| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 18 Feb 2017 : 23:42:50
Here I come with a dragon related question to anyone who can answer. (Hope my english didn't screw anything here)
Reading Faiths & Pantheons (I'm buying a few 3e books to expand my poor Realmslore, that is sadly limited to 4e and SCAG) this book list Null and Task as greater deities, and I can only wonder, why?
If I'm not wrong, the power of the gods is equivalent to the number and fervor of their worshipers, right? And these two guys are only worshiped by a few dragons that, for most of Faerunian history, shunned their own gods (according to Dragons of Faerun, dragons lost their interest in gods since the Time of Dragons and only began to believe again in their own gods after the last Dracorage).
Then, I saw Bahamut and Tiamat in 3e, and they are listed as lesser deities...
According to dragons of Faerun, their faithful were the only dragons that didn't forsaken their own gods, and had been battling the Dragonfall War since the Time of Dragons. We have fervor here. And not only that, they have been worshiped by members of other races, not only dragons. Tiamat and Bahamut (Marduk) were worshiped in Unther, and Tiamat faith there never really faded away, even after the Orcgate Wars. She was later resurrected by their faithful as a demigoddess when Gilgeam went nuts, and later a full-fledged goddess in the Time of Troubles.
Later, the cult of Bahamut is resurrected in Damara, thanks to the efforts of Gareth Dragonsbane and co., and he gained enough followers to gave him the... divine energy? (faith energy?) to became a full fledged god again (without taking into account Untherites that still believed in dead Marduk as part of their old faith, according to Old Empires). And after the Spellplague, those two became widely known across Faerun and others parts of the world (like Laerakond). We have a lot of worshipers here (not only their everyday dragon worshipers, but worshipers of many other races as well).
Maybe they have not the same number of worshipers than the more common human gods, but still have more worshipers than the rest of the draconic pantheon (with the possible exception of Asgorath/Io, who is worshiped by all dragonkind). Heck, maybe Bahamut and Tiamat are the only gods of the draconic pantheon that may have gained a foothold in Abeir (alongside other Faerunian gods) if Laerakond was returned to that world during the Sundering 2.0.
My question then is why they are still treated as lesser deities, even within the draconic pantheon? Shouldn't they be at mere least intermediate deities, or something like that? They're the most known dragon gods (even among players).
Is this an oversight of WotC or something? Or are they actually downplaying their importance because the two siblings are from Greyhawk (or Dragonlance), and they wanted to give more relevance to "local deities"?
Or should I better ask Ed or Eric L. Boyd (as he wrote part of Dragon of Faerunfantastic book, anyways) about this? |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Faraer |
Posted - 02 Mar 2017 : 00:40:15
As I see it, dragons of Faerūn think too highly of themselves to worship gods very much. Bahamut and Tiamat, if they figure at all, are the greatest of dragonkind rather than transcendent deities. The later draconic gods, invented by the authors of FOR1 Draconomicon, were never deeply integrated into Realmslore and don't figure in the 'Wyrms of the North' articles and Ed's other portrayals. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 24 Feb 2017 : 04:28:19
I think the 'dragonkin' were something like second-generation half-dragon.
Basically, usually where there's one half-dragon, there are more (see the Red hand of Doom AP), and where there are a bunch of something, there's a party.... hence, second-genration drgaonkin. The probably have sevral different humaoid bloodlines mixed-in, but after a few generatons some homogenization happens and they start to look more like their own, distinct race (so a bunch that have been around for awhile in a single area would all look similar). On the other hand, the same thing happening elsewhere would also creat a 'dragonkin cluster', but that group could look very different from the first one, because they had different ancestors. But rules-wise, they'd all still be dragonkin. Thats my take on those (I already explained the difference between dragonborn/half-dragons above, IMO).
I'm not even sure if that jibes with canon, but for my games canon doesn't matter, and in the post-Spellplague world that is FR now, sadly, neither does it matter all that much on any level. 'Canon' has gone from a single dish to a buffet - pick & choose what you like and just ignore what doesn't work for you. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 24 Feb 2017 : 03:29:59
This is always a contentious issue each time it is brought up.
