A "Young" Dragonewt

[Leingod]

I seem to have the impression that it's been suggested if not stated somewhere - I might just be thinking of a thread here - that it's a matter of speculation whether any new Dragonewts have been born/created within Time. I think it was in the context of suggesting that, if there haven't, the ones around now must be the bad eggs who are taking longer? Anyway, page 108 of the Sartar Companion has a line that suggests that there actually have; it details an encounter with a group of Dragonewts led by a tailed priest called Lord Green Tongue, and says that his "first incarnation" was in 1450. So, not only are there new Dragonewts, at least one of them was able to reach the third stage of the Dragonewt spiritual journey/life cycle in "just" 170 years or so (assuming he only attained this stage recently).

That said, I'm aware there's stuff in the HQG line that's been superseded by newer stuff. Does anyone know of any reference elsewhere about the question of whether or not Dragonewts have been born within Time?

[Richard S.]

While it's generally been implied that the remaining dragonewts are the "bad" ones, I don't think it's ever been explicitly stated that there have never been new eggs. Personally, I think it could make for an interesting adventure seed, if the PCs come across an immature dragon egg (which will soon hatch into a dragonewt) and have to figure out what to do with it. New clutches of dragonewts could also serve as an origin for dragonewt PCs, removing the pressure of one player having eons of life more than the others.

[soltakss]

The EWF almost certainly produced new eggs.

I would guess that each time a new True dragon is created there exists the possibility of getting new clutches of eggs. 

The EWF created new True Dragons, as did the Dragonrise, so I would expect new Dragonewts to be created then.

 

[Richard S.]

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

The EWF almost certainly produced new eggs.

I would guess that each time a new True dragon is created there exists the possibility of getting new clutches of eggs. 

The EWF created new True Dragons, as did the Dragonrise, so I would expect new Dragonewts to be created then.

Since the Green Dragon reportedly only settled down around 1469 or so, it's possible that the aforementioned  Lord Green Tongue may have been laid by it if he was born in 1450. Maybe the 19 year gap is a little big, but time probably doesn't matter much to dragons.

[Akhôrahil]

It’s also possible that some very old eggs might hatch at times. We know there has been plenty of destruction of eggs, so they must be around, and will presumably hatch on occasion.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Leingod]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

It’s also possible that some very old eggs might hatch at times. We know there has been plenty of destruction of eggs, so they must be around, and will presumably hatch on occasion.

Well, IIRC Dragonewts don't exactly hatch out of an egg, or if they do the egg ends up repairing itself, because a Dragonewt re-hatches out of that same exact egg each time they die and come back. So the presence of eggs doesn't itself imply new Dragonewts, since even the oldest Dragonewt's egg is still intact back at home.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Leingod said:

Well, IIRC Dragonewts don't exactly hatch out of an egg, or if they do the egg ends up repairing itself, because a Dragonewt re-hatches out of that same exact egg each time they die and come back. So the presence of eggs doesn't itself imply new Dragonewts, since even the oldest Dragonewt's egg is still intact back at home.

If we don't get any new dragonewts, you have to wonder what kind of fuckups are still merely Crested after 1600+ years. 🙂

[Leingod]

49 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

If we don't get any new dragonewts, you have to wonder what kind of fuckups are still merely Crested after 1600+ years. 🙂

Well, as I mentioned with Lord Green Tongue, it appears new ones do appear within Time. I was just pointing out that the presence of eggs in themselves aren't really proof either way.

And if there are cases like that, at least part of the time I'd imagine it's a matter of the way the Dragonewt hierarchy and division of duties goes that some of them are going to get jobs heaped on them that make advancement difficult or a longer path. In that same encounter in the Sartar Companion, Lord Green Tongue and his entourage speak to the party solely through a crested dragonewt (called "Speaker to Lies") whose mouth has been mutilated to let him speak human languages. If the tailed priests and other higher-ranking Dragonewts are regularly shoving the jobs most likely to arrest your spiritual development onto lower-ranking members like him, it would make more sense that you'd have cases where it takes a long time to advance. Though it may be a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario where your punishment for not making enough progress is to get the duties that are more likely to threaten your progress.

EDIT: Plus, it could shed some new light on where the "mystical pyramid scheme" setup the EWF devolved into might have actually originated from. Maybe they didn't so much "stray from" the draconic path as they took to it a little too well, if you catch my meaning...

