold and distant, things become calculations more than matters of emotion, and inevitably when I come down from it, I feel half like I was ejected from my own body even though every action I take is still my own. Even just using death magic causes that emotional distancing, but turning into this form is a step above that.

Mostly, I dislike looking at this form because it reminds me of that day, showing off my severed wing and my body reduced to nothing but bone. And what is there to emulate a body is akin to a slime, the cohesion I can control to be a thick and static as a gel, or so loose it's effectively a dripping puddle. Anything organic that gets pulled inside is, body and soul if it has one, assimilated almost instantly (so quickly that anything I eat won't even reach this form's stomach before being gone), while most things that aren't organic will decay, like metal rusting to dust or stone eroding into nothingness. Nothing my organic form can't already do with the strength of a dragon's stomach, but there's something about the rapidity of it that unsettles me.

Still... to truly connect with the people in my life I love, I try to show them this form as soon as I feel comfortable with it. Even if I tell them exactly what I am, most of them don't quite understand the scope of it until scale gives way to cosmic slime and the the visible bones show, glowing through the form, eyes replaced by golden flames that burn with no heat. More than once, I've been rejected by people I consider close after they witness this visage, which furthered my hesitance to ever show it... but the handful of people who I trust are friends I've made that I will hold close for eternity. When my mates, Fia and Ran'dol, showed nothing but acceptance of me even in this form, I had to shift back to my normal form to cry because of how happy I felt.

And of course, there's the natural weaponization of it. To simply see an illustration like the one above isn't enough to trigger it, but anyone who sees this form in the flesh and bone-er, in the bone - but hasn't been given permission to gaze upon it or is actively an enemy who discovers it, it lays a death curse on them that starts to rapidly accelerate their lifespan; even other dragons, creatures with lifespans longer than most mortal creatures can even comprehend, will die in just over a week of apparent natural causes after gazing on this form without permission. The fact this doesn't work on creatures that will never die of age like deities, demons, vampires, or my mate who earned immortality due to a demonic contract is the reason I often seek out other immortals for companionship, it just feels like a safety net.

So... that's it, that's me. A creature of nightmare, the one who meets many at the end of their longest journey. I accept this form, as I've accepted it since the day I died, but I will, as far as I can help it, shift into as little as possible.

- Veluren Thanazel, the Sights and People of Vakkert Sedd.

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The temptation to save this for Halloween was high, but the excitement to show it off was higher.

This isn't new of course, Vel's had this form since at least 2019 when his current "normal" design was envisioned, but for reasons I feel should be fairly obvious by looking at it, it's been a hard time finding an artist I trust enough to nail the idea I had in my head for how Veluren's reaper form looks. Thankfully, over the years I've met a lot of people who both love spooky themes and were all for putting a ton of time and love into getting this idea down perfectly, and Essy knocked it out of the park!

For complexity reasons, this form will probably show up fairly rarely, but definitely expect to see it here and there.

Veluren Thanazel belongs to me!

Art is by  Essynkardi