I think you are missing the point about the draconic experience, the direct contact/confrontation/integration with the Ultimate. Kapertine is not a hell, but a realm exposed to the Ultimate in a soul-eroding way. Having gone there resulted in Ingolf's draconic magic. Not having gone any further resulted in them being "one-use magics" lost after application.
> Firstly, draconic magic is not mysticism.
I agree about dragonewt magical effects and Immanent Mastery-like adoption of draconic appearance and physical abilities.
> The Dragonewts of Dragon Pass use dragon magic towards a mystical
> end but I doubt that the Wyrms, the Dragonewts of Teleos or
> Ormsland are so inclined.
At least one wyrm (the one from the dragonewt caravan cameo) was thus inclined.
> There may be costs to not pursuing the mystical path,
To dragonewts: sure.
I believe that wyrms may choose not to follow the draconic path without losing any more draconic self than they have lost due to their racial "birth defect" anyway. They may choose to pursue some other way to achieve a more draconic status, and a Wyrm Immanent Master might be an interesting individual.
> but I do not believe that not pursuing the mystical path turns
> you into a dinosaur.
The dinosaur dilemma is one of unprepared rebirth leaving the scout stage. It doesn't seem to apply to dragonewt colonies without an Inhuman King/Dragonet, probably mostly because those colonies have some difficulties achieving rebirth.
> Most barbarian 'newts will just hit a wall.
Dragonewts hitting a wall in non-barbarian colonies will perform utuma at such a point.
> So turning to the EWF, I prefer the position of the Dragon who said:
> The fault of the Empire was not in the misue (sic) of its power
> but in misunderstanding it
> Dragon Pass Rulebook p29
That's not too far from my position. Note that the dragon seems to imply that the EWF did misuse its power.
> On the subject of failures, it only said that Ingolf failed and
> that neither Burin or Jagaran became True Dragons as Obduran had.
History of the Heortling Peoples mentions the proponents of the faster way, especially Isgangdrang. Ingolf is a proponent of the older way.
> Now there's more to the leadership of the EWF than just those
> three. There was the Dragon Sun who reappeared after his
> assassination at the Dragonkill War, Isangdrang, Lorenkartagan.
> That neither Burin or Jagaran became True Dragons doesn't mean
> that no other leader or member of the EWF did.
Since you discount anything Greg doesn't explicitely put into writing, I'm reduced to making the statement that there is no source stating that any of these did become a True Dragon.
I'll accept that EWF members managed to become some kind of draconic creature capable of heeding the summons to the Dragonkill. Whether these were True Dragons capable of facing the Void or the Ultimate, absolute masters of all the magics around themselves, remains a different question.
The EWF era texts mention that IsgangDrang was a Great Dragon - a creature whose physical appearance was all you would expect in a True Dragon, not the ancestral variant. I think that Lorenkartagan, Sun Dragon, and probably even Burin fell into this variety. Possibly this variety was created by the deviation from the mystical development path of Obduran and Ingolf, and possibly it had teachings in common with the Immanent Mastery school (though not necessarily to the degree the Mongoose publications indicated).
> So what were Jagaran or Burin up to? I agree that the statement
> they did not become True Dragons implies they did not seek the
> mystical goal. But this does not mean they are failed mystics.
The mystical goal being the mastery of the (way to the) Ultimate, the full existance of the True Dragon.
I'm not quite certain why Obduran chose to perform utuma after his flight as True Dragon rather than remain in his draconic identity. Perhaps he was on the mystical fast track, after all his becoming a dragon was performed in record time, too.
> They could have easily been boddhisvattvas following the example
> of the Inhuman King.
That's where my theory insists that bodhisatva has to have reached the full enlightenment/draconic existence before being able to use its powers for his people. Ingolf didn't, and that's why using those powers crippled his development, until he shed it all and started anew.
> That the Inhuman King later decided to have the EWF done in
> does not require that he considers them mystical failures,
I agree that that probably was not the reason he put them down.
