Gympieback

Small, quadrupedal and wingless dragons, furry dragons with prickly quills on the back that contain a painful venom. They are a tribe infamous for being warriors and war-mongers, with a culture of battle and superstition having a tension and deadly relationship with Triple-Slashers, Nekas and Quick-Strikes.

Appearance
Pinewings are small, four limbed dragons with a serpentine body that allows them to slither through the dense foliage of the Vernican rainforest. Their back is covered in a dense bush of venomous quills that can be raised when the dragon threatened similar to the quills of a porcupine. But like the tiny bards of the Gympie-Gympie, the quills contain an extremely painful and deadly venom that few creatures are resistant to.

They usually come in forestry colours mainly greens with splotches of brown and black spots that disrupt their shape in the foliage and allows them to camouflage themselves in their environment. Although, same are melanistic and are pure black with darker black spots and have dark green claws and horns. Albino Gympiebacks are pure white with crimson red eyes and maroon red quills (They are also the rarest colour variant of the Gympieback and are particularly non-existence due to the traditions in most flocks to kill off albino gympies due to their colouration and how this impacts their ability to hunt).

Gympiebacks have slender jaws for the quick snapping up of smaller critters with the ability to lock up to hold onto larger prey. Their horns are little stubs that are often deep emerald that are a residual trait from their ancestors' antler-like horn. Their back have two pairs of fins that can be raised or lowered and are used in gliding from tree to tree, they also appear to be vestigial wings from their aerial past. Their forelegs are flexible and capable of manipulating objects and figure hook like claws to hold onto the tree. Their back legs equipped with equally sharp hooked claws and the ability to rotate 280 degrees so that the Pinewings can go up and down a tree backwards and forwards.

Weaknesses

 * Their fur is vulnerable to fire and can be burned leaving them defenceless to attacks.
 * Due to being flightless dragons, Gympiebacks are vulnerable to attacks from above especially ranged attacks from the air, making them live in areas that are dense with floral and or have plenty of hiding spaces from above.
 * If the quills on their are covered/trimmed then they can't use their venom leaving their back exposed.
 * While having a serpentine built, they aren't as strong as other dragons especially Triple-Slashers and Cavern Guards in their weight range and can be overpowered and thrown off if they get too cocky with their attack.
 * While they do have excellent camouflage, they emit a unique yet faint odour resembling that of a lemongrass and thyme mix, which can expose their ambushes especially if their target(s) have excellent sense of smell or can see heat coming off of them (Cavern Guards).

Diet
Being primarily rainforest dragons, Gympiebacks have an omnivorous diet that includes many of the non-toxic fauna that reside in their rainforest homes. They also use various forest friendly agricultural techniques to grow their crops, which can also include types of plants that produce material for linen and other types of materials, and animal feed for pets and livestock which often includes certain species of birds, rodents and the like.

Seasonal fruits are considered to be delicacies to gympiebacks who will hold festivals to celebrate the blossoming and fruiting cycles of fruit trees as well as having methods to ferment, dehydrate or prep fruit for consumption.

During times of scarcity, Gympibacks will resort to their supplies of stored food and will also increase in their carnivorous part of their diet.

Social Structure
Gympiebacks will form small settlements around areas of plentiful food or advantageous for raising livestock & growing crops. Especially around river banks, large yearly fruiting trees and areas near the mountains. They often start out in small hamlets of 10 adults then expand up to 200 adult members before the settlement becomes a village and up. And as the flock expands it starts to work its way onto large trees and even hollow out trees just enough to keep them alive for their shelter which then turns into platforms and areas of interest as the group moves from the forest floor to the canopy.

In an average Gympieback village, the flock will consist of farmers, hunter & gatherers with a myriad of different tasks and dragons doing them with an elder Gympieback being in charge of the flock, usually a matriarch.

But during and after the war between the humans and dragons, the Gympiebacks formed a new class of leaders with the flock leaders becoming either village chiefs or barons/ baroness/ lord/ lady of their land with a Queen and a council elected by said queen ruling over them.

The last queen; Queen name needed, was a vicious war monger who viewed Gympiebacks are the superior tribe and deserving of ruling Vernica which led to a war between Nekas, Quickstrikes and Gympieback, only for the Triple-Slashers to enter the fray and demolish the Gympiebacks and resulted in Victory-Strike (Ruler of the Triple-Slasher) killing the queen and leaving the deceased queen's heir; Queen name needed.

After the Triple-Slasher - Gympieback war, the Gympiebacks had to share their land and resources with the Triple-Slashers and allow them to use the rainforest for exporting and gathering resources uncontested other than the restrictions to the harvesting of forests made by the The Coalition of Vernican Drakes (T.C.V.D) and Victory-Strike (Ruler of the Triple-Slasher) and while smaller settlements can and will be shared with Triple-Slashers and their subject tribes; Nekas & Quickstrikes, the capital and other major cities of the Gympieback get to maintain their autonomy and isolation from forced interaction with the other groups of Vernica.