The Curse of the Dragon (M/M, M/F, original characters, medieval fantasy, dark, long term, serious)

[nirwyn]

Hi! Name’s Ember, or Em for short, and I’m just your average Scandinavian introvert. Nice to meet you! Welcome to my lengthy ad and thanks for clicking in.
So, I’m currently looking to fill out my spare time with some roleplay. I’m looking for mature roleplay partners, so 21+, since I intend for things to be a bit dark and gritty. I’d prefer it if you were around or over 25, but 21+ is fine too.
I’m an experienced roleplayer with 10+ years of rp under my belt. It’s how I’ve learned most of my English writing skills, and nowadays I’m most comfortable writing multiple paragraphs (with a minimum of 3 paragraphs per post) or novella style.
This time around I’m looking to fix a certain craving I have about a specific roleplay plot. If you’re into themes like medieval fantasy, knights, magic, dragons, darkness, violence, smut and complex royal relationships, this might be something for you!
As a disclaimer: This will all involve original characters in an original world, with an original plot. This will be (extremely) long term since it’s sort of a deep story and roleplaying is kind of my #1 hobby, and I need to always have someone to write with. I am therefore looking for a dedicated partner who, rather than ghosting, will tell me if they’re thinking of leaving the roleplay so that I don’t get my hopes up in vain. Communication is important, and it’s much better that you tell me if you don’t like something about the rp instead of letting it die out without letting me know.

All characters involved in adult themes will be 18+ of course.

This will be m/m relationship wise, or m/f. It’s tailored (the character, I mean) for m/m, but I’m willing to do m/f as well if you really like the plot and want to write with me, but you don’t write m/m.
Now! To what you’ve probably been waiting for:
What I want in a partner

• Please be 21+. This is non-negotiable.
• Write in third person, past tense and multiple paragraphs or novella style (like me). I prefer quality and quantity.
• Be able to reply like, at least… around once a week? I would love it if you could reply once every other day or so, but I understand that life comes first and things happen that require our attention. I completely understand that, but would still like to ask if you could reply at least somewhat regularly. If my partners take a lot of time (say, several months) to reply there’s a big chance I’ll become uninterested. I’ll always be ready to reply no matter how much time has passed though, but it would make me super happy if you could reply regularly. I will try my best to do the same of course. Also, considering the complexity of this story and the fact that I tend to write long posts, it makes sense to take more time to write.
• You’re 100% free to create your own character (though I do love ‘em big, gruff and rough, especially if they’re big and rough and mean, but softer to my character). Don’t be afraid to get creative! Though, please talk to me first if you want to make him anything other than human. I’m open, but I have limits.
• Be able to brainstorm with me and be open about questions and wants and ideas. I love love love worldbuilding but I don’t want to be the only one doing it. I want to feel like you love it as much as I do, if that makes sense.
• If it becomes relevant, and I know this is a very common desire for people in this community, I’m looking for someone who not only can but also enjoys playing a dominant character in a relationship with power dynamics.
• And of course, be open to write smut. I can fade to black if the scene allows for it or if it serves to skip time a bit, but I don’t prefer it. I like to write smut when it fits to build the relationship and will list my kinks below.
• Here comes perhaps the biggest deal breaker and I’m so sorry in advance, but in smutty scenes if we do m/m, my main character will be the “bottom”. This is just a personal preference of mine and I understand that some don’t like it, but I find no joy in playing it differently and rp is about having fun so… I’m sorry.
• Also, in case of m/f, my main character will be the f. So, a princess instead of a prince.

If you’re still with me so far, I love you. Here’s some additional info about me (this is copy pasted so forgive any repetition):

• I’m 21+  and F.
• I have somewhere around 10 years of roleplaying experience.
• I roleplay in third person, paste tense, and multiple paragraphs or novella style.
• I don’t use real-life people as face claims, as I find it a bit… Creepy is not the right word, but it feels a little weird I guess?  I could, however, use artbreeder for a more realistic face reference! I also like to draw inspirations from my roleplays a lot for my drawings, and I’ve already got tons of the character I have in mind for this roleplay.
• I love a cast of characters but I like to keep like one main character for each of us.
• I totally love chatting ooc and gossiping about our characters, finding music that matches our story, making mood boards, playlists, sharing memes and doodling our characters, etc. Don’t be afraid to be talkative!
• I live in the Central European time zone, or UTC+1.