IMO it was their mismanagement of the Dragon Dream, which in itself is an emanation of a being or community that has achieved full dragonhood, and which is what shapes that being's surroundings into a dream-like, magical and sometimes irrational landscape - like the dragonewt cities of Dragon's Eye in the Third Age, like all of Dragon Pass during the EWF.
My main disagreement with you seems to be that I insist that full dragonhood implies having succeeded at everything on the (or a) mystical path of the dragon.
> he could have decided that the damage they were causing to the
> World Dragon outweighed any advantage the success of their
> project would bring.
Yes - that's what I believe happened.
>>> Not so. What it says was there was a schism between two draconic >>> powers (those who accepted Godunya's teachings and those who >>> rejected them) and that a true dragon came along and devoured the >>> rejectors. >> That's a compression of events (the assisted "utuma" of 1042 >> and the Dragonkill of 1120, both in a far away and insignificant>> country) in a similar way as the Sword Story is a compression of >> the slaying of Yelm and the Lightbringers' Quest.
> You don't have the uncompressed sequence of events and a split in
> the EWF followed by the complete destruction of one fits neither
> the utuma of 1042 or the Dragonkill but the murders of 976 ST which
> Ingolf fled (p52 History of the Heortling Peoples). The Godunya
> and Ingolf are on opposite sides of a philosophical debate that
> ends in bloodshed is a lot more interesting to me than both Godunya
> and Ingolf make the same objective assessment about the fallen
> nature of the EWF.
So on which side do you put Lorenkartagan in this debate? Isgangdrang had been retired by Alakoring, Sun Dragon by Karvanyar, so Lorenkartagan is the only named non-Obduranic EWF leader who you think may have become a True Dragon left at this time. He may have retreated into the puzzle canal, though.
> It should be possible for otherwise good gloranthans to draw
> differing conclusions about the same thing - having the EWF as a
> whole as an objective mystical failure removes that possibility
> and for what? Your theory doesn't require it.
My theory doesn't require the whole EWF as an objective mystical failure. Quite the opposite, I think it might have worked, but for the failure of understanding in the path chosen by Isgangdrang and his fellows.
I do think that Great Lord Burin and Isgangdrang used the same approach to draconic development.
We know that Isgangdrang started out the same as Ingolf, as a disciple of Obduran, but Isgangdrang deviated. Since Obduran and Ingolf clearly followed the mystical path, and one succeeded while the other squandered his advancement for entanglements, but started anew, we get the situation where a mystical student decides that his master's (proven) teachings are inferior to his own.
While I don't think that any mystic school (except perhaps Mashunasan's) works from a position of achieved Ultimate but from mystical trial and error, I see a strong possibility that Isgangdrang's change in doctrine may have been the crucial point in misunderstanding the powers of the EWF.
>>> That's quite different from the fall of the EWF. The >>> acceptors of Godunya's teachings cannot be the Dragonewts because >>> he's a human and they don't believe Kralori claims of being aided >>> by Dragons. >> The dragonewts have accepted that a human's path to true >> dragonhood cannot be through cycles of utuma and rebirth as>> with the newts. Anything Godunya has to teach to humans is >> unsuited for newts. No surprise here.
> Except here the Dragonewts are making the judgement that the
> Kralori are liars or deluded.
The dragonewts of Dragon's Eye, or those of Kralorela?
> You allow their judgment to be mistaken or faulty when it comes
> to Kralorela but in the similar case of the EWF, the judgment of
> the Dragonewts becomes a statement of gloranthan truth.
> That doesn't seem to me to be very convincing.
You yourself pointed out that dragonewt cultures differ. The eastern "civilized" dragonewts survived to the Dawn in a position (or path) of strength, the central Genertelan ones in weakness. This means that there are differences in their ways, too.
What do we know about dinosaurs in the Kralorelan newt areas? I don't recall any mentions of them. Possibly the dinosaur problem is related to the weakness of the western dragonewts.
