Status:

3636: Dak

Personality: Gruff old goat, back in my day, that wise old man at the end of the street. Rounded by years of being alive and in the later years of his life now, Dak has become a responsible elder. He gets by and does things because 'someone has to do them', and that someone might as well be him since he is already there. Dak is someone who enjoys peace and quiet in the air while at the same time detesting boredom and laziness. So long as he can walk, he'll be doing things, he'll even occassionally help with hunting when it's a good day. Dak was an outgoing and in your face youngster before he learned pack life and started to tone down over the years, he hit a cynical era after being struck by lightning and left for dead by his packmates and now is more of a grumbly but well-meaning elder.

Physical Description:  Dak is average in size, he's your normal height, length and weight for a Cryolophosaurus on the island. Dak is a very simple Cryolophosaurus to look at, with very little variation in color on him. He has pale blue eyes that can almost be mistaken for a cool grey, with a brownish dorsal stripe and a large brown midline. His loer arms and his neck and undersides are a lighter grey than the rest of his body that includes his lower legs and his exposed stripe on his dorsal side. Dak has six triangular marks on his upper arms and his tail that are his dimorphic marks and these are a sort of grey color. With grey claws.  He is drabby, and doesn't stand out much.. a sort of benefit in the city. The thing that stands out the most about him is he had severe scarring down his left side that extends from his hip down to his left foot made up of large lichtenberg figures. This fractal scarring leaves a complex pattern down his body. That leg is weaker than his right leg, but overall he has recovered well. 

Story: Dak came from the wetland area outside of the Dead City, born into a small pack of misfits who never really ever had their own leadership or sense of direction. Over his early childhood he became the sort of responsible older brother to other hatchlings in the group and watched as slowly the pack broke apart. It was a combination of the lack of leadership with the differenciating personalities of the pack, along with the tough competition in that part of the wetlands which would pick off members of the pack between injuries, drownings, and illness.  Dak was a young teenager when the pack splintered enough to be unrecognizeable as different factions moved on to other locations and the stubborn stayed behind. The young Cryo would leave the wetlands with one of the fractured factions, following the lead duo and a few others into the Dead City where they pushed in to try to carve out their own territory. The Dead City quickly proved to be a very dangerous place with plenty of competing packs and limited resources and hunting grounds due to the nature of the human ruins. 

Eventually with some luck the small faction of Cryolophosaurs found a decent enough swath of land that seemed to be stable enough in both resources and hunting grounds, it was a very strange patch of land that seemed to be full of the skeletons of things of before..but.. it would do. This became Dak's home for many years, what used to be Isla Kela International Airport. Dak got to grow up, experiencing a pretty full and eventful life as he lived at the airport. He was one of the ones that would push into the city day by day and take what was needed for his packmates if it wasn't available at the airport. Time passed swiftly, with the years going by. He got to live with plenty of other Cryos, seeing others grow up, move on, all of the different hunts and fights, hows the seasons changed things. There were upsides and downsides to living at the old airport. The place was realitively safe compared to many of the other buildings and locations in the dead city, and it had many access points to other parts of the island. It was a good place to take shelter during a storm, an earthquake, and pretty windy days...but fire seemed to be a worry sometimes and it became apparent that the place risked flood on occassion. Usually the flooding wouldn't be too bad, and the rain would wash any salt back out of their drinking water..but then a particulery bad season came. 

During a horrible hurricane season, or was it just bad luck and timing? The territory started to flood particullery badly and the terrible weather started to force the pack out and to higher grounds. Dak did his best to assist his packmates in their gradual relocation, however he was caught in misfortune and lightning struck him. Horrified and thinking no one could survive a lightninng strike, his packmates were tenative to try and help him. As things grew worse in the area they made the decision that it was best to just leave Dak behind.. It wasn't a good time and there wasn't a way for them to move him with them as they retreated.  Wounded and abandoned, Dak watched as they left.. and most likely thinking the territory destroyed by the storm.. or just seeking a change of pace, they never came back.  Dak did not die from the lightning strike, and he didn't suffer debilatating nerological issues, but things after weren't nearly as easy as they once were. With care he managed to rebound some, but he never did leave the Dead City.. and eventually he did come back to the airport where he spent most of his life. It was just easier on him to stay here, and take what he could get. With time others started to move into the territory, he started to see some friendly faces and another pack was formed. He was content to stay here now with them, and live out the rest of his years.

-Dak is named after the C-47 "Skytrain"/DC-3/C-53 "Skytrooper" which was known as the "Dakota" to the British and Commonwealth during WWII. These aircraft are sometimes nicknamed just "Dak" such as when there was the "Daks over Normandy" commermorative gathering. His countershading combined with his dimorphic marks are a homage to several aircraft used on D-Day. The DC-3/C-47 is an example of an aircraft that constantly finds new life, and despite it being almost 90 years since the first prototype rolled out they are still in commercial and military use. The aircraft is reliable, rugged, and able to be used on both paved and unpaved runways.. with good handling, range, capacity and able to land on small runways there is the saying that "The only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3".