The following past quotes [from here at Candlekeep] are thoughts from myself, the Lady Hooded One, and references from Jeff Grubb and Tracy Hickman on the matter:-
quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
Paladine and Takhisis are based on Bahamut and Tiamat. There are those who say they are the same, others who do not. There are plenty of arguments to support either side.
Does it matter if there is an established connection?
Not really. After all, they'll fill one role in DRAGONLANCE, and other roles in other worlds. Besides, 3e set things up to where each world has its own cosmology anyway.
Having said that, I'll further note that Tracy Hickman has always said that Takhisis was separate from Tiamat. Whereas Jeff Grubb prefers to think otherwise.
Ultimately, I'd say it's up to the DM as to whether the connection exists, or not.
quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Well, I'd agree with Margaret and Tracy on just about everything Krynnish - - but NOT the gods. The gods of Dragonlance were Jeff Grubb's own gods, taken from his pre-existing D&D campaign. So on the Takhisis versus Tiamat thing, I'd go with Jeff's opinion.
(Most folks forget that Dragonlance was a created-in-house collaboration, with Margaret and Tracy emerging in the drivers' seats after their novels took off in popularity.)
Yes, I'm older than dirt.
love to all,
THO |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 19:00:59
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
Definitely outside my area of expertise (I actually don't like dragons - I owned a physical copy of Draconimicon for years and just never bothered to read it), but I don't think its all that hard to reconcile.
Dragon Gods make dragonborn. Thats the bottom line. In the beginning it was probably an accident (like the one myth), but no-one likes to think of themselves as an 'accident', so the Dragonborn came up with their own version (the first story). But the thing about magic and fantasy settings and D&D is that when one 'someone' figures out how to do something - even if by accident - another someone can do it to. So Bahamut probably got around to creating his own, and then his sister decided she needed her own (or just corrupted a bunch of his), and so on, and so forth.
In Dragonlance (Krynn) - Takhisis (who is a self-aware autonomous aspect of Tiamat) creates Draconinas, which aren't exactly the same thing (but kinda are). Some worlds have dragonmen, others have dragonewts (Runequest/Glorantha)... all cut from the same cloth. Draconic powers figured-out how to create these things - probably from other things - by using their own bodily fluids (the myths say blood, but is what we mortals do all that different, when you get right down to it?). If we were to apply a little science, they're just using magic to do some gene-splicing - mixing draconic DNA with something else.
This is a very different thing than creating half-dragons, which is done by a mortal dragon mating with a non-dragon, and has nothing(?) to do with 'the gods'.
Some of the myths start with eggs... what if the 'eggs' were really meteors? Bits of a shattered god (sun/moon), that got 'sprinkled' with draconic DNA to cause something new to grow from them (so very much like an egg, but not really).
The myths in D&D are not just allegories - the gods and the cosmology are very real things. The myths may be filled with 'half truths', but unlike (most) Earth myths, they are based in actual events and real gods. Gods CAN be planetary bodies. The blood of gods CAN become living creatures (the same thing happened with Corellon and the elves, BTW). In scify terms, think of the pieces of a dead god 'infused' with god-stuff... pure 'proto-life'. Now take some god-blood - which has its genetic code within it - and splash some on this 'proto-life' matter. Its like growing new organs from stem cells. Its actually not as far-fetched as it all seems on the surface.
And as I pointed out above, all of this can be interrelated, just as Ed said it all was, but perhaps in a more primitive (primal?) way than we were thinking. If everything draconic began with Io, than ALL dragonborn - and dragons - are related. If Bahamut learned how to create these from watching mommy/daddy, and Tiamat learned it from him, than it doesn't matter if it happened at different times on different worlds for different reasons.
What I DO find interesting is that only certain dragonborn are affected by the dracorage mythal - which were those again? The ones 'native' to Faerūn, or the ones from Abeir? I can work with that.
Throw into this equation that before there were "dragonborn" there were "dragonkin" in Toril according to the 3e Monster Compendium - Monsters of Faerun page 45-46 (it should also be noted these dragonkin look different than Abeiran dragonborn for having wings and a tail, and they have some innate magic detection capability). |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 18:27:47
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
I'm fairly certain 'someone in the know' at WotC (back in the day when their boards were still going strong) said that the two types were different.