> A schism between the two draconic powers grew
> confrontational until a true dragon was summoned,
> which promptly devoured the part of the council that
> rejected Godunya's teachings.
> Revealed Mythologies p83.
> The council is the ruling council of Hemkarba.
aka EWF.
> The other
> draconic power are the people who accepted Godunya's teachings.
> It seems that some members of the Council were persuaded before
> the True Dragon was summoned.
This needn't have been about individual access to dragonhood, but more likely about the management of the draconic energies that made the EWF apart from the rest of the world (much like the Glowline does for most of the Lunar Empire).
> This can be worked into the following theory. Originally the
> Council stood alongside the Inhuman King in doctrine and practice.
> When Godunya appeared, the Council and the Inhuman King tried to
> kill him and suppress his teachings. As his teachings grew more
> popular, some members of the Council were persuaded while a True
> Dragon devoured the others in 976 ST. Among the dead was the
> Inhuman King.
To be sure what we are arguing: all of this is your theory, without any sources corroborating this (beyond the source you quoted above)?
> The New Inhuman King was still unreconciled to Godunya's
> teachings on the grounds they were for humans (and they could
> have even caused grave spiritual harm to the Dragonewts as per
> your theory) and decided to betray the Council in 1042 ST.
> Now this may or may not be the correct sequence of events (there
> is a further event in Ingolf's Saga which could refer the
> slaughter of the council rather than the murders of 976 ST), but
> it is still more interesting and nuanced that the theory that the
> EWF were mystical failures, both the Inhuman King and Godunya
> objectively recognized this fact and dealt to the EWF as was
> necessary).
Unfortunately, it appears that we won't see new products dealing with the Second Age from Moondesign. I won't lament over the (early) Mongoose edition treatment of the EWF, which picked up one idea (carving the huge dragon out of land and populace) and ignored most other source material, except that provided in the research for the God Learners. That project still gets quite short thrift, too.
In Dara Happa Stirs, the EWF activities have been updated to (most) names and events in Heortling Mythology, but other less obvious sources like the ones used in this discussion still fail to make an impact in the overall description of the EWF - it remains the bone-sung armored martial artists fighting the Machine city, and not a single mention of our friendly Aramite hero, either.
>>> then isn't the Kralori Empire flawed because the Dragonewts don't >>> believe their claims? >> Did the Kralori claim to have been taught by dragonewts? I >> don't think so, Daruda came up with a different concept. The >> (early, at least) EWF explicitely sought the teachings of >> friendly newts.
> And the later EWF according to Godunya accepted his teachings
> instead.
Let me repeat my impression what happened:
The short-cut school initiated by Isgangdrang and highlighted by Great Lord Burin and the Immanent Masters shared concepts - whether through exchange of teachings, or whether just in the nature of their goal of dragonhood, I cannot say, but I think that it also affected the overall effect that created the magical landscape that made the central EWF so draconic.
The God Learner presence in Kralorela harmed the magic of that land, regardless whether the Kralori dragonewts accept that this magic comes from True Dragons or rather through human mystics aping the dragons.
Godunya, who had a lot going against Shang-Hsa-mhnbc's spawn, stepped up to turn the course of the EWF away from that similarity.
Friendly Great Serpent gets summoned to judge over the dispute. FGS swallows the half of the council not siding with Godunya.
> If the Dragonewts betrayal of the EWF reflects the gloranthan
> fact they were mystical failures, then surely Kralorela should
> also be a mystical failure?
The dragonewts of Dragon Pass removed a cancer on their ecology by excising all human use of draconic powers, the healthy along with the infection. This was an amputation, and it came with a price to the dragonewts - eradication in Saird, and threat of extinction in Dragon Pass.
They did so because the leadership of the EWF had gone into directions which did not support or aid the dragonewts any more, unlike the earlier leadership's course had promised to do. The EWF obliterated by the assassination of 1042 was a parasite to the dragonewt's management of draconic energies, rather than a symbiote putting in human worship from all over central Genertela. The input from the local humans remaining true to the draconic worship did not balance what they took out.
