Dragon Lore

Secondary Abilities

Legendry

In the time before time, long before the light of civilization fell across the land, most of the world was wild and formless. At that time, a now-forgotten power held sway — a potent force of chaos whose very passing scattered the golden fruits of knowledge and power that nurtured our kind through its infancy.

This power was called "Modus" and he reigned for ages in his Courts of Silence before ever a creature walked the face of the Earth. And his children attended him, and were to him a great comfort.

Certainly no one could have foreseen the tragic consequences when Ellisere, the daughter of Modus, Goddess of Inspiration and Invention, brought her latest plaything into the Courts of Silence. She called this strange device "the Necronome." Its eternal ticking seemed to echo the beat of her heart. In it she found the subtle hints of a pattern that opened up great vistas of inspiration. Unfortunately, the infernal ticking drove everyone else to distraction and the Courts of Silence were no longer a place of refuge.

Something had to be done. After much deliberation, Modus banished the object from the courts. After that, Ellisere was seen less and less. She sequestered herself on a remote mountain in the midst of swirling creation to pursue her vision and the new art — music — that was taking shape with the aid of her Necronome.

The strange and wondrous sounds of her emerging art called forth many and varied creatures from the crucible of creation. They came to her and loved her, and she taught them her way.

The Firstborn were the great wyrms, masters of air and flame. The raw, primitive tones of the newly discovered art formed their magic and might. In time, all creatures who now know music, and many different races—including those who are now known only through ancient songs — came to sit at Ellisere's feet and receive her gift. At last, man overcame his fear of the wild things that haunted the world's end and came to Ellisere to learn from her.

By this time, the Art had changed. Music was no longer a simple means of expressing Ellisere's vision of harmony. In each successive teaching, it swelled to encompass new emotions. The great wyrms, for instance, eagerly gathered shining notes of power and crafted them into scales — of hoarding, of greed, of snares for those who would steal their treasures. The arrival of men also wove many complex emotions into the score, not the least of which was jealousy.

It is doubtful that even Ellisere herself knew who it was that stole into her chambers one day. Some gossips speculate that the trespasser's motive may have been jealousy for the single- minded devotion a lover paid to the goddess. Others suggest that the intruder acted out of fear—that some other race might learn a more complete form of the Art than man himself had. All that is known for certain is that on that day, someone reached up to the Necronome and stopped its swinging arm midcourse.

The silence that followed was complete. No scream sounded the moment the Necronome and the goddess' heart ceased to beat. In their sorrow, the great wyrms gathered their treasures, music and precious scales, wrapped them in grand and leathery wings and took flight. They passed over the Earth on mournful winds, landing when fatigue claimed them, and dug titanic burrows into the mountainsides.

There, it is said, they listen for the echoes of Ellisere's art in never-ending caves. In the heart of the Earth, the dragons claim, you can still hear refrains of the first songs in mournful rhythm with the final ticking of the goddess' Necronome.

DESCRIPTION

Here be dragons. The inscription inevitably marks the farthest, most inaccessible, least hospitable corner of the map. The wise navigator never reads the phrase aloud, although he might tap ominously at it with the tip of his spy glass. A certain power clings to the very syllables — not only fuel for mutiny, but something more grand — words to conjure with. Their very whispering evokes nightmare images of primal fury, avarice, cunning, chaos and destruction.

The Illuminated, however, must learn to see beyond the nightmare. The first step in penetrating the veil of secrecy surrounding the great wyrms is to realize that a dragon is a paradoxical creature. The arcana handed down across the generations reveals a very different side to these complex beings. The mystic writings return constantly to the dragon's unrivaled majesty, wisdom, sophistication and artistry.

The great wyrms embody all the terrible beauty that nature has to offer. In the dragon, we find reflected all that is darkest within the breast of man. The dragon is pure desire run amok. Our lusts, our greed, our ravenous hungers find their ultimate expression in these grand beasts.

There are probably as many stories about the creation of dragonkind as there are dragons themselves. Each of the great wyrms is a veritable force of nature with a life span stretching back into the dim reaches of time. Only the very foolish or presumptuous would even think to question a dragon's account of its own origins. The fact of the matter is that each of these legendary beings has the longevity, power and conviction to craft history in his own image. Most of the great wyrms, should they feel moved to give any account of themselves whatsoever, would recount tales of how their race arose directly from the Primal Chaos. This assertion may not fall far from the truth.

Even the legends of mankind's own devising tend to recognize dragons as the Firstborn. Some scholars suggest that dragons are not, in fact, mortal creatures at all, but incarnations of Creation's own passion, harnessed by intellect and glowing with the power of the elements unbound. It's possible that the great wyrms are creatures of pure Quintessence, loose threads of the Tellurian's Tapestry crack- ling with raw, undifferentiated power. One myth goes so far as to claim that dragons are not of the Tapestry at all, but rather arise directly from the dark spaces between the weft and warp, where the hidden chaos of the universe is exposed.

The very existence of a dragon is an accusation hurled in the face of mankind. Meeting one of the great wyrms is like facing our own reflection in a dark mirror. At the same time, the dragon embodies all the unchecked power of Nature. Throughout the world, dragons are credited with creating storms and lightning, fire and flood, famine and blight, typhoons and hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, maelstroms and tidal waves.

The dragon is the unreasoning enforcer of the natural order. It is quite literally the scourge of the Earth — the lash of Her displeasure with presumptuous humanity. A great wyrm embodies man's relation with nature. Within its glistening coils, we do not find a natural order to be conquered, catalogued and cultivated, but rather the wild fury of nature that must be appeased to ensure survival.

DRAGON LORE

As one of the most promising scholars of his age, it is certain that Ynnis Wythren had more than a passing familiarity with dragon lore before he ever set foot on the Isle of Lamentations. What he found there, however, led him to cast aside the mantle of learning for the sackcloth of mysticism.

Regrettably, no hand has ever recorded Wythren's story in its entirety. Only vague and unsettling hints may be found amongst the mystic's cryptic verse, which is praised mainly for its complex, labyrinthine structure. A volume of his work is often the prized possession in the private library of a well-to-do cryptophile.

In his pivotal Librium Draconis, Wythren opens with this startling revelation: "The Dragon accomplishes the ends of the Earth."

With this simple assertion, Wythren throws down the gauntlet to challenge centuries of established dragon lore. He reveals that the dragon is not merely the hooded executioner of Nature's will, but rather the Earth's champion — the knight who defends Her, the hero who redeems Her, the magus who awakens Her. The dragon is not some generic monster, a potential notch in the belt of the treasure hunter. Rather, each of these magnificent creatures is a fully realized character, a unique being, a force of nature animated by a powerful individual will.

Dragons are fiercely protective of their individuality. Solitary and aloof, they place great value on their independence and privacy. It is said that they cannot long abide even the presence of their own kind — it's a rare occasion when two or more of the beasts deign to share a hunting ground or lair. Ancient sagas, however, do allude to a time when the great wyrms were more populous and were occasionally seen hunting or warring together. Just as we might speak of a pride of lions or a murder of crows, the magi of old tell of a desolation of dragons. Anyone who has witnessed the insatiable appetites of these magnificent terrors can understand why.

Wythren's cryptic assertion, however, establishes much more than the individuality of each dragon. It presents the foundation of what has become known as the "Doctrine of Circumference and Center." According to this theory, the dragon "accomplishes" the ends of the Earth in the sense that it "encompasses" them. The dragon's coils encircle the entire world. It is the horizon, the border of the unknown, the Circumference of Creation.

Beysta

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