From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Thu 27 Jan 2000 - 20:55:35 EET
Dave Cake:
> The question is, being as they are obviously different, in which
> sense are they both draconic? Apart from the surface element of being
> concerned with dragons, there wouldn't seem to be an awful lot in common
> between, say, the EWF, the Inhuman King, and the Kralorelans.
In case of any discrepancy, it would of course be the EWF and Inhuman
Is what you're getting at, 'Is Kralorela draconic at all?'? (I'm
King who've got it wrong... OK, to be a tad more serious, I'm still not
sure what sort of answer you're looking for, but would it help, or merely
annoy, if I said they were all concerned with draconic self-transformation?
(Or draconic transformnation in a broader sense, in some cases.)
presuming it's not the draconicness of the EWF, the 'newts, etc,
that you're questioning.)
> Especially as those aspects that are most obviously similar (eg POIM)
> are condemned as misunderstandings.
I'm not sure the EWF and the PoIM are terribly similar; but in any event,
the Kralori would hardly wholeheartedly endorse the EWF, either, and
the very error of the FDR is to ape the _obvious_, apparent aspects of
draconicism (let's grow wings and scales, yay!) while missing the
original point.
> After all, Dayzatar, Somash, and Cronisper are all somewhat
> concerned with things celestial. Kralorelan and dragonnewt draconism would
> appear to have about as much in common, outwardly.
There is sun/sky worship in Kralorela, but it's a different practice
from Kralorelan draconicism, which is notionally the 'dominant'
religion. (Though not numerically, in any sense other than the most
limited.)
> > Do you mean a difference in method, or in result?
> Yes.
The former, clearly; as to the latter, it's somewhat in the realms
of the unprovable as to whether they're _identical_ in some deep
sense, and on the level of the mutual abuse between Scholar Wyrm and
the Kralori in Elder Secrets... Are the Dragon Emperors _really_
dragons, or are they just tripped out flakey mystics? ("Hey, what
do you mean, 'just'!?") Certainly Darudans (as distinction from
the PoIM) _can_ manifest in draconic form, though this is regarded
as showy, crude, ostentatious, and fraught with spiritual dangers (the
PoIM being a handy cautionary tale for this), and is only really popular
in places like the army. ("Meditate on _this_, pal!")
[Semper draco]
> Indeed. I find this explanation, Peters clever rationalisations,
> engaging but unconvincing - I believe it may well be what modern
> Kralorelans claim, but that doesn't mean I believe it.
My main interest is in Kralorela as it appears to the Kralorelans.
Working beckwards from how it may have appeared to the God Learners, or
on the basis of some other external theory, and then retrofitting how
the Kralori have misunderstood their own history seems a less than ideal
methodology if it necessities such conclusions (or assumptions) as 'The
Kralori believe TarnGatHa to have been the Grand Ancestral Dragon, but
they are, of course, completely wrong'. (They're also _not_ wrong in
such beliefs, though that's almost a secondary consideration, and I
doubt I'll convince anyone merely by saying so.)
> I'm fairly sure the Hsunchen have been there (meaning somewhere to
> the East of the Wastes - not necessarily central Kralorela) since the mid
> Green age,being one of the original Genertelan Hsunchen groups. As we have
> no real idea of anything that happened before the late green age, they
> might as well have been there forever.
Well, the New-Fangled GL Theory, of course (which in certain quarters
is disputed to be 'merely a theory', but rather Objective Greg-Sez
Truth) is that they'd have arrived there sometime in the 'Late Gods
Cycle' (sometimes equated with the (latter part of) the Lesser Darkness/
Storm Age/God's War), and were originally strictly from the South
Quadrant. The whole area east of the ShanShan's has been notionally
'eastern' for much 'longer' than that, though in Vithelan mythology
I'm sure the site of modern Kralorela was regarded as an unimportant
western backwater up till much later. (Like say, until it was a
separate continent...)
I hasten to add _I'm_ not endorsing this as uniquely, objectively true
either, but if we're going to take evidence from a range of different,
a-cultural sources...
> Neighbours for a very long time. I also think that some cultural
> assimilation has occurred - I believe that there are citizens of Kralorela
> who are descended from Hsunchen and remember some aspects of the old ways.
That's very possible, dare I say likely. (Peter also gave some reasons
why this might be so, whether or not this would be the first/only such
cases.) I don't believe this rises to the level of 'scratch a martial
artist, find a hsunchen', though.
[monks with claws]
> One of the problems with trying to work out anything about these
> Eastern cultures is that you can always find someone to deny just about
> anything ever said about them.
I'm not a fan of revisionism for revisionism's sake, but are you saying
I should regard a throwaway reference in a draft, not-for-public-
consumption document as unalterable in every respect? Bear in mind
we also have a distinctly bipedal Centipede Master and a wing-free
Dragon Stylist in a rather more widely-available (if OOP) source.
Cheers,
Alex.
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