| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 25 Jan 2005 : 11:18:13
A few stray thoughts on totally unrelated FR stuff coalesced the other day and I found myself thinking about the origins of dragons in the Realms. Especially in the context of the Creator Race information presented in "Serpent Kingdoms".
Grabbing my old FOR1 "Draconomicon", I was gratified to see that the origin theories were presented as just that: theories. In other words, there was nothing set in stone about the origin of dragons.
However, there is a major discrepancy between the information in "Serpent Kingdoms" and that in "Powers & Pantheons" 2E regarding dragons. Again, the information provided in "Powers & Pantheons" 2E is done in the sense of human writings and perspectives and hence again, isn't set in stone. Of course, "Powers & Pantheons" states that the dragons are one of the Creator Races. This seems to be refuted in "Serpent Kingdoms". If such is the case, and dragons aren't one of the Creator Races, can they still be considered indigenous to Toril and having developed via evolution independent of the Creator Races? Alternatively, are they arrivals to Toril like the dwarves, elves, illithids, beholders etc.? There is also a third alternative, and the one I find most interesting, that the dragons were created on Toril by someone or something (i.e. not sparked into life as a species by evolutionary processes).
Taking up this third hypothesis (the first two are relatively straightforward and pretty much "explain themselves"), who or what created the dragons? "Serpent Kingdoms" (p.186) tells us that from -30000 DR to -24000 DR (the "Time of Dragons") they ruled supreme in Faerun. If they were created, whom were they created by? The draconic gods? The sarrukh? Something else?
Then of course, once we establish who did create them, we have to provide a justification for there being two main types of dragons, the chromatics and the metals - both very different as we all know. I'm not at this stage prepared to get bogged down on the little dragon species such as faerie dragons, pseudodragons etc. And don't even go there, re the oriental types!
Personally, I like the idea of a group of sarrukh from Okoth (or one of the other sarrukh kingdoms) creating the dragons as their 'ultimate servants/warriors'. Ironfang Keep near the Moonsea sounds like a great place for a sarrukh stronghold - and we do know this place is mentioned in draconic legend as early as c. -25000 DR (see "Cormanthyr").
Basically, I'd be interested to read what you all think and your opinions and also debate on this matter. Oh, and I'd like some thoughts as to how two distinct groups of dragons (ethics and outlook being the main difference) could or would have been created by the same creator.
-- George Krashos
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| 24 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 09 Mar 2005 : 19:52:43
Since most sources either think that the Dragons were a creator race or native somehow to the Realms, I think that somehow the dragons were intentianally awakened in the Realms. Since most myths have a kernal of truth to them, it might have been that a great continent wide meteor shower hit around the time that the dragons were awakened.
Then again, it could be that the dragons were native and awakened in Toril, but the god that did it came over with others, to wit . . . Tiamat is present and even mentioned as having her traditional rivalries from her native pantheon. Maybe Tiamat came to Toril first, literally had children (perhaps with Bahamut?) in order to spawn more dragons for her war against the old gods, her spawning grounds safe in another world. But her children liked the new world and decided to try and rule it, and before she could bring them back under her wing . . . the old gods found her and all hell breaks loose. This also might explain why the chromatics stayed evil. Bahamut might have turned good and taken the dragons that favored him with him into the light. |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 06:00:53
That does sound like gnomes... |
| Lina |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 01:24:34
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
 You gotta love the Realms - I can't get my head around eggs falling from the sky and hatching dragons. How did they get in the sky in the first place?
Maybe one of the gnomish gods invented an automatic tennis ball shooter but haven't invented the balls yet so had to use a substitute. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 22:52:22
quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
I think we are failing to consider another couple of possibilities. If the dragons were created or "uplifted" or brought in by gates then the Batrachi or the Aeree might have just as easily been responsible.
Or, as an alternative, one race gated them in, but then another turned them from drakes and big lizards into the mighty dragons we know today... |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 20:38:13
If it were anywhere it would be in Serpent Kingdoms. But I don't recall a reference to dragons in there. Dosn't mean there wasn't one. I might have to pore through it looking.
