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.