Beysta

Dragon Lore + Umbraculavites

Introduction: A dragon's Beysta, or lair, can be found atop (or within) some ancient place of power. These dragonsites are Crays of the greatest kind, focal points of earthmight, the raw un- checked power of Nature — that which mortals call Quintessence. A great wyrm draws on this vast energy reserve to feed his ravening hungers, to fuel the raging furnace within.

Location: In most cases, a Beysta is some remote and forbidding cavern. Such isolated subterranean surroundings appeal to the great wyrms' serpentine nature. These "dragonholes" are private, roomy and easily guarded — important considerations for anyone with the dragon's reputation for vast wealth and equally boundless suspicions.

Some dragons make their lairs in high mountain eyries, while others prefer aquatic lairs and swamps tend to combine the advantages of both the watery and the subterranean lair.

Dragonlines & Dragon's Blood: Regardless of their location, all dragonsites are interconnected, linked by a vast network of energy lines. Some of these dragonlines run beneath the Earth's surface like magma. Others surge along the course of the ocean currents. Still others follow the paths of the winds. The great wyrms refer to these ever-flowing conduits of power as the dragonsblood — streams of mystickal energy that come to be called "leylines" in latter days.

Tending the dragonsblood is an almost religious devotion for the great wyrms, and a dragon often sits for days on end doing nothing but communing with the call of the blood. In its song, they can pick out the soft strains of news from distant lands. They whisper to each other across the miles. They read omens. They often relive memories or share devotions from halfway across the world.

Proteria: The dragonsblood is also the raw material from which dragons construct their Proteria — their inner sanctums. Just as the Beysta is the dragon's physical home, the Proterus is his spiritual dwelling.

Both Beysta and Proterus share the same spatial location. One can be thought of as overlaying the other — separated only by the most tenuous layer of perception. The great wyrms call this invisible membrane the Veil, but magi know it better as the Gauntlet. The master of the lair can part the Veil at will and step directly from the physical into the spiritual realm, passing from Beysta to Proterus. This power, which makes dragons nigh invulnerable on their home ground, is considered one of the greatest gifts the Lady bestowed on dragonkind.

The Veil: Dragon lore presents some ambiguity about the Veil. On one hand, stepping through it represents the passage be- tween the physical and the spiritual, between life and death. The Lady passed beyond the Veil by dying. In so doing, she made the way clear for her faithful to travel back and forth between the two realms. The great wyrms, however, do not experience the area beyond the Veil as a land of the dead — there are no thronging shades of the deceased awaiting them on the far side. Instead, the dragon's Proterus resembles an exact duplicate of his lair — with one significant difference. In the Proterus, there are no physical objects, only the shadows of objects — symbols, meanings, relations, implications. Where a dragon's lair might be filled with physical treasures — fine carpets from the Orient, a mask collection from darkest Africa, brightly colored tapestries, a peerless wine collection, ivory tusks, ancient tomes, delicate scientific apparatus, magnificent bronzes, rare coins, artful clockwork automatons, a chess set fit for an emperor, crates of coffee, sacks of poppy and many other such things — the dragon's Proterus is a spiritual landscape.

Prohabitions: A dragon never allows visitors, even favored ones, to enter his Proterus. However, magi and fae who have battled wyrms and won have ventured into these holy sanctums and recorded what they found. In the material world, a dragon's lair resembles a gigantic burrow, often wound with elaborate tunnels, trickling with fresh water and seeded with fabulous treasures and gleaming bones. In the Penumbra of the place, the Proterus spins out like a gargantuan web, a luminous weave of interlocking strands. Each line is a link of distance or proximity anchored to the objects on the physical side of the Realm. The more cluttered the cave, the more elaborate the web in the spirit world.

If an intruder were to look closely at the strands, she might notice tiny arcane runes in no known language. Wythren attests that dragons capture their histories, genealogies and poetry in these intricate scribings. According to his chronicles, the runes seem to sing in a tune that transcends human scales — a tune that may well be the echo of the songs composed by the elder wyrms, who first melded the elements together.

---

---