Plus, there HAS TO be an Abeirran backstory for them, otherwise we would not have needed all the endless discussion (and angst) on that subject when 4e was released. I don't recall what or where it was, but I know there was a (4e) story to them, because people were very upset that it didn't jibe with the FR lore we already had. I can't seem to find the info ATM, but weirdly, Wikipedia states that the Dragonborn are also connected (same thing?) to the draconians of Krynn (Dragonlance) in the 5e PH. 
Just found something in Players Handbook Races: Dragonborn- two different 'myths' regarding their creation:
quote:
One tale relates that the dragonborn were shaped by Io even as the ancient dragon-god created dragons. In the beginning of days, this legend says, Io fused brilliant astral spirits with the unchecked fury of the raw elements. The greater spirits became the dragons, creatures so powerful, proud, and strong-willed that they were lords of the newborn world. The lesser spirits became the dragonborn. Although smaller in stature than their mighty lords, they were no less draconic in nature.
And the second one...
quote:
A second legend claims that Io created the dragons separately, at the birth of the world. Io crafted them lovingly to represent the pinnacle of mortal form, imbuing them with the power of the Elemental Chaos flowing through their veins and spewing forth from their mouths in gouts of flame or waves of paralyzing cold. Io granted them the keen minds and lofty spirits shared by other mortal races, linking them to Io and to the other gods of the Astral Sea.
During the Dawn War, however, Io was killed by the primordial known as Erek-Hus, the King of Terror. With a rough-hewn axe of adamantine, the King of Terror split Io from head to tail, cleaving the dragongod into two equal halves. No sooner did Io's sundered corpse fall to the ground than each half rose up as a new god - Bahamut from the left and Tiamat from the right. Drops of Io's blood, spread far and wide across the world, rose up as dragonborn.
So two stories, one right after the other.
That's kind of interesting to me, because the thing I wrote up for Osse a couple days ago basically has the humans of Katashaka as one of the creator races, but they transfer to Abeir in the Sundering... to the continent of Osse. Eventually dragons and dragonborn invade their territory, the humans get some dragon eggs, and create what if you read between the lines are draconians by combining humans with dragons still in their eggs. The humans then overthrow the dragons, but the dragonborn are left behind. The humans and dragonborn establish a peace. The humans that became draconians interbreed with the dragonborn (resulting in basically the dragonkin we see in 3e... or dragonborn with wings and tails). Eventually Osse transfers to Toril from Abeir (possibly as a result of the Elven Sundering), lots of dragonborn die in the transfer, and those dragonborn that remain descend into barbarism.
Ironically, this story basically states that Osse is an Abeiran continent that the elves essentially stole. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 16:00:19
Even without that, you wind up with weirdness if you say Takhisis is present elsewhere as Tiamat.
I like to think of Krynn's deities as former aspects of the more widely-known deities. For example, Tiamat once spun off an aspect/avatar and sent it a still-young Krynn. Either because of some sort of disconnect or the result of millennia of acting independently of the source, Krynn's Tiamat (Krynnamat?) became an independent entity and renamed herself Takhisis. Now, despite the fact that both have the five-headed dragon thing going on, the two are entirely separate and have no connections at all.
At least, that's been my spin to explain away the divine weirdness on Krynn (compared to Oerth or Toril). |
| Markustay |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 15:06:38
Well, we also have a little bit of RW 'politics' coming into play, or rather, 'business acumen'. There were very good, RW reasons why Weiss & Hickman wanted them separate, and at times, so did TSR/WotC - because it became a 'licensed property', and really weird crap happens to an IP once they have to start separating their 'settings' (like a whole boatload of Marvel Comics 'second string' characters that got 'orphaned' when they lost the Conan license... and yet those same villains, etc., continued to appear, if they were ones Marvel itself came up with). |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 11:21:18
The same author who said Tiamat and Takhisis were the same also said that Orcus and Chemosh were the same. Weiss and Hickman claim they're separate gods, which is reinforced later on in On Hallowed Ground.
4e claims they're the same, but 4e also shoehorned entire pantheons together. The Queen of Air and Darkness and Auril are entirely separate beings, as are Talos and Gruumsh. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 08:21:18
quote:
Originally posted by KanzenAU
Someone said that the Dragonborn of Bahamut were affected, but I don't think we can know about the Abeiran ones - the dracorage mythal hasn't gone off since the Spellplague (to my knowledge).