I think we are failing to consider another couple of possibilities. If the dragons were created or "uplifted" or brought in by gates then the Batrachi or the Aeree might have just as easily been responsible.
Due to timing the Aeree might be the most obvious culprits. Perhaps they were more territorial and martial than we suspected, and they tried to use dragons as an instrument of war against other Aeree factions or perhaps the last of the Batrachi, or some other race. Heck maybe the Aeree used dragons to war against the emerging giant nation.
Once the dragons gained the upper hand over the Aeree, the wyrms could have obliterated the Aeree in a genocidal avian smorgasbord.
And then there is the cowbird explanation. Hlal, dragon god of trickery, or maybe some insidious yugoloths started slipping dragon eggs into the nests of the Aeree. Upon hatching the wyrmlings would quickly devour their nestmates. Leaving the confused Aeree parents to raise the baby dragons as their own... |
| Durak |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 11:53:14
Can anyone remember reading anywhere about the sarrukh having battles against Dragons and enslaving some of them?
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| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 13:50:50
You know, the Time of the Dragons coincided with the end of the Aeree creator race. The Aeree empire only lasted about a thousand years from -31,000 to -30,000 DR. It is not too much of a stretch to think that the reason for their downfall is that the dragons ate them.
A race of flyers that is bite-sized, flies out in the open, bright colorful plumage. No wonder they all disappeared. Similar to the reason that the Avariel could not prosper.
It makes sense that the ones that survived were the kenku, a flightless variant that migrated East to Kara-Tur, and the Dire Corbies, a branch that escaped down into the underdark, eventually losing their flight as they adapted to a subterranean existence. The Aaracockra escaped by migrating West overseas to Maztica and parts unknown. |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 07:51:33
Serpent Kingdoms lists the Time of the Dragons as commencing around -30,000 DR.
Interestingly, Lost Empires (or at least the chronolgy excerpt on the sneak preview page of the WOTC site) dates the Seldarine civil war and the casting down of Lolth as occuring in 30,000 DR.
Contemporaneous with the Seldarine civil war was: Corellon puts out Gruumsh's eye, Auril is cast out of Arvandor for siding with Lolth, Malar slays Herne.
Could any of these events tie in with the advent of the rule of dragons? |
| Durak |
Posted - 02 Feb 2005 : 10:06:57
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Okay, I've been pondering this for a few days... I'm inclined to think that perhaps dragons did arise and evolve on Toril... But, in the interest of having some powerful servants, the sarrukh decided to tweak these proto-dragons. Different groups or individuals of sarrukh did different tweaks.
And then, as suggested earlier, the dragons slipped their leash...
I can see them making the snake like dragons (eastern dragons), but not the legged type.
The falling from the sky business. Maybe some god/goddess found out about these super creations, sucked them up from their hatchery in some large storm and scattered the eggs all over the world.
One thing i been noticing is how the 2 sets of dragons relate to themselves as cousins.
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Maybe theres simply a Dragon realm, and the eggs were their form of drop pods for world conquest. ( not being serious with this one ) |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 Feb 2005 : 01:46:23
Okay, I've been pondering this for a few days... I'm inclined to think that perhaps dragons did arise and evolve on Toril... But, in the interest of having some powerful servants, the sarrukh decided to tweak these proto-dragons. Different groups or individuals of sarrukh did different tweaks.
And then, as suggested earlier, the dragons slipped their leash... |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 01 Feb 2005 : 18:50:06
Legends speak of how Jazirian back in the Days of Thunder was flying over the Raurin desert. Basking in the sun and thrilling at the hot thermal winds blowing up from the sands below, she chanced upon a massive thunderhead that so rarely passes across the desert sun to quench the parched sands.
The cloud was really the thundergod in the guise of a desert storm. (The legends are vague as to whether the god was Kozah or perhaps Garyx, or some other long forgotten weather god) Jazirian was taken by his might and majesty and fell upon the cloud in a fit of passion. In the pique of ardor Jazirian bore eggs that rained down upon the slopes of the great mountains bordering the Raurin. These eggs later hatched into the first copper dragons.
