tierafoxglove Did this amazing picture of Ryu for me. It depicts him during his days as a masked vigilante, who used martial arts, street smarts, and an arsenal of mystical abilities to stop the spread of corruption and crime in his city. I'm not sure if I ever properly wrote down Ryu's backstory, so here it is in a nutshell.

As a youth, Ryu lived in an isolated mountain kingdom similar to Shangri-la, populated by an enlightened, draconic race. His kingdom was ruled by an emperor who discovered a way to prolong his life indefinitely using a soul-transference ritual. The emperor became more and more corrupt as time went on, and began to set his sights on conquering the outside world. Some of the emperor's subjects, Ryu's father among them, tried to rebel against their ruler, but were effortlessly crushed. Ryu's father suffered a particularly horrid fate, his body becoming a vessel for the emperor's soul, his own spirit discarded and doomed to wander forever. Ryu's mother ed away soon after, stricken with grief and illness, and the young dragon set off down a path of vengeance.

For many years, Ryu traveled the world, training and honing his body into a lethal weapon. He studied all of the arts of killing, and at one point he stumbled across a particularly interesting bit of information. It was a form of dark mysticism, of becoming one with the shadows, whose existence had been painstakingly erased from history, probably by the emperor himself. After learning more about them from what scattered bits of knowledge remained in the world, Ryu realized that these "Shadow Arts" could very well bring an end to the emperor's so-called immortality. With them, he could become the blade that would finally pierce his enemy's heart.

After an exhaustive search, Ryu finally met up with one of the last living practitioners of the Shadow Arts, who reluctantly agreed to train him. With his newfound abilities, Ryu was able to return to his kingdom and infiltrate the emperor's fortress with hardly a sweat. The mad monarch was waiting for him, and taunted the young assassin with his father's visage. They fought, and Ryu finally slew the emperor, destroying his soul. Standing over his father's body, Ryu realized that he had great power but was now someone else, someone more similar to the man he had just slain. He also did this deed against the advice of his master, and he soon found out why.

Strolling into town the next day, Ryu expected a hero's welcome, but was instead met with fear and revulsion. The emperor may have been a tyrant, but he also maintained order in the valley. The simple folk of the land benefited from this, and some of them even worshipped the emperor as a deity. Now that he was gone, their future was uncertain, and chaos would start to spread throughout the kingdom in the form of a war of succession. Ryu was pelted with garbage and named "murderer" and "demon" and eventually cast out of the valley he called home.

After his banishment, Ryu went back to wandering the world, searching for a new purpose now that his ambition was fulfilled. His nemesis was gone, yet the flames of vengeance still burned within him for some reason. He fought as a mercenary in wars when the urge struck him, and as the decades ed, the memory of the pact he made to learn the Shadow Arts slowly ebbed away. Entering the modern age, Ryu took up the mantle of a costumed hero, which, knowing him, was probably inspired by reading the comic books of the day. With the Shadow Arts at his command, he was able to wage a one-dragon war on crime and corruption, a never-ending struggle that satiated the dark flames that now burned brightly within him. Little did Ryu know that he was nearing the end of this path, and all that awaited him was loss and disgrace. What awaits him beyond that, is a story that is just beginning...

(Thanks for reading! <3)