> Or perhaps it's just better just to junk the concept of
> mystical failure in analysing the EWF and analyse it in terms of
> political power struggles.
There is nothing wrong with analysing the political and magical power struggles in the EWF. I think we agree that especially in the later EWF, after the outlying lands had been lost to the cause, included a lot of crackpot experiments.
On the side, lots of magical experiments had gone on under the umbrella of the EWF that were neither mystical nor draconic in nature - e.g. the experiments leading to Pavis, the stitched zoo (re-) creating the centaur race, or other strangeness.
I won't junk the concept that Isgangdrang's way was using mystical teachings, but deviated from the mystical goal. And that's pretty much what terms like "failed mystic" or "occluded" indicate.
>> Do you mean to say that the teachings of Shang-hsa-may-his-name-be-cursed are a valid path to dragonhood and only vilified by Godunya?
> According to the Elder Secrets Book:
> The strongest magic of the New Dragon's Ring grew more
> difficult for non-Kralori to invoke and then
> disappeared, leaving only their False Draconic powers manifest.
> p22 Elder Races Book
> It's difficult to read that passage without the premise that the
> New Dragon's Ring *had* true dragonic powers at some point but were
> magically outmaneveured by the conservative Mandarins.
The strongest magic being the control over the magical energies that define Kralorela in Daruda's way?
> Given that Mao Tzen's path was originally valid,
An originally valid mystical path, according to how I read the sources. Mao Tzen then deviated, and at some point failed to remain a mystic.
> I think that the Path of Immanent Mastery is valid Draconic Magic
Then what are the manifest False Draconic powers Elder Secrets tells us about? "Attain perfection of ..." transformative magics?
> but that very few of its practitioners have any inclination
> towards mysticism. As a result they are not failures, they
> just haven't even started.
So most users of Immanent Mastery are martial artists who go there for cool scales, fangs, and serpentine moves?
> Because of not-so ancient history, the other Sages show no mercy
> in slandering them left, right and centre.
I can see that, all right.
>>> But the text specifically says there "Ingolf squandered his powers >>> trying to help others" [History of the Heortling Peoples p51].
>> Yes. That's what he did wrong, straying from the path of mystical >> self-advancement where he would have been in a state where that >> wouldn't have damaged him (or he wouldn't care any more).
> I do not believe that using draconic powers to help others is an
> error
Looking at the dragonewts, it can be a crucial error to use draconic powers when the context (personal mystical advancement) is wrong, which is why many newts prefer to undergo a rebirth rather than save the day using their draconic achievements.
I think that Ingolf's school follows that model quite closely (but obviously lacks the rebirth ability of the newts). So, when Ingolf used magics that should have been used to further his development (in confrontations with Kapertine and similar experiences, which may very well manifest in circumstances that appear quite mundane to observers) outside of such moments, he crippled his development and gave up those draconic parts of his self.
> nor is it an error to use such powers before one has achieved the
> appropriate status (ie boddhisvattvahood).
It is not an error to use such powers as long as this furthers your development, or at least doesn't damage it. Morally, Ingolf was right in advocating the use of draconic powers for the benefit of others, and if he could have done it in non-self-mutilating ways, he would have been fine. His failure was that he used the powers when he knew it was wrong to use them.
> The Dragonewts do not behave in such a way, buddhist heroes do
> not behave in such a way and so I think Ingolf's flaw was not they
> he used his powers in such a way but that he squandered his
> draconic selves to act in such a way. In other
> words, he lost control when invoking his draconic powers.
Yes. Ingolf was not a bodhisatva and thus not able to control those powers, or to create a situation, mental state or magical environment where the use of those powers wouldn't have hurt him.
We also seem to agree that Isgangdrang managed to remove his displays of draconic powers from his self-advancement on the mystical path.
Only my impression that he did so by removing himself from the mystical path and thereby the path to True Dragonhood appears to be the core of this disagreement.
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