The thundergod was so smitten by his tryst with the winged serpent he kept returning daily to the spot in hopes of spying once more. When he finally happened upon Jazirian again, the thundergod attempted to renew their passion, only to be rebuffed by Jazirian.
The thundergod was thrown into a rage at the rejection, and with lightning crackling all around, he fell upon Jazirian and ravished the plumed god.
Perhaps the thundergod was not aware that Jazirian embodies both male and female aspects within her divinity, and in the aftermath of this violent union, to the surprise of the thundergod, he found himself impregnated with myriad blue eggs, the color of Jazirian's tears.
Shaking the eggs free from the vapors of his cumulonimbus layers, the thunder god skulked off across the desert, peppering the dunes below with the fruit of his tempestuous lust.
The eggs later hatched into the first blue wyrmlings, burrowing up out the sands, bellowing great electric arcs from their tiny muzzles, the birthright of their stormy parentage. |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 01 Feb 2005 : 06:23:07
Not excited by the idea of dragon eggs falling like meteors from the sky?  I love that image!
Is it that the notion seems too far-fetched or whimsical for your taste? If I could surmise a plausible explanation, could you be converted?
How about:
1) Asgorath battles Amaunator in the sky, pierced by the crystal shards of the sun, the drops of Asgorath's blood harden as they fall, congealing into dragon eggs that fall onto the surface of Faerun.
2) The progenitors of the dragon race, whether a god, gods or simply mortal dragons, could have lived in a cloud city, such as cloud giants or Valamaradace inhabit, and posessed of a profligate fecundity, befitting the parents of a race, seeded the face of the land by dropping their eggs down from above. The eggs might have been unusually tough, or protected by magic, or perhaps imbued with a feather-fall spell to keep them from going splat.
3) Kender from Krynn, desiring to rid their planet of the vermin wyrms, might have gathered up all the dragon eggs they could find, loaded them into a spelljamming ship and hauled the lot of them into the wildspace and dumped them, like the environmentally insensitive brutes they are. The eggs floated for a time through the phlogiston, whereupon they finally entered through an opening into the crystal sphere of Realmspace, where they fell like a meteor shower upon the face of Toril. 
4) Maybe steven is right, maybe Asgorath mated with Selune to spawn the metallic dragons, laying dragon eggs among the tears of Selune, where they later rained down upon Toril after some sort of disturbance among the tears. Although, if legend is correct, the tears of Selune may actually be a more recent feature than the birth of the dragon race. So maybe the eggs were laid on Selune, say, in a volcano (not inappropriate to Red Dragon eggs, at least) and an unexpected erruption jettisoned the eggs into space, launching them into a degrading orbit around Toril.
5) Maybe the original dragon gods just flew high into the sky for some sort of spectacular mating ritual that ended with the spawning of dragon eggs that fell down from above. Maybe this was some sort of dragon equivalent of Elven High Magic, resulting in enough eggs to spawn an entire race from a single, epic mating.
6) Maybe dragons colonized Faerun from another world, sending their offspring to their new home in the same manner as baby Kal-El/Clark Kent arrived on Earth, by means of a swarm of enchanted eggs, protected from heat, force, and the vacuum of space, either because they were escaping some sort of catastrophe, or perhaps merely because this is how the progenitors of the dragon race explore and colonize new worlds.
7) Perhaps planar dragons are the progenitors, and pyroclastic or radiant dragon eggs from the plane of Fire or Radiance fell through a connecting portal on the surface of the sun, or maybe on the inner surface of Realmspace's crystal sphere (where the light from such portals is seen on Toril as starlight.) Terrestrial dragons could be the offshoots of planar dragons whose eggs fell literally from the stars.
That last explanation makes me pause to think that dragons may not have evolved at all but could perhaps be "devolved" or mongrel descendants from grander forms of celestial and fiendish wyrms.