Edited December 27, 2020 by Leingod

[Eff]

I'm pretty sure the Guide and Dawn Age numbers for the Ryzel, Ralian, and Dragon Pass Dragonewts heavily imply that new Dragonewts have been born in Time, or else that something stranger is going on.

[Akhôrahil]

17 minutes ago, Leingod said:

Though it may be a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario where your punishment for not making enough progress is to get the duties that are more likely to threaten your progress.

There are probably limits to how hard the higher-ups can push these things - at some point becoming an intelligent magical dinosaur might not seem so bad in comparison... 🙂

Edited December 27, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[John Biles]

I would kind of expect some degree of egg laying after the Dragonkill.

Replacing any damage done by the anti-Dragon hordes.

[Richard S.]

56 minutes ago, John Biles said:

I would kind of expect some degree of egg laying after the Dragonkill.

Replacing any damage done by the anti-Dragon hordes.

While the dragons were definitely sad that so many dragonewts died, I don't think they'd willingly produce immature eggs. They'd be much more likely to lay true dragon eggs, I feel, replacing the dragons that could have been, rather than replacing the poor, stunted things that were born before they should have been. If any new dragonewts were born at the dragonrise, they would've been laid by former dragonewts who'd ascended quite recently, and somehow found the feasting ground of the dragonkill a good place to mate.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Richard S.

[Nick Brooke]

It's a credible reading that the dragonewt's first incarnation as tailed priest Lord Green Tongue was in 1450. After all, what's an incarnation? It had other bodies before. 

And we don't know how long it takes, or what stimuli are required, for an immature dragon egg to hatch. Think Game of Thrones?

[Stephen L]

8 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

you have to wonder what kind of fuckups are still merely Crested after 1600+ years

Perhaps a very human way of looking at it.  If it's the journey that counts, perhaps it's these that when they finally ascend to dragonhood, are the greatest of all.  Then the pyramid becomes inverted, and the inhuman king is the servant of those that follow.  Who knows with Dragonnewts?

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

Hi!

In an article in Codex (from the 90s), Sandy Petersen said that in his games, dragonewts don't increase experience during a life; only when they die and are reborn.  He also said that "Greg believes that many scout dragonewts have been scouts since the dawn.  No wonder the poor things get impatient and mutate themselves into monsters like brontosaurs.  However, Greg and I at one time concurred that dragonewts are capable of breeding.  They, of course, have five sexes so breeding is pretty slow (there only being one member of the fifth sex in all Dragon Pass)."

Thanks,

David.  

[Sir_Godspeed]

18 hours ago, Stephen L said:

Perhaps a very human way of looking at it.  If it's the journey that counts, perhaps it's these that when they finally ascend to dragonhood, are the greatest of all.  Then the pyramid becomes inverted, and the inhuman king is the servant of those that follow.  Who knows with Dragonnewts?

That's neat, I like it.

[Joerg]

Dragonewts emerge from dragon eggs resulting from immature dragons engaging in reproduction. There is one myth "blaming" a specific dragon taking the female role in numerous matings with other dragons around Glorantha, leaving clutches of eggs from which dragonewts would emerge.

Looking at the head count of dragonewts at the various known surviving populations, I cannot help but wonder how many eggs would be laid in the course or after such a mating. A dragonewt city has thousands of (nascent) individuals active, with the possibility of even more dragonewts between hatchings.

BUt then, maybe a pyramid scheme is required for draconic ascension of the top 'newts, a communal effort to channel draconic energies (aka draconic worship) to the rulers meditating to reach dragonhood. Something like this happened in the EWF when humans started to imitate dragonewts in order to become dragons.

 

As to eggs being damaged in a dragonewt hatching - this used to bother me, too. But then, a dragon's egg is already a future dragon meditating or sleeping, manifesting an entity able to interact with its surroundings. I have come to believe that that is what dragonewts really are - a mobile avatar of the hatching dragon inside the egg. Whether that emerges from the egg like a crocodile or turtle baby destroying the egg-shell or whether it is simply manifested, or whether it collects stuff from the outer layers of the egg and/or its surroundings similar to how a True Dragon rising from its meditative slumber is another question. Maybe the hill range that used to be where Ormsgone Valley is now always was the body of the True Dragon resting there, maybe that dragon just pulled the matter there into its physical shape when rising, leaving the enormous depression behind.

 

The Dragonewt's Dream event around 1539 may have stirred up dragonewt evolution quite a bit.

