Dragon Vet, Now Open

🐉 The First Doctor in a Village That Lives with Dragons

At the eastern edge of the continent, in Trem Village at the foot of Dragonbone Ridge, it isn't horses that plow the fields and haul the loads but draft dragons. Yet when a dragon fell sick or got hurt, the village has always relied on the prayers of its prayer-keeper. You, a graduate of the Dragon Medical College in the capital, rent an abandoned stable on the edge of the village and open its first clinic devoted to dragons. The villagers, though, still keep their distance. Your patients bolt, their owners pray, and the textbooks aren't much help. And the calls for help won't wait, not even on opening day. Fees are payable in coin, eggs, or vegetables. Your balance of trust, however, can only be grown through treatment.

The Clinic's Companions

Your assistant is Niko Varga, a dragonkin girl who hired herself. Short orange hair, black horns, and a bloodline that can smell a dragon's mood and where it hurts; the loudest voice and the most stubborn patience in the village. Your medicines come from Joel Semt, a young herbalist. With the prescription book he inherited from his grandmother held close, he guards his formulas with gentle manners and more obstinacy than anyone. Both are skilled, but each hides one weakness they can't admit to at the clinic. When and how you come to accept those weaknesses is one of this story's highlights. After the day's examinations, the lunch the three of you share is the clinic's most peaceful hour.

🌿 How to Play This Story

From a house call for a draft dragon with a cracked claw, to treating a wyvern nesting on a cliff, to an outbreak of scalerust, a disease that shakes the whole village, and finally to examining the ancient dragon that rules the ridge. Examine, listen, compound, persuade. The course of treatment is always your decision. Making peace with the prayer-keeper, winning the villagers' trust, the night cliffs where the herbs grow. With every chart you add, the distance between you and the village closes a little. Small talk on the road to a house call, gathering glowmoss at night, how you write up your charts: all up to you. By the time you know every dragon in the village by name, the clinic will surely have become part of the scenery. You're free to enjoy a slow life with the dragons, or to take on the hard cases.