Encyclopedia
Draconicus
(Translated and edited version of an article
by Dag Stålhandske, 1987)
Colour coding was
done by an ancient student of dragon knowledge ... or was it a
mad necromancer ...
The Lifestyle | Food habits | Mating and nąsh | Moral & Ethics | Language |
The Lifestyle of the Black Dragon (- not of Faerie Dragons, and certainly not of Gold Dragons)
In order to be able
to form any opinion about the behaviour of black dragons, one needs to know one
thing: the thoughts and feelings of dragons differ radically from any other beings.
Those who
study the black
dragon language soon realize that it is
harder than any other language - not because of hard grammar, richness of words or local differences,
but because many of its words can't be translated to any other language! One will simply have to
learn approximately one tenth of the words by defining the meaning of the word (which most often is
hard to do without using other words of the dragon language).
This is due
to the fact that the dragons perceive things quite differently from other beings. Therefore it can be
hard to explain the ways dragons think without having to use certain terms from
the dragon language. The most important term
of these is nąsh which can roughly (and
with loss of meaning) be translated to status, prestige or power.
None of those translations are really correct because nąsh can mean both power in
all its forms and status/prestige. In addition, nąsh doesn't depend on any
outside opinion about the dragon, it has more the character of self-esteem.
The foremost
ambition of a dragon is to increase his nąsh by becoming more
powerful, stronger and more cunning, and most of all by demonstrating these abilities through taalnąsha ~ "status
struggle" or "games of power".
Taal is nearly impossible to
translate properly too. However, it is usually defined as a kind
of battle that can be verbal or
physical, symbolic or real, between two or more beings where each
victory for the one is a direct defeat for the other, and vice
versa. This means that chess is taalnąsha, but archery is not, because in archery you partly compete
against yourself.
Even when a dragon isn't involved in
(physical) battle with a being, he still
plays taalnąsha with it, constantly
trying to surpass it regarding nąsh by forms of cunning,
power and strength, in order to enhance his own nąsh (prestige or
self-esteem).
Because dragons constantly play taalnąsha they have difficulties
forming alliances - they see their allies as competitors. This is
also why they are so distinguishingly individualistic. One of the most
important differences between dragons and humanoids is that dragons view all other creatures as enemies or
competitors who must be exterminated or exploited. Cooperation is, at best, a necessary
evil.
The Nąsh-thinking also
predominates other aspects of the dragon's way of life. A dragon's thoughts are so
permeated with nąsh that one often can answer the question
"why does the dragon do that?" with "it depends on nąsh". Not even death
can make a dragon completely give up his nąsh by submitting to someone
else's will. The dragon is much more willing to die rather than lose his nąsh. The dragon's fondness of gathering
treasures also depends on nąsh. It may seem incomprehensible why dragons risk their seemingly
immortal lives in order to gather huge hoards of treasure just to
lie and sleep on top of it afterwards. Many of the wise have
persisted that the dragons must have some practical benefit of his
treasures, and therefore it was assumed that valuables affected a
dragon's psyche in a way as to
making his dreams become more satisfying. Because the humanoid
wisemen (humans, dwarves, the occasional goblin shaman) were too stuck in their
own way of thinking, this theory lasted far after the Masters of Dragons had begun to spread the
knowledge of dragons. Actually treasures and
valuables serve as trophees and improve the nąsh of the dragon.
Food habits
Even a dragon's eating is influenced by nąsh. One would believe that
these seemingly voracious beasts who appear to eat everything
straight off (for example they can eat a knight in armour),
hardly can have anything like culinary arts. One couldn't be more mistaken!
A dragon eats surprisingly
little, especially if you consider that a dragon grows his whole
life, and that he can fly. The explanation for this is that the
largest animals generally have the least
metabolism compared to their
weight, that dragons seldom move and that
they have hydrogen bladders in their bodies allowing them to fly. Furthermore
they are cold blooded. The metabolism of a dragon is based on sulphuric acid and the digestion also produces hydrogen gas for flight and fire breath.
Dragons have a rather
complicated culinary art. According to prąshu (which roughly can be
translated to "law of nature: to eat or be eaten"), it is the
ultimate evidence of victory to eat one's enemy. This makes it highly satisfying for a dragon (i.e improves his nąsh) to eat a famous hero, but the favourite dish
is of course the most powerful creature of the universe - another
dragon. There are numerous
tales about rąkhna ("territorial
conflicts") between dragons where the victor has eaten his dead enemy.
The reader
might interject that dragons are famous of having a special taste for young humanoid women. Generally young humanoid women aren't powerful heroes which would increase the
nąsh of the dragon if eaten. Why is that?
Are the rumours false? - No the rumours speak the truth in this
case. The solution of that paradox is answered in the next chapter.