Are any of the above explanations appealing to anyone? |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 01 Feb 2005 : 05:27:07
You gotta love the Realms - I can't get my head around eggs falling from the sky and hatching dragons. How did they get in the sky in the first place?
I do however like the concept that the sarrukh 'played' with the dragons to provide us with some of the harder to explain varieties like faerie dragons, pseudodragons, sapphire dragons, etc. Song dragons (the old weredragons of 1E and 2E) seem to me to be more magical in nature/origin - wizards seeking alternate forms to prolong their lives and similar concepts.
Well, I'm glad this thread has woken up - I was beginning to fear I was going to be left alone to work this one out!
-- George Krashos
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| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 01 Feb 2005 : 00:35:34
George, the more I think on it the less fond I grow of the idea that the Sarrukh could have created the dragons.
While I agree it is a possibility, and that some future Realms author or designer may choose to go that route and set it into stone as canon, I feel very strongly that the dragons ought to have a more mythic and resonant origin story.
While I concede my objection is merely aesthetic, it just seems to me that dragons--whose name is so evocative that our very hobby was named after them--deserve a more auspicious and less redundant origin than the one given to most all the other ordinary scalyfolk of Faerun.
I could be convinced that the Sarrukh might have brought dragons over through portals (eg. the Orcgate orcs or the Mulan) with the intention of using them as servitors. But this would mean that dragons were interopers and not native, and it would disqualify them from consideration for creator race status.
I could definitely see the Sarrukh mucking around with dragon genetics, altering or augmenting them to create such dragon variants as the song dragon or the brown dragon or the feldrakes or linnorms. I could even see the Sarrukh not realizing what they were getting themselves into and finding themselves completely terrorized by their intended servants.
While one might be guided from the family tree found in the original Draconomicon to conclude that dragons were created or raised up from a lesser species, I still feel a little cold to the humble notion that the Sarrukh created the dragons out of whole cloth, or out of snakes or lizards to become the awesome beasts that they are today.
I think that is why I like the eggs falling from the sky story so much. It conjures in me that same sense of wonder with which the Realms themselves have captured my imagination.
Cheers,
Grayson |
| tauster |
Posted - 31 Jan 2005 : 21:21:52
quote:
Originally posted by Steven Schend
Re: the idea of dragon eggs raining down upon the Realms.....
What if the Tears of Selune, while appearing to be bits of rock and stone, could at least in part be dragons' eggs?
Imagine the Cult of the Dragon spending millions of gp to sponsor spelljamming trips up to the Tears to harvest/find the eggs and bring them down?
steven, you´re not the first to link the cult of the dragons with spelljamming. 
here´s something that´s really a "fun story":
http://spelljammer.org/contests/localchapters/CultOfDragon-Realmspace.html
The Monarch Reborn has a long-term goal is find a place safe from adventurers. He is scouting Garden as a potential lair. That lair will be protected by a whole armada of ships loyal to him, guaranteeing his eternal survival. Once his safety is assured, the dragon will plunder the sphere of its wealth.
...some small changes, inspired by your speculations about selunes tears:
why garden? it´s quite far from toril! why not one of selune´s tears? seems to be an ideal dragons lair to me, at least for a dragon capable of spelljamming: it´s out of reach of most adventurers and all of toril is within a few minutes reach for dretchroyaster.
...we know that the asteroids of selunes tears are ideal bases ever since "undermountain - stardock"!
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| Steven Schend |
Posted - 31 Jan 2005 : 20:34:42
Re: the idea of dragon eggs raining down upon the Realms.....
What if the Tears of Selune, while appearing to be bits of rock and stone, could at least in part be dragons' eggs?
Imagine the Cult of the Dragon spending millions of gp to sponsor spelljamming trips up to the Tears to harvest/find the eggs and bring them down?
Another option is to have someone of great power cast an epic spell that pulls all the Tears away from Selune and down to the Realms; he thinks he can control it but they get away from him, raining death upon far more than his intended targets of Thay or the Moonsea powers. Worse yet, the heat of re-entry revives/births a few new types of dragons that have not been seen on Toril since the Crown Wars, when elven High Magic imprisoned the great dragons in the sky...
