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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
 Posted - 23 Feb 2017 : 19:00:59
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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). |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2017 : 03:29:59
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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 |
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Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2017 : 04:28:19
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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. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 02 Mar 2017 : 00:40:15
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| 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. |
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Of the dragon pantheon and inconsistencies
