Spawn of the Shadows

Subject: Spawn of the Shadows Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:35 pm

**The Shadowspawn is a species developed by WinterCrow, and it is not open to use as follows by anyone whom does not have her direct permission. This is a CLOSED species.**

The Shadowspawn

"In a time long past, when the under-realm's war was waged much stronger, the hounds of hell seeped forth from the shadows to hunt those mortals who's souls had been claimed by hell's gates. Though by their own indulgent and dark natures, they would dabble about within the upper land longer than their tasks did bid, and whilst there before their return, many of them laid with the mortals whom their paths might have happened across in the night. From this, however, the unforeseen fallout occurred in that complications arose when some of the mortal dames gave birth to pups of both earth and hell blood in one being. These pups, the children of the shadows, bore the markings of their patriarch lines, though carried by the mortals and unclaimed by the below, would not retain the full prowess of the underworld. The Shadowspawn, often thought to be unholy and demonic in nature by their earth world parentals, were often terminated during the early stages of their life immediately after their birth. This, in turn, would serve to keep their populations relatively small in the long run in tandem with the regulations since passed to prevent such a mixing of the worlds to happen with such disregard in the future--though the like does still happen from time to time, albeit on a more restrained scale. For some odd years, the Shadowspawn often found their gatherings hunted by the mortals to purge them from their lands in the same fear that would cause the newborns lives to be snuffed out. Presently, those Shadowspawn whom survived to adulthood, often prefer to gather among themselves in small packs or live as loners."

Characteristics:

Shadowspawn are born with darkly hued coats with little light coloring upon them and always natural colorings. They often also bare skeletally-reminiscent 'rib/ like patterned markings.

Their fur is relatively fine and short in length, though many often have longer fur about their neck and shoulders. This shoulder scruff exhibits incomplete dominance, the thicker fur being recessive. In addition, the Shadowspawn have either short or nonexistent manes. It is more common to see loners boasting this fur growth than those whom gather amongst packs for unknown reasons.

Like their fathers, the Shadowspawn have immortally long lifespans when uninhibited by illness or injury.

The offspring of the Shadowspan do not bear their species or its traits, save for perhaps the coat coloring passed on by the parent's genetics. They carry, instead, the mortal side of their parents, making them a full mortal in their own right or a cross-breed pending the lineage of their second parent.

They have the same dental structuring as a mortal canine for the most part save two unique physicalities: their forked tongues as well as their inner fangs. The tongue is perhaps slightly thinner than the average canine as well as an inkling longer, though the most notable differing is in the forked appearance. As for the inner fangs... Shadowspawn are born with a characteristic set of double snake-like teeth located next to the inside of the normal canine set towards the middle of their maw. These fangs will unfold and retract with the opening and closing of the jaw in a very similar fashion as to an actual snake's. These appendages are pictured below.