Sounds even ruder! *smirk, smirk...*
> - What happens when mature dragons mate? How many are needed, how many
> eggs are produced, what happens to the eggs?
Beats the heck out of me. As you imply, doesn't sound like a good thing to be within the blast radius of... One might argue that the very act of mating was a sign of 'immaturity', i.e., not being an actual True Dragon.
> - Can dragons still procreate from self-dismemberment? Will the
> resulting dragons be able to reach the status of the parent, or are they
> permanently inferior?
Another toughie. I'd say, off the top of my head, that prevailing belief (i.e., if you could wring any sense out of EWF scholars, dragonewts, and Kralori mystics (and good luck with any of that nutty bunch, frankly), and there was any sort of consensus between them...) it might be along the lines of, the draconic consciousness has to continue to 'devolve' until it reaches a certain critical point of individuation (like a 'newt, or a human), and only at that point can it start to 'rebound'. Think 'Big Crunch', as it were.
> >> However, Sandy proposed that they have five sexes, one for each
> >> stage (including dragonet), and are thus able to breed. If so, I
> >> wonder which stage is capable of laying the egg large enough to
> >> hatch a warrior dragonewt.
>
> > Ooooh, that's *gotta* hurt... I wondered about this too, it does seem
> > a little odd. Perhaps the egg itself grows as the 'newt develops, or
> > some such thing. For the sake of argument, I'll propose that if this
> > does indeed happen, it's the warrior which is the 'oviparous sex'.
>
> Or this requires lots of "perfection of Body"-like dragonewt effects.
> Possibly all of them, hampering the involved dragons in their
> development. (This starts sounding like "the Brithini are getting
> babies"...)
You mean that they'd have to assume dragon form to some extent to do this? Interesting thought.
> >> Would it be correct to say that the individual 'newt only is
> >> the mobile manifestation of the developing egg, much like a
> >> dream dragon?
>
> > That sounds at any rate just the sort of thing whacked-out draconic
> > philosophers would say, at any rate. ;-)
>
> Actually, I was quite serious about this.
Did I doubt it for a moment? ;-) (Not to be read as a direct accusation that you're a whacked-out draconic philosopher, mind...)
> If the dragon's
> (sub)consciousness develops within the egg, and it is creating a
> permanent manifestation in the world of illusions (known as reality to
> humans and their ilk), this would explain many irrationalities.
But it doesn't really explain their purpose, or indeed why they'd have any purpose in the manifest world at all. If this were a strictly apt comparison, they'd be more like certain EI mystics, denying the material world wholesale, with their newtly manifestation just a spiritual error which the egg is striving not to improve, but to eliminate, as opposed to be anything much like Kralori draconic mysticism. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since any attempt to rationalise 'newt behavior, much less religious thinking, in terms of any human system, even as one as annoying bizarre as the Kralorelans', is really at best only likely to be a crude working model, or more likely an outright guess...
> An Inhuman King seems to have two effects:
>
> 1) It projects the aura wherein the 'newt cities avoid the worst
> entanglements of the world of illusions to the eggs.
>
> 2) If my suspicion about the "mother" being created from the collected
> 'newt effects, it contributes the highest set of draconic magics to the
> mother.
I can see the logic of those notions.
> Any draconic sexuality is likely to be eye-watering. Wyverns are said to
> be the emanations of draconic wet dreams. If so, flying appears to be an
> important part of 'newt or dragon sexuality, rapacious hunger another. I
> won't ponder the poisonous barbed tail right now, though...
I'm most grateful for that, at least.
> How dinosaur-ridden is Kralorela - do they have any at all, or does the
> benevolent presence of the empire correct these aberrations of weakness?
Naturally the latter; any brontosauri (have these been retconned in Glorantha, or just in RL? <g>) you perceive to have just sat on your house are obviously caused by a faulty mind-set on your part. Stop introspecting!
Cheers,
Alex.
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #548
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