Kinks and limits will be discussed in private, but I can say that some of my hard no’s are the most common ones.
Now to the plot!
This time I’m going all out on my idea. That includes worldbuilding and all of the lore and history that I’ve collected and created throughout the years. I want to go as in depth as I can without it being too much and without taking away the possibility for further brainstorming as I still want this to be something that we create together. I want your ideas and pitches and thoughts on everything so we can write something that belongs to the both of us.
I have my character figured out. His family’s history, his kingdom’s history (a part of it), and the religion’s history are sort of already established, but there’s still a lot of room to expand and extend.
I’ll have the information regarding all of that stuff below the actual plot, which I’ll try to explain here!
Also, while I will refer to my character in he/him form, he could also be a she/her.
The Curse of the Dragon
Pairing: Prince x Royal Knight/Guard
World inspriations: Skyrim, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Ring

(Prepare for a long freaking read, I'm so sorry)
Preface:
Since the beginning of known history there has always been at least one Dragon Heir, carrier of the divine dragon blood and direct descendant of Aralial, the Great Emerald Dragon. Aralial’s bloodline has sat on the throne of Erya even before the borders were established and the kingdom’s official name was established. For generations and generations, the Dragon Heir has remained the one most important direct link to the divine and the original creator, the Gods and Goddesses of the world. It is through the Heir that the kings and queens, priests and priestesses, noblemen and noblewomen, as well as all other residents of the kingdom, retain the connection to their maker.
Royal appointed blood mages have always walked the halls of the great palace and the Divine Royal Temple in the palace’s inner gardens, tending to the divine bloodline and assuring its survival through the future Dragon Heirs. With careful planning and match making between noble families, tending to the family tree and keeping the blood as pure as can be, these blood mages manage the traditional rituals of the faith.
Following the Dragon Heir are his Dragon Knights, sworn to defend and protect their holy charge with their lives and souls. These Dragon Knights make up the most elite circle of the faith militia and are fierce warriors, feared and respected far outside the borders of Erya. They are raised, and some even bred, to be completely loyal and undyingly obedient in their task to serve Aralial and the current Heir. Only the best of the best manage to survive the full path to become a Dragon Knight, and those who do will forever be remembered in the Holy Scrolls of Aralial’s Defenders in the Royal Library. 
This story would revolve around our two main characters, of course.
The idea is that your character is one of these Dragon Knights, part of the most elite circle of the faith militia and sworn to my character, the crown prince (or princess). We could go about this in a few different ways:
Your knight could have been sworn to my character’s side at the time of his birth. This would put them in quite the age gap (which is totally fine with me because I love that stuff). My character will be around 19-20, so if your character was assigned to them at birth it would make him almost 20 years older, so around somewhere in his early 40’s. I would be fine with this if you prefer we go this route. It could add an element to the story of people thinking your character is starting to become too old for his job, and it could be one of the obstacles he has to fight.
The age gap span I’d be more comfortable with is if your guy was perhaps at most 35-38? This would mean that he had to have been assigned to the Heir a few years into their birth, meaning that another Dragon Knight would have existed before him in his position. We could work out a story of why and how that previous Dragon Knight left his/her post. Maybe it was your character’s father/mother or even his mentor? Or completely unrelated.
Another route could be that your character is considerably younger and was assigned to the Heir when he was a bit older, maybe even in his teens. This option leaves the age of your character a bit more open since they could be really young for a Dragon Knight appointed to the Heir - which is perhaps the most honorable post of them all. I’d still like a bit of an age gap though, and your character, while he could be really young for this particular job, would need to at least have some experience to make it make sense that he moved so far up on the “career ladder” so quickly. I’d say maybe he has to be at a minimum… 25, and that would make him a warrior prodigy.
As you can see there are a number of ways we can go about this and I’m really open for discussion.
…
There will be romance between our characters of course, but the specifics of it is up for the two of us to decide. Perhaps they both already have feelings for each other and have been trying to hide them for so long, or maybe they’re open about it but afraid to act. Maybe they’re both completely oblivious to the other one’s feelings. This will be mostly character centered and their forbidden love for each other will be one of the strongest plot points in the story.
A Dragon Knight is supposed to honor, defend and protect his charge. The Heir is divine, carrier of holy blood, and should be untouchable. But… staying away becomes difficult when they spend every waking moment around each other. The crown prince/princess is (for reasons I will specify) a very unfortunately lonely individual and has had very few chances to form meaningful relationships with other people. Your character is the only one who has been consistent in his life and is always around, always there.
Depending on how you create your character… Maybe he’s soft and understanding and lets his beliefs and training fade a bit, seeing the Heir as more of a person than a holy object. Or maybe he’s stern, unyielding and strict and tries his hardest to be professional, but love conquers duty and eventually he… slips.
The actual plot partly ties in with my character, the prince or princess, and his struggles. S/he has spent his entire life enclosed within the walls of the palace for reasons that I’ll state later, and his father, the king, shows no signs of letting him go beyond them. Because of that, and some more severe internal struggles that he suffers, the prince is desperate for freedom.
Perhaps he decides to leave, just for one night, but things go south and he doesn’t return. Maybe he sneaks past your character (which would be incredibly difficult) or temporarily stops him (drugs or otherwise), or they leave together. Perhaps he’s kidnapped, or maybe the palace is attacked by outside supernatural forces and they have to flee. Those are all ideas for when they leave the palace, but I’d like to start the story off and keep it inside the palace for at least a little while (because I just love writing in a royal palace setting).
There are a lot of possibilities as to where we can take this. Worldbuilding and the world around our characters is a big focus in this roleplay plot, as well as our characters themselves and the other characters around them. People and forces who want to harm the prince and his closest protector for different reasons.
Also I should say, while I do have a pretty specific idea about who your character is and what drives him, I also don’t want to set it in stone that it has to be that way. I love communication and discussion about these kinds of things so just hit me up with your ideas.
