Alex:
> Sounds even ruder! *smirk, smirk...*
Now where do those dirty thoughts originate?
Given the lack of any obvious sexual organs in the depictions 'newts, this means stick the head into their mouths.
>> - 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.
Any other suggestions?
> 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.
Allegedly, they do dream of matings - cf wyverns.
>> - 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.
The EWF "activated" dragons the other way round, though - combining the multitude of individuals into one huge dragon. (Though why anybody should choose the Dara Happans for brain eludes me. Lot's of unused capacity?)
>> 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?
Yes - this both solves the size problem and points to why this is a flawed means of maintaining the race.
> (Not to be read as a direct
> accusation that you're a whacked-out draconic philosopher, mind...)
So it is an indirect one? ;-)
>> 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.
The manifest world would be to the 'newt egg what our dreams are to ourselves. A paradoxical place where our subconscious plays out possibilities, deciding what impressions to keep and which to discard.
> 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.
Apparently their spiritual development requires them to roll in the dirty illusion/dream of the material world.
> 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...
A crude working model is all this aims at.
>> 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.
Fine. Do you agree with them, or is it just that you can't refute them?
>> 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.
Thought so.
What about the rest (mating flights, and pteranodons)?
>> 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!
>From a letter to the mandarin:
"I regret to have to inform you that the introspections of faulty mind-sets in this province have eaten half the rice harvest, sat on five villages, have broken twelve bridges, flattened one town wall and the barracks of the local detachment of the army along with its residents. I humbly request an imperial sage to refute these incidents, so that punctual tax payment can continue."
Whacked out,
Joerg
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #552
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