Mating and nąsh
The
observant reader may have noticed that the black dragons have been spoken about
using masculin pronouns. This is not
without reason; normally all black dragons are males. 2-4 times in a black dragon's life, when he's between
800-4000 years old, he goes through a female phase of his life. This
phase is called khčmren. The female then seeks a male with strong nąsh and mates with him. The eggs are laid about two years
after the mating and are hatched after an additional 5-12 years.
The female stays with the male for 10 years after the eggs have hatched, then she
returns from where she came and falls into a one-year sleep.
During this sleep the khčmren ceases and the dragon represses and forgets
what happened. This is because the female part of mating is associated with
submission and that is irreconcilable with nąsh. A female therefore lacks nąsh and nąsh-thinking. A dragon will never admit that he
is a mother of dragonlings, even if he knows it deep inside. If a
dragon would be disturbed
during his one-year sleep after khčmren there's a risk that the
memory of what happened is intact and in that case the ex-female dragon will try to kill his
dragonlings in order to restore his nąsh. In a similar fashion,
it is a confirmation of nąsh to be the father of dragons - the female did seek the dragon who had a strong nąsh.
Therefore Nillinia the Wise, the second Dragon
Mistress,
claimed that nąsh was primarily a mating
behaviour to attract females. The male takes good care of his hatchlings as long as they
stay with him. This is because the nąsh of a dragon is confirmed by
dragonlings and females, and he would definitely lose it if they were to
be harmed.The dragonlings usually leave their father when they
are 200-400 years old. On the other hand, it is of course
beneficial for his nąsh if he could kill and eat another
creature's offspring and especially female. This is why dragons like to eat humanoid women.
Despite this
fact, it is still much easier for a woman to become a Dragon Mistress than for a man to become
a Dragon
Master. Females lack nąsh and thereby do dragons not play taalnąsha with them. A woman (Dragon Mistress) can even make a dragon submit to her wishes. A
male Dragon
Master on
the other hand constantly has to play taalnąsha with dragons and has to put into
account that every dragon would be very interested in eating him (to
increase nąsh). A Dragon Mistress is not interesting to
kill and if she isn't fertile or if she's sworn to celibacy then
a dragon can gain absolutely
nothing (no nąsh) by killing her. Nillinia the Wise was convinced that all
coming Dragon
Masters
would be Dragon
Mistresses.
Moral and Ethics of Black Dragons
We have seen
that nąsh governs many things in a
draon's behaviour. With this strict nąsh-thinking, how is it that
they totally seem to lack honour, honesty and conciousness? They
break the holiest of promises without hesitation, they always lie when it is profitable to do so, they only show
mercy when they can gain something from it and are delighted to
use cunning and betrayal.
The first Dragon Masters considered dragons to be immoral creatures.
This is misguiding. In reality black dragons are completely amoral. They lack terms of
right and wrong, good and evil. It is impossible to express moral
condemnation in the black dragon language. A dragon only knows the right of the strong - to him there
is no other. He completely lacks compassion. However, a dragon thinks it is better to
kill an enemy with cunning and betrayal than in common battle, humanoids aren't hard to defeat in
battle for a dragon. The subtle power, dčnhlinąsh (intelligence, certain
magic, power of will and persuasiveness), is therefore a more
satisfying way than krąshnąsh (the thing human knights call honourable battle) to
defeat an opponent. On the other hand, the dragon will use common raw
violence if he's on the losing end of a dčnhlinąsh battle.
If you call
a dragon a big lier he would
interpret that as if he is a convincing lier and will take it as
a compliment! To call a dragon a terrible monster and such is also considered a
compliment to a dragon. A golden dragon would satisfy her/his nąsh by being wise, good and
enlightened. Golden
dragons are
often opposites of the black dragons and if they would meet it would end in conflict.
Dragon language
The dragon language is fabled of its magical nature and its powerful magical words. It is especially suited
for releasing magic and it is not known why, but it is probably not a
coincidence. There is a kind of magic in the language itself. The most famous
example is preshtaana (true depiction
of reality). If you use a preshtaana word followed by a number in for example a question,
then the answer must be spoken true for the indicated number of
sentences (in dragon language). However, this is one of the dragon's favourite tricks. They
are extremely ingenious in finding ways to circumvent preshtaana. They can manipulate the
structure of the sentence and they only need to speak the literal
truth and they need not speak the whole truth.
Example: "I am busy right
now, but I can be done already today, and as soon as I am
finished I will do my utmost to help you."
The dragon was busy breathing and
when he stopped doing that (i.e when he was dead) he would help
the person spoken to.
If you would
ask what he was busy doing he would simply say "many
things" (e.g. breathing and playing taalnąsha with you if you are a male).
There are
also words that can limit the
speakers' actions and these words could be useful when negotiating in dragon language. However you need to be
an expert in dragon language to be able to use them
properly. Some legends talk of the existence of a "the true
name" of each being which can be expressed in dragon language and would grant complete
power over the creature, should one know it and invoke it
properly - preshashn. This is only an
unconfirmed legend though.