But! Just as an idea and because it would make sense in our universe… If your character is this Dragon Knight/protector/personal bodyguard man, it would be really fun to write about the group that he belongs to. When I say ‘group’ I really mean the close inner circle of the kingdom’s best warriors/fighters that are allowed near the royal family and the Heir. I’m thinking that there’s extensive, extreme training to go through before one can reach the rank and position that a Dragon Knight has. Years of training, and even then, they need to make sure that the knights’ loyalty is true through and through. It’s a very… strict way of living for everyone. This also means that the Dragon Knights have the one of the kingdom’s highest statuses in society and they’re respected and feared by many. We could come up with a name for them, the ranks, the kind of training they go through and the former members of their group who came before, and what happened to them.
The Dragon Knights would be separate from royal knights, who also serve the royal family. The royal knights are not part of the faith militia while the Dragon Knights are. And if you haven’t already guessed it, religion is a huge part of our world’s culture and society.
The reason why I want to pair the prince (or princess) with his own personal knight is because I’m really interested in the theme of going against one’s original fundamental beliefs. As I mentioned, the prince’s family line is believed to share their blood with one of the divine dragons, and it’s a huge part of their culture and society to worship this dragon and its descendants. This belief is extremely strong and is one of the driving points of… everything, really. My character (spoiler alert) is struggling with their faith. If you play as a Dragon Knight then that means that your character is perhaps even more wrapped up in all of this divine dragon stuff than the prince is, who was born into it. It could be fun to write about their internal struggle to go against this belief, and perhaps find out the truth behind all of it in one grand adventure.
Background
The family
The Dragomir royal family, revered for their blood ties with the ancient, mythical dragon Aralial, also known as Aripheon, has been at the seat of power for thousands of years. Seen as divine beings blessed with draconic blood, they are both worshiped and hated by different groups all over the continent, and known in the entire world.
The very first Dragon Heir lived thousands of years ago. The first Dragomir, who founded the family name. They were the one who was directly blessed with divine blood when Aralial descended from the cosmos and shared his life force. The blood of the first Heir is preserved inside a small enchanted vial and kept safe in the Royal Temple. It is one of the seven holy artifacts. 
For generations the family has ruled over the lands of Erya, a large kingdom that borders the northern sea, and for generations the kingdom has thrived. The members of the divine family have been many for the purpose of maintaining and keeping the connection through blood between mortals and Aralial, the Great Emerald Dragon. Scholars, priests and family members initially believed that the way of preserving the connection was to spread the blood as much as possible. It was therefore encouraged to have as many children as they could. This would later reveal itself to be a mistake, as scholars of the arcane arts who studied the blood discovered that the ‘divine quality’ therein actually weakened and faded the further out the family tree extended (blood magic is an entire thing and its own school of magic, which is really complex and scary and respected, but we’ll talk about this more together).
It was a revolutionary discovery, and it led to the start of the decline of the Dragon’s Heritage. It put fear in many hearts.
Members who no longer carried the required quality of blood were stripped of their divine status, and one main branch of the family emerged. Careful and strategic planning of marriages in the royal family led to what they believed to be a ‘pure lineage’, and for centuries this way of preserving the bloodline continued.
However, around three hundred years ago there was a dramatic decline in the amount of children being born. Suddenly, as if they had been cursed by the Gods themselves, the kings and queens were unable to have more than one child. The single heirs of each generation became the fixation of the faith. It meant that if the child was to die, it would be the end of the royal bloodline and in turn the end of the divine blessing, the connection to the Emerald God and the holy plane. Whatever afterlife awaited them after death now felt uncertain. The death of the heir would mark the end of the divine era and the start of the new, unholy one shrouded in darkness. The blood mages, and all the rest, feared this future possibility greatly. But any and all experimentation with the divine blood was strictly forbidden, though on several occasions a few individuals attempted to get their hands on the blood by force or treachery. They were no match for the Dragon Knights. 
It was once said that the members of the Dragomir family were able to perform magic, and even if it was once accepted as truth, in the current age it is believed to be a myth.
The Prince (or princess)
My character is the current crown prince and only heir to the throne of Erya. Having no siblings or cousins with dragon’s blood, his very existence is all about being protected. Confined to life within the palace walls his entire life, the prince has never once stepped outside into the real world.
His mother, the late queen Talyana Dragomir, was the former Dragon’s Heir. His father, the current king, married into the Dragomir family after being selected by the High Priestess. Queen Talyana died from an unknown disease when the prince was just two years old. His only other family consists of his cousins, uncles and aunts on his father’s side.
The prince’s full name is Elyon Ióan Ailuin Kalan Dragomir. He was born in the deep winter season at night time.
Elyon himself is sweet in nature, gentle and soft spoken. It doesn’t seem like he’s let his restricted life get the better of him.
Weak heart.
The most important aspect of his character is the fact that he lives with a chronic heart condition.  He was born with a weak heart.
As if his life wasn’t already restricted, his condition, which made itself known when he was only five years old, renders him even more vulnerable than he already is. The masters of medicine of the court have since long concluded that it’s simply something that he was born with and something that will never go away. Elyon has suffered several heart attacks in his life (what everyone assumes are heart attacks, anyway), and each one has been worse than the other. These attacks seem to come when he’s under distress, by fear or physical overexertion, and as a consequence everyone treats him like he’s a fragile porcelain doll.
Being the Heir, even without the heart condition he would have been handled gently and carefully, but this just makes it even worse.
This never stopped him from trying to live his life to the fullest. As a child he was reckless, dauntless and brave, much to his father’s disapproval. As an adult (now around 19 years old), he’s grown to be much more mature. Gentle, understanding, empathetic and kind are a few words that describe him best. Each Heir throughout history has been well aware of their role in the world, and so there hasn’t been that many tyrants or otherwise evil kings and queens. Elyon is, as far as anyone knows, responsible and dutiful. Just like his mother.
However, he carries a secret so deep and dark that he hasn’t told anyone. Not even his closest confidant; his own Dragon Knight.