Dragons of Faerun states that some dragonborn of Bahamut were affected by the Dracorage (not all, unlike dragons, but at least a number of them were affected). In Battledale there was a sisterhood of half-song dragons (the Sisterhood of Essembra) who, after the destruction of the dracorage mythal, helped both metallic dragons and dragonborn to recover from the psychological trauma some metallics and dragonborn suffered when they learned all the destruction they caused under the madness.
The dracorage was destroyed in 1373, like ten years before the Spellplague hit, so we don't know if Abeiran dragonborn could have been infected if they travelled to Toril in a different point of time. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 08:03:13
Well, thats the simplest scenario - if he used draconic DNA (blood, whatever) from Toril to make his dragonborn, than it makes perfect sense that they would be affected.
Even magic has to be based in science - there are tons of spells (and spell-like abilities) that affect only specific creatures, which means these creatures must bear 'markers' inherent to them that the magic can identify. Magic doesn't think, its just a very advanced form of 'super-science' (Vancian magic, anyway). That's why genie-magic and other wishes work the way they do - you have to be VERY specific about what you want affected, because the spell itself doesn't 'think'. It can't ascertain the 'spirit' of your wish - it has to take everything literally, and perform its task as simply and efficiently as possible. There has to be something - some identifier - that the spell latches onto.
So the Dracorage mythal affects 'all creature with Torillian dragon blood'. Not that the elves wanted to make it conditional like that, but even their High magic has its limits, and they can't affect EVERY dragon in the universe with a spell cast within a single crystal sphere (and it could just be thats the limitation - magic can't travel beyond the sphere itself, so dragons born outside the original sphere of influence wouldn't be affected). But I don't think the range is even that great, because I am pretty sure the other dragons in Realmspace - that aren't on Toril - aren't affected. There are plenty of dragons on/in Coliar, and its never been said that they were affected (or maybe they are affected only if the comet comes their way?) |
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 07:46:24
Someone said that the Dragonborn of Bahamut were affected, but I don't think we can know about the Abeiran ones - the dracorage mythal hasn't gone off since the Spellplague (to my knowledge). |
| Markustay |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 07:38:03
Definitely outside my area of expertise (I actually don't like dragons - I owned a physical copy of Draconimicon for years and just never bothered to read it), but I don't think its all that hard to reconcile.
Dragon Gods make dragonborn. Thats the bottom line. In the beginning it was probably an accident (like the one myth), but no-one likes to think of themselves as an 'accident', so the Dragonborn came up with their own version (the first story). But the thing about magic and fantasy settings and D&D is that when one 'someone' figures out how to do something - even if by accident - another someone can do it to. So Bahamut probably got around to creating his own, and then his sister decided she needed her own (or just corrupted a bunch of his), and so on, and so forth.
In Dragonlance (Krynn) - Takhisis (who is a self-aware autonomous aspect of Tiamat) creates Draconinas, which aren't exactly the same thing (but kinda are). Some worlds have dragonmen, others have dragonewts (Runequest/Glorantha)... all cut from the same cloth. Draconic powers figured-out how to create these things - probably from other things - by using their own bodily fluids (the myths say blood, but is what we mortals do all that different, when you get right down to it?). If we were to apply a little science, they're just using magic to do some gene-splicing - mixing draconic DNA with something else.
This is a very different thing than creating half-dragons, which is done by a mortal dragon mating with a non-dragon, and has nothing(?) to do with 'the gods'.
Some of the myths start with eggs... what if the 'eggs' were really meteors? Bits of a shattered god (sun/moon), that got 'sprinkled' with draconic DNA to cause something new to grow from them (so very much like an egg, but not really).
The myths in D&D are not just allegories - the gods and the cosmology are very real things. The myths may be filled with 'half truths', but unlike (most) Earth myths, they are based in actual events and real gods. Gods CAN be planetary bodies. The blood of gods CAN become living creatures (the same thing happened with Corellon and the elves, BTW). In scify terms, think of the pieces of a dead god 'infused' with god-stuff... pure 'proto-life'. Now take some god-blood - which has its genetic code within it - and splash some on this 'proto-life' matter. Its like growing new organs from stem cells. Its actually not as far-fetched as it all seems on the surface.
