That was my feeling too, and justifiedly or not, my initial impression from G:G was that it wasn't so much a one-cult organisation, as a matter of: You supply draconic transformations and summonings, we supply job. I also pictured some sort of expectation that you could embody at least five _different_ dragons, though the GoG rules don't really capture such things.
I think I recall comments from Sandy to the effect that Poimers could become 5DW, and from Greg that there were (also?) other methods, so scope for some Argumentum Ab Dei Creator either way.
To which Peter M. commented:
> I don't think so. It is a bit too easy to become a 'Dragon' via
> Immanent Mastery and the resulting Dragon is no tougher than a
> Winged Dragonewt.
This is something of a self-correcting objection; it suggests to me that the Five Dragon Warriors don't just need to sprout a tail and some knobbly bits, they need to conform to ISO-3201-DRGN, the official Exarch Dragonyness Standard. (Meaning, _lots_ of Poim magic, if you choose that route.)
I wonder what the entrance exam of the 5DW is like? Perhaps it includes a certain element of Destructive Testing.
"Honourable Candidate, please stand on the dias."
"Here, Revered Examining Exarch?"
"Exemplary. And if you would grant me the privilege, your First Transformation, Esteemed Applicant."
<strain, groan, flutter>
<whispered aside> "Induction Committee, prepare Averniate Human 86."
PM:
> The ease of the Path is the main reason why
> the Mandarins call it False.
That, plus its disreputable origins, and its doubtless shockingly heterodox methods, and their appalling table manners.
SB:
> I think that there are some state run schools for the PoIM, developed
> in an attempt to moderate its worship. But Pete's idea of an underground
> network of PoIM is so good that I must accept it
I think that the PoIM is very much the sort of cult that would have any number of different "schools" or "traditions", each of which thinks the others are degenerate heretics/statist collaborators/wimps/motleylooking creatures with appalling scale texture/yadda-yadda, and will regularly engage in contests of transforming skill, debates of Spurious Mystic Logic, combat, politicking, and what-have-you. Any number of suspect martial arts flicks provide a precedent for this sort of nonsense. Whether or not any are actually directly _run_ by the imperial bureaucracy or not, it makes sense that some would be (relatively) respectable, and others Quite Beyond the Pale.
Slainte,
Alex.
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