But, looking at the Dragon Pass battalia, crested dragonewts still make up 50% of the dragonewt fighting power. Either there is a ratio of lesser developed 'newts towards the ascensions to higher states, or there is a source of new eggs every time a ruler becomes a dragon.

Possibly the production of dragonewt eggs is part of this ascension.

 

One thing that keeps irritating me is the requirement of an Inhuman king for re-incarnation. I think that if that was true, "barbarian" dragonewt clusters would die out within a few centuries. One thing we are told is that an utuma - destruction of the worldly form - is required for a dragonewt's transformation into a more evolved form, and that it may take a series of shedding that mortal frame to sum up the experiences of the current stage to progress.

The presence of an Inhuman King (or in Kralorela, the Dragon Emperor) appears to ease the re-incarnation to the extent that this rebirth may happen within the time-frame of a military campaign if we go back to our earliest source for the dragonewts, the boardgame (WBRM or its updated form Dragon Pass). Barbarian populations don't have this advantage, putting their nests into greater danger of destruction.

There is the rumor that the Elder Wilds dragonewts have found a solution to this problem by loading their eggs on dinosaur herds, making these nests a moving target as these herds wander about those lands.

The existance of mortal, one-use dragonewts in barbarian dragonewt colonies seems to defy the nature of dragonewts. And we already have a name for (crested) dragonewts that have become mortal - the term is Magisaurs.

[Richard S.]

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

The existance of mortal, one-use dragonewts in barbarian dragonewt colonies seems to defy the nature of dragonewts. And we already have a name for (crested) dragonewts that have become mortal - the term is Magisaurs.

Magisaurs, and other intelligent dinosaurs, are dragonewts who have become dominated by a single emotion, not simply fallen from the path. As for one-use dragonewts in barbarian nests defying the nature of dragonewts... that's the point? They don't have an inhuman king, so they can't resurrect, and so they become erratic (compared to other dragonewts) and fearful of true death.

[Tindalos]

On 12/27/2020 at 12:26 AM, Eff said:

I'm pretty sure the Guide and Dawn Age numbers for the Ryzel, Ralian, and Dragon Pass Dragonewts heavily imply that new Dragonewts have been born in Time, or else that something stranger is going on.

Agreed. 3000 more dragonewts in dragon's eye is very likely not just a sign of immigration. 

[Darius West]

On 12/26/2020 at 5:03 PM, Leingod said:

That said, I'm aware there's stuff in the HQG line that's been superseded by newer stuff. Does anyone know of any reference elsewhere about the question of whether or not Dragonewts have been born within Time?

I am going to suggest that there are in fact dragonewts born within time.  I strongly suspect that at least some of the EWF converts to the Draconic Path may well have reincarnated as dragonewts.

There is also the issue of Dragons becoming more active during the Hero Wars, as anyone who has had their stacks scorched in White Bear and Red Moon can relate to.  Surely some draconic mating rituals will take place in that strange time?  But would we even know what we were looking at?

On 12/27/2020 at 10:31 AM, Akhôrahil said:

If we don't get any new dragonewts, you have to wonder what kind of fuckups are still merely Crested after 1600+ years. 🙂

Lol, yes, the prospect is disturbing.  Then consider that some dragonewts have advanced on their path to warriors without mastering how to eat, and they literally die of starvation every incarnation because the sensation of swallowing food is too weird and offensive to them.  They are a species to whom death is meaningless provided you don't try to keep their skins.

On 12/27/2020 at 11:37 AM, Akhôrahil said:

There are probably limits to how hard the higher-ups can push these things - at some point becoming an intelligent magical dinosaur might not seem so bad in comparison... 🙂

Agreed.  I also suspect Hykim and Mikyh were draconic revolutionary philosophers who offered alternative paths.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Darius West

[Joerg]

The Dragonkill may have occasioned a great increase in dragonewt numbers. Biggest dragon orgy in recorded history.

[Akhôrahil]

2 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Biggest dragon orgy in recorded history.

But in a spiritually enlightened way, of course!

(Man, it doesn't actually improve things to consider tantric dragon sex...)

[Leingod]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The Dragonkill may have occasioned a great increase in dragonewt numbers. Biggest dragon orgy in recorded history.

Only because the Red Emperor blocked them from one-upping it during the Dragonewts Dream (at least if you believe that repopulating Peloria with dragonewts really was part of the plan).

[Sir_Godspeed]

14 hours ago, Darius West said:

Agreed.  I also suspect Hykim and Mikyh were draconic revolutionary philosophers who offered alternative paths.

Another fun idea for the pile.