This is, I think, the God Learner account of the emperors: they equated the first few with solar/sky deities, and inferred that Daruda had co-opted his magic from Dragon hsunchen. (Parts of this have some explanatory power, and parts of it are almost certainly distortions or gross misunderstandings.)
The Kralori account, however, is that the first two emperors were dragons, of immense scale (owch, pun accidental, honest!), and the next two were lesser, non-draconic beings. (One might compare with the 'draconic devolution' cosmology in the Elder Secrets article on dragonkind.) Daruda later re-establishes this tradition, unifying a whole host of fragmentary traditions that had survived to his day. (Big HQ, as it were.)
I shan't dwell on the relative Truths of these accounts; to confuse matters further, there's also the Vithelan version, which differs from either. (Bits and bobs of this have been popping up on Greg's Myth of the Month spot, on the Official Site.)
> And I read somewhere emperor Shavaya enthroned both before
> Daruda, first dragon emperor, and after Dawning. Why was he called =
dragon
> emperor? If it is my mismemory, what is the connection of the three?Is =
there
> my unknown setting-up?
Shavaya is Daruda's predecessor, and is indeed not a dragon, but a
human sage. There's a little bit about Shavaya (though conspicuously,
not about Daruda...) in Greg's and my article in the New Ye Olde Book
of Tentacles (plug-plug -- though it's not like I'm getting royalties =
<g>).
Both predate the 'Dawn' by a long way, though note that the Kralori
don't even recognise that the Dawn (or Darkness) ever occurred.
Hrm, should really get that FAQ organised...
Cheers,
Alex.
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #24
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