Darudism

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_bigfoot.com>
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 01:13:09 +1300


David Cake:

Me>>Is there a reason that you ignore the emperor and his exarchs and
>>generals, (all of whom are dragons in their own right)?

> Well, if you take the Kraloris word for it. As they don't turn into
>physical dragons, and we have only their word for it that they have dragons
>souls, that would seem to make it somewhat open to question.

Why _should_ we doubt the Kralori's word for it? After all, I don't doubt that what the Lunars, the Malkioni or the Orlanthi say about themselves.

>>Given that [Daruda] is depicted as "a human with the head, tail and
>>wings of a dragon" and

> Yeah, and for a while Moses was depicted with horns due to a
>mistranslation. It was an awful long time ago, too. I admitted they had a
>strong draconic motif anyway.

Given that this actually started off when you claimed that Daruda didn't seem very draconic, I find this backpedalling to be rather tiresome. FWIW Moses's horns may not be a mistranslation.

>>The Five Dragon Warriors do not follow the Path of Immanent Mastery.
>>They are as Darudists as you can get.

> Well, as some of the Five Dragon Warriors are alleged to be able to
>turn into draconic form, that would make the whole debate rather moot
>wouldn't it? One wonders why no one said at the start 'Darudan draconism,
>yeah, those guys over there turn into dragon form every now and then and
>they are Darudists'.

Because you had the idea that the only dragon magic worthy of the name was actually turning into a dragon, thus those who don't look draconic aren't. Darudism/Draconism is a lot bigger than that.

> I'm still no closer to understanding what Darudism actually
>consists of, though. Its sort of draconic mysticism - except not mystic
>like the other mystics, and not draconic in a particularly obvious way
>(except the 5 Dragon Warriors), so what are we left with?

I can only refer you to "What the Dragon Emperor says" in Gods of Glorantha and the "Dragon Pantheon" article up on glorantha.com.

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