Dragons
From Eran
To my elder brother Johand,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am deeply troubled by the news you bring of draconic activity near Lakehold. I must admit the scarcity of information you bring makes me question whether I can be of any assistance. Nonetheless, if you intend to seek out and parley with such a creature, any knowledge is better than none. I hope perhaps some of this will prove useful to you, one way or another.
The Dragons are among the oldest creatures in history. They are said to be one of the original Elder People who first ruled Theras. Although the dragons that inhabit the world today are largely different from the majestic beasts of lost ages, make no mistake that they are nonetheless among the most fearsome creatures in existence.
When mention is made of dragons, I imagine most people will conjure images of the legends that that has installed such a fearsome image of them in our collective minds. Of mighty Andra singlehandedly burning the proud city of Manér to the ground in a fancy of anger, or the great Pyretongue routing the armies of Brennèl in the Third Magewar. Take heed in this at least, for I doubt you are facing such a force. These monsters, forces of nature in their own right, are the last survivors from the ages before mankind was created - they are exactly now as they were then in the image of the elder gods, a testimony to the awesome eldrich forces that ravaged Theras before it was tamed. I know of only four such creatures alive today. I cannot imagine more than a dozen could possibly exist and even so, most of them are no doubt hidden away in the depths of the earth, sleeping their sleep of the ages until a time comes when they can again roam the skies unchallenged.
It seems however that since charge of this world was handed to the Young Gods, the offspring of these immortal elder people acquired the mortality of the new world order. Although they could still grow several thousand years old by natural means, the dragons that have been born since then have progressively come to know the meaning of age more with every generation. Furthermore, this later dragonkin has been subjected to change. The dragons that inhabit The Great Swamp, having little need of the fiery breath of their ancestors in such wetlands have instead developed a highly acidic spittle much like the snakes there. Others preferring the clouds to the ground fire sparkling lightning from their maws.
I would love to tell you ways of identifying these different kins but I can discern no uniform pattern in their diversity. They change colour and appearance over the years according to both personality and environment. One dragon may have scales of golden hue due its noble heart and another from having slept on a bed of riches for centuries. One may be pitchblack to reflect the darkness of its soul and another because it lives under the ground where no sunlight reaches. Such extremeties are rare however. Most seem to acquire shades and outlines on their scales to reflect their personality with the basic colour determined by their primary environment but alas there is no generic rule for this.
As for how you may fare trying to parlay with one of them, I am afraid my advice is equally ambiguous. Although they have a welldeserved reputation for being volatile creatures it is simply the volatile nature of a predator stalking its prey. Many care nothing for the affairs of human society and consider us little more than cattle for slaughter or, if lucky, shepherds of its cattle.
Dragons are intelligent creatures and many do realise that living close to settled lands will inevitably bring about at best unwanted confrontations and at worst deadly ones. As such, except for the rare ones who are fascinated by and drawn to human societies, most tend to stick to the wilderlands where they can roam freely. I am afraid that most who settle in human lands do so out of laziness as these tend to consider us easy and plentiful prey. The arrogance required to scoff at what threat we may pose to them often accompanies such sloth, so this is something for you to take into consideration if you mean to negotiate with it. I fear the best case scenario is that it is after all wise enough to simply require your cattle, and not see you as cattle!
Nonetheless, you will also find dragons of noble heart and contemplative spirit, so I will not say your mission is in vain. I myself once entered the lair of a dragon who had taken to raiding the local countryside in western Brennèl and managed to spare my life in return for servitude. After three weeks it released me and left the area - it turned out it had simply lived so distantly from huamsn all its life until then it had never considered them much more than a potential food source. Once I befriended it, it no longer wished to feast on thinking creatures as itself. Even so, beware. Many are fully aware of the workings of the human spirit and have no qualms about feasting on our flesh nonetheless.
Be that as it may, my advice to you would still be to seek it out and negotiate with it. If it is of the lazy kind who merely seeks easy prey, it will no doubt also be prideful. Mere flattery might appease it enough to spare your life, even if it considers such parlay no more than a trifling game and may end it on a whim. Though you may not succeed in negotiating peaceful co-existence, you may be able to observe long enough to discern its physical and mental traits so that you may devise a suitable tactic to drive it out later on. Perhaps if you write to me with more information after such a meeting, I shall be able to give advice more appropriate to your situation.
Yours truly,
Brother Daniel
This was written on the 13th day of autumnturn in the year 389 oED (of Elias' Dispensation - the 1396th year of the Brennae Calendar.