And as I pointed out above, all of this can be interrelated, just as Ed said it all was, but perhaps in a more primitive (primal?) way than we were thinking. If everything draconic began with Io, than ALL dragonborn - and dragons - are related. If Bahamut learned how to create these from watching mommy/daddy, and Tiamat learned it from him, than it doesn't matter if it happened at different times on different worlds for different reasons.
What I DO find interesting is that only certain dragonborn are affected by the dracorage mythal - which were those again? The ones 'native' to Faerūn, or the ones from Abeir? I can work with that. |
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 07:32:26
I dunno how myth can possibly cause contradictions: it's just myth, it might all be wrong. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 07:10:09
I like it as well (because I like 4e lore, lol). But I cannot deny that, from the perspective of canon FR lore, this causes a few contradictions. |
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 06:47:07
I actually prefer the multiple mythologies approach myself, and it especially makes sense for a book like the SCAG, which is aimed at players. We may never get a DM book explaining the truth, so we've got the myths and what Ed said to go on - enough to craft something interesting, I'm sure. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 06:22:33
SCAG sadly copy pasted the dragonborn creations myths from core 4e (Arkhosia), originally printed in Player's Handbook Races: Dragonborn (a core 4e sourcebook), making things... confusing. I know that Erin M. Evans created a detailed background for Abeiran dragonborn (because I asked her about this, as well), but I don't know if the guys who wrote SCAG used that info, even if partially. Erin was as confused as I when I asked her about Io relationship with Abeiran dragonborn.
|
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 04:27:13
Those stories are repeated in the SCAG, along with another legend. I like the Erek-Hus story too, but I feel like there's a bit of overlap with myth of the blood of Asgorath (mixed with Zotha) falling as dragon eggs. Edit: But maybe that's not such a bad thing - the first time Asgorath/Io's blood is spilled, the dragons are created, the second time it creates the dragonborn. I guess either way there's multiple myths, so we just don't know - but for Ed to be right there needs to be a connection to the Dragonborn of Bahamut somewhere in what really happened.
As for that wikipedia entry, unfortunately it's just plain misleading. The Dragon article quoted gives rules for converting the 4e dragonborn race to draconians for a Krynn-based campaign, and the 5e PHB just mentions draconians as a separate race. Neither ever postulate they're the same or have similar origins. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 04:17:10
EDIT: And BTW, I prefer the second of those two stories - its closer to some other lore we have, and the first one just sounds like something the Dragonborn themselves would have made-up.
quote:
Originally posted by KanzenAU
The 5e PHB makes no such connection with draconians. In fact, it explains that they're different.
I went to wikipedia, not the FR wiki.
I greatly dislike the FR wiki - it makes my browser jump up and down and slows my computer to a crawl. |
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 04:15:46
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
You guys respond TOO quickly LOL (I bet thats the first time you've ever been accused of that, eh Sage?) 
I edited my above post with some solid info... sort of...
Amazing how much time I have for researching FR concepts when I'm trying to write a scientific literature review... |
| Markustay |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 04:12:19
You guys respond TOO quickly LOL (I bet thats the first time you've ever been accused of that, eh Sage?)
I edited my above post with some solid info... sort of... |
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 03:59:39
The 5e PHB makes no such connection with draconians. In fact, it explains that they're different.
The FR wiki has multiple mythological origin stories for the dragonborn. Ed himself is quoted from Twitter as saying the Bahamut DB and the Abeir DB are connected (in a response to our very own Zeromaru X). So the dark is we just don't know.
Edit: The SCAG also presents multiple mythological origin stories, but all of them are linked to Io in some way. So perhaps the dragonborn of Abeir are descended from the original dragonborn of Io, and Bahamut created his dragonborn from that template? That might explain the connection. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 03:58:02
That's news to me. I don't remember anything like that written in the 5ePHB.
Might need to research that. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 03:50:03
I'm fairly certain 'someone in the know' at WotC (back in the day when their boards were still going strong) said that the two types were different.