Golly, it's scary what comes out of my head after five years of not having to worry about Realms IP continuity, balance, or fallout.
Granted, it's a fun story idea, but not one I'd be happy to unleash officially (or if I did in a campaign, it'd be a raucous and crazy end-of-campaign adventure, only to have your characters wake up and swear off ever having Mother Tathlorn's Spiced Eel Fricassee before bedtime again....) |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 31 Jan 2005 : 08:48:38
I am very partial (as is Realmslore above) to the story in Giantcraft that dragons fell from the sky as eggs, which started hatching around the time of the founding of Ostoria. I do not feel, however, that this means that dragons are not native. They could still be native born.
The timeline would go something like this: Annam interlopes from another Crystal Sphere. He marries the Faerunian demigoddess Othea and sires the progenitors of the branches of the giant race. This presumably takes a number of years if not perhaps centuries.
When the last of Annam's terrestrial children came of age Annam founded the kingdom that would later come to be known as Ostoria in their honor.
About this time dragon eggs rained down on Toril as meteors, and giants started noticing the little hatchlings hither and yon.
It was only centuries later that the full grown dragons began to pose a threat to the giants. A war errupted that lasted over a thousand years. Finally the war was ended by a truce, however the giant kingdom of Ostoria was much reduced in size from its days of grandeur by the time the truce was in effect.
Now as to whether dragons are native or interlopers, I think they can still be native to Toril even if they rained down from the sky in eggs. I think it is possible they were created by their gods, or perhaps birthed by a mother dragon deity within Toril's crystal sphere.
The raining down from the sky is just part of their origin myth. This comports with both the giant myths from Giantcraft, and the dragon myth from Draconomicon that dragons rained down from the sky as droplets of blood spilled from Asgorath who had pierced herself (himself?) on the shards of the Sun.
I think it possible that the god of origin might be either:
a) an interloper deity, perhaps Io or Asgorath (or Asgorath might actually be Io under a different name) who arrived within Realmspace and mated with either the Sun god (going with the myth in Draconomicon) or the World Serpent, or a fragment thereof (M'daess perhaps?) or
b) Asgorath may not have interloped but rather was a fragment of the World Serpent himself.
How to explain the metallics and the chromatics? Well, if Asgorath mated with the Sun and spawned chromatic dragon eggs (or perhaps warred with the Sun, and pierced by shards of the sun, Asgorath's blood rained down forming dragon eggs) then--for the sake of symmetry--maybe Asgorath in turn mated with Selune, goddess of the moon, giving birth to Lendys & Tamara who spawned the race of metallic dragons.
Or perhaps a stricter interpretation of the Draconomicon myth is that out of Asgorath's first chromatic brood there was born a renegade platinum colored dragon named Bahmat (Bahamut, or Xymor?) who mated with Asgorath or pulled a shard of the sun from her flesh and drew his own blood to spawn the metallics.
Alternatively if dragons were spawned by a pairing of Io/Asgorath with the World Serpent or it's fragments, I could see a Merrshaulk/Asgorath pairing resulting in a rain of chromatic dragon eggs, and a M'daess/Asgorath pairing as spawining the metallics.
Lastly, George, if you are right that the Sarrukh actually created dragons--rather than them being created or spawned by dragon gods--then it is possible that the World Serpent fragmented into Asgorath to service the religious needs of dragonkind.
I don't know how to reconcile 2E & 3E dragon pantheon lore, except to speculate that some of the dragon deities have died or nearly faded to oblivion from lack of worship. Or that Tiamat (or Null, or Hlal, or Task) took some of the others out during the time of troubles or afterwards.
We know there was definitely some of that going on during the TOT. For instance Cult of the Dragon mentions that Kalzareinad got bumped off during the TOT, presumably by Kereska who assumed his portfolio. However it is unclear what in turn happened to Kereska after that. But it is very probable the dragon gods did some of their own culling of the pantheon.
