HOMEWORLD: UNKNOWN

As their name suggests, dragons are large reptiles, often fitting the mythological stereotype with wings and fire-breathing capabilities. However, they come in a wide array of sizes, colors, features, and abilities – rarely are any two dragons entirely alike, even ones from the same brood.

All dragons, however, are gifted from birth with a unique soul, known as an ava. The ava functions as a physical part of the body, an organ that feeds through the bloodstream – a dragon’s soul is literally in their blood. Upon injury, any lifeblood that exits a dragon’s body congeals into crystalline form; upon death, the ava itself turns crystal. These shards hold the memories and personality of each dragon, and can be absorbed through the skin, integrating into another dragon. Ava shards are often passed down through a dragon’s descendents, giving rise to powerful family lines. Older and more powerful dragons often have crystalline growths and veritable armor from their overflowing avas. All of this gave rise to ancient legends about dragons having “crystal blood,” dragons eating crystals and gold, and the great treasure hoards that the beasts must have – all of which is of course false.

Female dragons are much rarer than male dragons, and as a result mating is not particularly frequent. However, their population growth holds fairly steady since most broods run around 15 eggs or more and dragons themselves are very long-lived (anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 years, sometimes more). Despite their greater intelligence and more “human” personalities, dragon matings are still much more primal, and there is no such thing as a dragon marriage; if there were, the species would never propagate fast enough. This is compensated by an instinct among the males to defend the females above all else, and to be fiercely loyal to them without the jealousy that would invade such an arrangement among humans.

There are also such things as dark dragons: beings that ignore their higher souls in favor of their base, beastlike instincts. These dragons are typically slain by their fellows or occasionally exiled. There are rumors of a dark dragon society somewhere in the Unknown, a pale imitation of the clans of their noble brethren, but if this is so then no survivors have ever been able to confirm its existence.

Dragon history is a bit of a peculiarity – though dragons live for thousands of years and have spectacular memories, this means they can recall events too far back to confirm with the historical record. This, combined with the innate fear and mistrust many have toward dragons, has given rise to the expressions “Scale’s tale” and “dragon’s dreck,” commonly used to describe tall tales or fictitious stories. According to the dragons, they were created by Dracomodrex, the first and greatest dragon. Originally there were two main subsets of dragons – the dragons of Sea and Sky (the Atlaantia) and dragons of Earth and Fire (the Saurscalos). The Saurscalos supposedly took after Dracomodrex’s fearsome image and physical strength while the Atlaantia retained more of his magical power and grace.

In the legends, the Saurscalos ruled the galaxy for millennia with an iron claw, but this hands-on approach to conflicts resulted in the weakening of their numbers and they took a more passive role. Simultaneously, a great cataclysm appears to have struck the Atlaantia, as their numbers simply disappear from the archaeological record. Dragons credit the Atlaantia with sacrificing themselves to seal away a great evil, but are scare on details like who, where, and when – a common problem when trying to unravel draconic legend. Dragons eventually migrated to Terra Nova, which they see as their spiritual center, and over the millennia have intermingled enough to render the designations of Saurscalos and Atlaantia irrelevant. (Peculiarly, the same trend occurred with the human races of Terrans, Elurians, and Terrellians, and centered around the same world as well.)

Dragons seem to have an innate sense about the world, a sixth sense that stems from their ava. They know, in nearly every situation, what is right and wrong, good and evil, and what choice to make. This is not to say that dragons are infallible. The best-laid plans can still go astray, and those that see farthest sometimes overlook what’s right at their feet. Emotions still come into play, especially among the more hot-blooded Saurscalos descendents. Dragons do have a sort of arrogance about them as well – this is due to their greater wisdom and power than most other races. While this often generates resentment against dragons, in the end the dragons are almost always right.

Dragons do not regard killing as an intrinsically evil action, but something to be used like a surgical tool. Just as one would cut out an infection or a cancerous growth, so too dragons cull that which is evil and corrupted from Aesgar. Thus they have no problem with assassination; in fact, they have been known to endorse it as an expedient solution. (Of course, dragons have little to fear from retaliatory assassination attempts.) Life is sacred to dragons, and they try to preserve it, but their emphasis is on life that is uncorrupted. Persons or races that have strayed into evil are no longer regarded on the same level. Dragons will not try to preserve life or peace at any cost – they often use violence or killing as a solution to a problem (not from shortsightedness, but because they know this will bring a definitive end). Dark dragons often take this a step further, killing indiscriminately and without a regard for the greater good.

A side effect of this stance is that, for dragons, altering life from its natural state or re-forming it to make it more species-centric is an even worse taboo than killing life. For example, dragons are generally opposed to terraforming and abhor cloning in all its forms. Dragons are all about living in harmony with life, not reforming it by force. When an ava is passed on, it is absorbed and becomes a seamless part of the inheritor, the personalities and experiences melding – not one overriding the other.

Dragon logic and morals, therefore, are somewhat utilitarian in nature. However, the apparent gruffness of their actions is mitigated by their greater knowledge and foresight. They always have their eye on the ultimate good and know that even evil actions will ultimately work for the good of all. It is not unheard of for dragons to occasionally order a seemingly heartless or even malevolent action, only to have their wisdom ultimately proven correct when a greater yet calamity is prevented. Dragon morals are often perverted by lesser beings who imagine their own foresight sufficient justification, and who inevitably bring ruin upon their decisions. Dragons, in fact, do not endorse dragon logic for application by anyone other than dragons. (This disclaimer accompanies most texts and lectures given in the required Terra Nova Academy philosophy course, “Decoding the Draconic.”)