Plus, there HAS TO be an Abeirran backstory for them, otherwise we would not have needed all the endless discussion (and angst) on that subject when 4e was released. I don't recall what or where it was, but I know there was a (4e) story to them, because people were very upset that it didn't jibe with the FR lore we already had. I can't seem to find the info ATM, but weirdly, Wikipedia states that the Dragonborn are also connected (same thing?) to the draconians of Krynn (Dragonlance) in the 5e PH.
Just found something in Players Handbook Races: Dragonborn- two different 'myths' regarding their creation:
quote:
One tale relates that the dragonborn were shaped by Io even as the ancient dragon-god created dragons. In the beginning of days, this legend says, Io fused brilliant astral spirits with the unchecked fury of the raw elements. The greater spirits became the dragons, creatures so powerful, proud, and strong-willed that they were lords of the newborn world. The lesser spirits became the dragonborn. Although smaller in stature than their mighty lords, they were no less draconic in nature.
And the second one...
quote:
A second legend claims that Io created the dragons separately, at the birth of the world. Io crafted them lovingly to represent the pinnacle of mortal form, imbuing them with the power of the Elemental Chaos flowing through their veins and spewing forth from their mouths in gouts of flame or waves of paralyzing cold. Io granted them the keen minds and lofty spirits shared by other mortal races, linking them to Io and to the other gods of the Astral Sea.
During the Dawn War, however, Io was killed by the primordial known as Erek-Hus, the King of Terror. With a rough-hewn axe of adamantine, the King of Terror split Io from head to tail, cleaving the dragongod into two equal halves. No sooner did Io's sundered corpse fall to the ground than each half rose up as a new god - Bahamut from the left and Tiamat from the right. Drops of Io's blood, spread far and wide across the world, rose up as dragonborn.
So two stories, one right after the other. |
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 00:33:53
Do we know that the dragonborn of Abeir are innately different to the so-called "Dragonborn of Bahamut"?
We know that the Dragonborn of Bahamut were created by Bahamut from other races.
We don't have an origin story for how the Abeiran dragonborn came into existence.
We know that most races have a "creator god", like Corellon for the elves, or Moradin for the dwarves.
We suspect that if any gods at all were active on Abeir, they were the dragon gods.
We know that Bahamut can "create" dragonborn: what if he, or other draconic gods, founded the dragonborn race on Abeir too?
Thus the original Abeiran dragonborn might have come from human stock, or the stock of any race for that matter, but then they bred true.
If this was the origin story of the Abeiran dragonborn they might be affected exactly the same as the Torilian dragonborn. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 22 Feb 2017 : 23:32:10
According to Dragons of Faerun, the Dracorage Mythal also affected dragonborn. Mind, those were dragonborn of Bahamut, not our everyday abeiran variant. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 22 Feb 2017 : 23:14:26
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
The dracorage is an artifical condition induced by elven magic manipulating aa star, IIRC. It's not as though the condition was universal or undesirable either, Garyx and Falazure wouldn't have cared.
I know what it was, but that doesn't mean we can't spin things to better-fit the newer lore, or to make some sense of a very odd pantheon.
The mythal could have acted in a very similar way to the Imaskari Godwall - when the KingKiller Star gets near, it cuts them off from their gods, and they lose their connection to their 'cultural overmind'. They just turn into primal engines of destruction (which is probably what they were meant to be all along).
Doesn't it seem odd that it could affect them that way? How come no-one has ever been able to do something similar with any other race? Why can't you create a 'Humanorage' mythal, and make a zombie apocalypse (except the zombies would be alive)? Or do that to dwarves, or elves? Why are dragons able to be turned into snarling beasts? To me, it almost seems like the 'civilized' version of dragons we have in FR/D&D is the abomination, because its like someone just flicks a switch and they turn into animals again.
Somehow, its as if they received the 'awakened' template - and their gods were likely involved - and then the elves figured out how to disjunct that.
Oh, the possibilities.... hmmmm, dragonborn-rage mythal..... I'd hate to see that happen mind you, BUT I could see Gilgeam capturing some cult of the dragon cultists to find out what they know. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 22 Feb 2017 : 13:29:09
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
It's something that wasn't really thought out well, either. The Seldarine should have pissed off the entire draconic pantheon with it, and dragon-elf relations would have been icy at best.