Lastly, I don't think we should forget the gem dragons. I would hate to see Sardior and his bunch get short shrift and be left out of this discussion.
In conclusion, I favor the dragon eggs falling from the sky theory, although the parentage of the dragon eggs can only be speculative. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 31 Jan 2005 : 06:03:36
My theories... My theories of draconic origins... From the mouth of this humble gnomish sage...  .
As it is, I'm getting to it. I want to check my mental facts first, before composing my response entirely. I'm doing a lot of this at work, so I don't have any FR tomes to draw on at the moment. You've presented a number of disparate historical threads here, so I want to ensure that I have all my facts... RIGHT!
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| George Krashos |
Posted - 31 Jan 2005 : 04:42:24
Considering that input on this topic has died a swift-ish death, I'm resurrecting it as I want to hear the Sage's theories on this topic. Bring it on Sage!
-- George Krashos
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| Durak |
Posted - 25 Jan 2005 : 16:33:57
If we take it that Dragons are not a Creator Race, and are not from another realm. But are from Toril and were created. And why there are two types.
Stole this from another post.
a) Sarrukh
b) Fey.
c) Batrachi (amphibious)
d) Aearee (avian)
e) Humans.
People think the Sarrukh were their creators, I think based on them being Lizard like in appearance.
But I think its more likely the Batrachi, the remaining ruminants of their civilisation are the Doggleganger, (a fantastic spy) and locathah a race with no natural attacks. To fight their war, they must have created some form of warrior. Dragons are more warm blooded than cold. And I have never heard of a dragon drowning.
I think that there was only one Dragon type created. Most likely a limited number. And all were magical contracts of nature. With high intelligence, emotions and a wiliness to obey.
Somehow I think these dragons were magically compulsed to one primary emotional nature and this also to one habitat. The result of this two factors caused overtime the colour of the beast to become what it is now.
Gold being mountains and loyalty, Red being mountains and Rage.
It was a good theory till you looked at Dragons breathe weapons. That I can’t explain.
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| Durak |
Posted - 25 Jan 2005 : 16:30:04
Grr, Unspellchecked version |
| Brian R. James |
Posted - 25 Jan 2005 : 14:24:26
In my humble opinion, the true origin of dragonkind in Faerûn is described in Giantkind, p.7. In that sourcebook it is described how large eggs began raining down upon Toril from the heavens. Soon dragons started hatching all across the globe.
Many dismiss this tale as mere myth. I see no reason why the giants would invent so fantastic a tale, for they do not benefit from its telling.
On a personal note, oh how my imagination was sparked the day I first read that passage. Dragon eggs raining down from the skies. What an epic scene, amazing to behold!
As such, dragons did not evolve on Toril nor are they a Creator Race. Furthermore, the creation theory fails to explain the similarities between dragons of Faerûn and strikingly similar dragons from other worlds (Oerth, Krynn, etc...)
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| The Sage |
Posted - 25 Jan 2005 : 13:46:58
I do have a few thoughts on this, but I wish to read the responses of more scribes before I posit any theories of my own...
quote:
Originally posted by Dargoth
On top of this where all the Planar Dragons evil as well? and what about Bahamut and the other good dragon gods how could they exist of they had no worshipers unless they where also evil....
Without going into too much detail, I can tell you that this was not always the case, and is also, not entirely true. Needless to say, there are non-FR explanations that lend some evidence to why the good-aligned planar dragons could and do exist. However, I do not wish to draw those threads into this potentially fascinating discussion on the dragons of Faerun.
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| Dargoth |
Posted - 25 Jan 2005 : 12:01:33
What I find interesting is the fact all Dragons where once evil both Metalics and Chromatics, how did the metalics become good and how come the split was on racial lines, how come no Red, Blue, Green, Black, Whites saw the errors of their ways and became benevolent and how come no Gold, Silver, Bronze, Cooper or Brass remained evil?
On top of this where all the Planar Dragons evil as well? and what about Bahamut and the other good dragon gods how could they exist of they had no worshipers unless they where also evil.... |
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