Magic
Magic is an important topic in this story. I’ve mentioned blood mages several times, but they are a rare exception to an otherwise strict law. Magic, witchcraft and all versions of spellmaking is strictly forbidden and punishable by death.
It may seem hypocritical, but that’s because it is.
It wasn’t always like this. It’s a moderately new thing, about 300 years old or so. In modern times magic is seen as something disgusting and disrespectful to the divine and to Aralial. Hundreds of years of magical history has been erased, stomped on and crumpled. Where there used to exist wondrous colleges and institutions of magic there are now only ruins.
The blood mages of the faith are among the only exceptions of this brutal witch hunt simply because they are dedicated to the divine and have always existed as a part of the system. They serve only the faith and the Heir, and are crucial to the bloodline’s survival.
Outside the blood mages, and only because of the prince’s heart condition, there is one royal healer walking the halls of the palace. His name is Alistair Sephiran and he is one of my side characters who I will introduce at some point in the story. The basic gist of it is that he was only allowed to live when the rest of his college was murdered because the news of the prince’s weak heart just became known. He was given the choice to live and serve the crown and the faith or die with the rest of his brothers and sisters.
If you’d like to play the royal healer instead I’ll ditch Alistair and you can make your new character from scratch!
But basically, magic is outlawed and punishable by death. Magic users are looked down upon except for the blood mages because ✧religion✧. This is important because of my character’s biiiig secret!

...

This ad is becoming way too long. I have much more to say about the world and religion and everything else, but I feel like… if there’s a chance that someone is interested in this, I’ll explain it all later.
Feel free to contact me via my Discord, Bluelle#9310, or my e-mail, blackbriars@hotmail.com. Hit me up with your thoughts and ideas and questions, the more the merrier. I won’t respond to short messages like “hey” or “wanna rp?” or things like that.
Thanks for reading if you did and I hope to catch you soon!
// Em