We don't know if the dragon pantheon is happy with the Seldarine, either. They have returned just "recently" to Toril (nearly 100 years hundred ago, that is like a tenday for gods), and the Spellplague just messed up everything, so gods didn't had time to discuss their differences. Just recently stuff have become calm enough for dragon gods to began to plot revenge or whatever steps they plan to do with the elven gods (post-Sundering 2.0).
As for mortal dragons, 100 years is also a short time spawn in their perspective (the last Dracorage ended 1373 DR, nearly a century before the starting point of the 5e campaign). So, there still the possibility that dragons are planning a revenge, but as their numbers were really low after the last dracorage (according to Dragons of Faerun), they need time to replenish their numbers. 100 years of waiting for a new generation of young adult dragons to bolster the draconic population of Faerun is nothing for a long lived race.
And we know that dragon-elf relations are icy. Even metallic dragons are difficult to talk with if you're playing an elf in Tiamat's 5e adventures; I can imagine chromatics being openly violent when talking to elves. |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 22 Feb 2017 : 13:04:58
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
The dracorage is an artifical condition induced by elven magic manipulating aa star, IIRC. It's not as though the condition was universal or undesirable either, Garyx and Falazure wouldn't have cared.
I know what it was, but that doesn't mean we can't spin things to better-fit the newer lore, or to make some sense of a very odd pantheon.
The mythal could have acted in a very similar way to the Imaskari Godwall - when the KingKiller Star gets near, it cuts them off from their gods, and they lose their connection to their 'cultural overmind'. They just turn into primal engines of destruction (which is probably what they were meant to be all along).
Doesn't it seem odd that it could affect them that way? How come no-one has ever been able to do something similar with any other race? Why can't you create a 'Humanorage' mythal, and make a zombie apocalypse (except the zombies would be alive)? Or do that to dwarves, or elves? Why are dragons able to be turned into snarling beasts? To me, it almost seems like the 'civilized' version of dragons we have in FR/D&D is the abomination, because its like someone just flicks a switch and they turn into animals again.
Somehow, its as if they received the 'awakened' template - and their gods were likely involved - and then the elves figured out how to disjunct that.
Lycanthropy turns its sufferers into frothing bloodthirsty monsters during the full moon, that doesn't mean much either way. The dracorage is a combination of "Elves were jerks" and "It's magic, man."
The other reason is that humans are by far the most populous race. Having a humanorage mythal is a good way to depopulate the entire planet and have your resident pantheon universally declared KIA.
It's something that wasn't really thought out well, either. The Seldarine should have pissed off the entire draconic pantheon with it, and dragon-elf relations would have been icy at best.
I mean, the whole "drive dragons everywhere crazy with a star" is up there with "steal magic from the goddess of magic". It's best to not apply logic to it, since it was before Mystra imposed limits on magic. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 22 Feb 2017 : 04:02:24
I'm going from memory, but I think it also suggested something to that effect with dragon worship in the 3e Draconomicon. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 22 Feb 2017 : 04:00:31
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
The dracorage is an artifical condition induced by elven magic manipulating aa star, IIRC. It's not as though the condition was universal or undesirable either, Garyx and Falazure wouldn't have cared.
I know what it was, but that doesn't mean we can't spin things to better-fit the newer lore, or to make some sense of a very odd pantheon.
The mythal could have acted in a very similar way to the Imaskari Godwall - when the KingKiller Star gets near, it cuts them off from their gods, and they lose their connection to their 'cultural overmind'. They just turn into primal engines of destruction (which is probably what they were meant to be all along).
Doesn't it seem odd that it could affect them that way? How come no-one has ever been able to do something similar with any other race? Why can't you create a 'Humanorage' mythal, and make a zombie apocalypse (except the zombies would be alive)? Or do that to dwarves, or elves? Why are dragons able to be turned into snarling beasts? To me, it almost seems like the 'civilized' version of dragons we have in FR/D&D is the abomination, because its like someone just flicks a switch and they turn into animals again.
Somehow, its as if they received the 'awakened' template - and their gods were likely involved - and then the elves figured out how to disjunct that. |
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