“It is sad to think that so many beings refuse to abide by their agreements and attempt to withhold pay, forcing me to use the Hordika Dragons to get it.”— The Shadowed One, Dark Hunters
Perhaps so in your timeline, but here they rule.
In the normal timeline, Visorak found their way to Odina, home of the Dark Hunters. Seeing an opportunity, the Shadowed One had them captured and their venom harvested for experiments. Subjecting eight of his hunters to that curse, transforming them into what he called the Hordika Dragons.
But what if these Hordika Dragons were never mutated? What if the hunters chosen weren’t random? That there was something more that the Shadowed One left out? Let me, for a moment, adjust your understanding.
After a civil war ruined their home, its corrupted inhabitants left to take more power from the universe. All except for one failed in this endeavor, “The Shadowed One.” And with his success, his kin plotted to take it. The first, the very inspiration for the Dark Hunters, was “Ancient.” Then “Conjurer,” the performative trickster and power thief. Followed by the brutish “Tyrant,” more a bother than a true hunter. And then there were “The Dragons.”
The Dragons were a tightknit group of warriors whom enforced the peace in their homeland. However, after the island fell into civil war and many of them killed, the remaining eight took up after Ancient and became mercenaries. To one day get close to leaders and usurp them, to restore the old order once more. Yet proving unsuccessful, they came to the Dark Hunters.
However, Ancient could be controlled by his greed. Conjurer’s pride and ambition could be twisted into self-harm while Tyrant’s arrogance and rage could be leveraged for his death. But what could control the Dragons? There were four pairs of them, making most of the Shadowed One’s typical schemes less effective. And there was only so far their archaic sense of order could be pushed. So when the Visorak arrived, he saw a perfect opportunity to eliminate these rivals from his worries. And the Dragons became Hordika monsters, something much easier to control.
So now we circle back to the first question; what if they were never mutated?
In this timeline, before Tyrant made his “alliance” with the Dark Hunters, he discovered the Visorak heading towards Odina. Bashing a scheme together, he spread rumors among the Dark Hunters of some Visorak arriving at their island and the Shadowed One sent for their capture. With the others busy, Tyrant told the Dragons he heard other rumors that the Shadowed One planned on using the Visorak to mutate them. And demanded they listen to him if they wanted to avoid that fate.
Agreeing, Tyrant told them where these Visorak might be found and suggested that they deliver them to the Shadowed One. Perhaps harvest some of that venom as a parting gift. After all, this would be the closest they’d ever get to the Shadowed One, so why not take their shot before he tries it on them? The Dragons, once again, agreed to this plan and Tyrant was confident the Dark Hunters would soon be his.
Successfully capturing the Visorak, the Dragons brought them to their leader. As suggested, they betrayed the Shadowed One, infecting him and his many guardians with the venom. When the battle was finally over, Tyrant came busting in and congratulated the remaining Dragons. Only to find himself soon infected as well, deciding that Tyrant could not be trusted either.
With the Shadowed One and their other rivals defeated, the Dragons took over the Dark Hunters. Now referred to as the Dragon Hunters, the mercenaries spread throughout the universe to enforce that old strict order. Whomever disobeys shall be killed and their possessions added to the hoard. For that is the way of Dragons.
General Body:
Designer’s Notes:
So as you might have guessed, this was designed for @Rons_oc /Ron Folkers’s What If contest. Past tense as I thought of a better idea and hopefully will have it completed and entered soon. But among my several initial ideas, I had decided to do one involving the Hordika Dragons. What if they weren’t mutated?
The immediate problem with this idea is that the Hordika Dragons are just a lightly modified Hordika Matau. Which means that, if taken directly, their normal version is probably more like this in canon:
Which is kind of boring, much like their story. It helps paint how cruel the Shadowed One can be, but it could do with some work. Hence my madness above.
But back to the two MOCs, I decided to make the wings some sort of mechanical wingpack instead. For the “canon” version, I had considered aligning the wings’ flapping with the normal Metru gear function, but that didn’t quite work. So just normal movable limbs instead. The Hordika Dragons also have these staff pieces coming out of their back near the wings for some reason and I wasn’t sure what their purpose was. Though to keep them, I ended up making them some sort of throwing spear and just kept on the back for storage.
There’s also that weird black claw on the right arm. I’ve heard a couple of theories that the claw’s placement was probably a mistake by Lego, given the number of errors with other Dark Hunters. But unless we have original photos to say otherwise, the claw is “canon” for now and I had to do something with it. So I decided to make it a sort of gauntlet-claw weapon. Maybe it shrunk when mutated, similar logic I used when redoing the tail, making it less exaggerated than what’s on the mutated version. As for the electric claws, since they were probably from the mutation I left them out.
Though taking Savage into account, I had considered that maybe the Hordika Dragons used to be much bigger. Since they were generally bipedal humanoids with a tail, that did fit with the vague qualifications for The Shadowed One’s race and decided to make after that. So the titan version is more heavily based on the Shadowed One himself and has his staff after taking over. The staff was a later edition due to the story I developed for this ‘what if’ scenario.
And I believe that’s it. So what did you think? Do you think the Hordika Dragons would look closer to Toa Matau unmutated as well or something else entirely? Let me know below. As always, feedback is welcomed.