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can you kill a dragonewt ?


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I may be dumb... or tired or ... did I see the light ?

 

i call "kill someone in glorantha" as send the guy [soul(s) or... what you know better than me]  to the other world, beyond the line, beyond the Humakt frontier.

 

but when you cut the head of the dragonewt, when it's clear the thing in front of you is just a cold body with scale but no :20-element-air:breath, no :20-element-fire:heat no :20-power-movement: no ... ok I stop here... you don't send the guy to the other world, beyond Humakt frontier.. You send the guy to its egg... and he will come back with a new body.

 

So... is it a death ? is the egg the dragonewt other world ?

Does that mean there was no egg before Eurmal foud the death ?

 

How do you explain the difference (if there is a difference) between the cycle of dragonewt and the non-cycle (if I understood well) of the :20-form-man:-based people ?

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It is a state of temporary non-bodily existence that people usually call death.

Such death was not unknown in the Golden Age - there were hunts, and prey was taken down, and eaten, and then songs would be sung, images painted or whatever, and the prey would return alive and hardly the worse for wear. Probably harder to hunt down that way the next time, unless the capture method was intrinsic to the prey.

There was permanent destruction in the Golden Age. Umath was dismembered, and did not return (as a whole deity), except through his sons. Other troublesome deities and creatures had experienced the same, even at Umath's hands.

 

The dragonewt nests were the results of a newborn but extremely promiscuous young dragon mating with any dragon that would recognize her, before attaining the maturity to lay true dragon eggs. Instead, these eggs hatched (or projected) scout dragonewts that would interact with their surroundings, take in experiences and then abandon those bodies through utuma, re-hatching from their egg in an advanced body holding an advanced mind.

According to Sandy Petersen, all dragonewts were born even before the Golden Age. There were those who quickly rose to dragonhood, and beyond, leaving no egg behind after their transformation into dragonhood. These were the successful dragonewts of legend.

And then there are those dragonewts whose advancement was less stellar. Some of these have been stuck in Full Priest meditation for centuries. Many more have not even left the scout stage.

 

IMO it is possible that the EWF experiment helped a batch of dragonewts to advance that had previously struggled. After the EWF had gone on for a while, the benefits for the dragonewts were outweighed by the liability their attachment to the EWF brought, and so they staged the mass utuma of sufficiently but incompletely enlightened dragonfriends in 1042, possibly a final push bringing more of their own and some of their friends across that threshold.

That huge dragon project? A folly that might have worked if their humans had managed to maintain control over their human subjects. In the end, it may have hampered dragonewt advancement.

 

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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A nice answer @Joerg , Danke !, especially about dragonewt, and it gives me some information and idea with them. But that doesn't clarify an issue I have :

the death (or the last death : the eurmal / humakt gift) seems to me not the same.

 

Why (mythically) a difference ?

 

by the way,

Seems to me that peaceful cut is somewhere the magic able to "replay" the

Quote

Such death was not unknown in the Golden Age - there were hunts, and prey was taken down, and eaten, and then songs would be sung, images painted or whatever, and the prey would return alive

but that would mean the resurrection spell (chalana, etc...) is the same "replay"

then the eurmal gift would be in fact not so important ? (except that few know the "replay" feat)

or does that mean the eurmal gift (I don't use the key word , too large in fact) is a kind of great compromise announcement : if you are a god or a "dead" mortal, you cannot go back to the mundane world (normaly) ?

 

 

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Dragonewt souls return to their eggs to grow a new body when their current body is destroyed, whereas mortal souls go to the underworld to move on to their respective afterlives. If the Dragonewt's soul has no egg, it leaves the cycle and no one knows where it goes, making the Dragonewt properly dead for all intents and purposes.

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4 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Dragonewt souls return to their eggs to grow a new body when their current body is destroyed, whereas mortal souls go to the underworld to move on to their respective afterlives. If the Dragonewt's soul has no egg, it leaves the cycle and no one knows where it goes, making the Dragonewt properly dead for all intents and purposes.

Plot twist the Way a dragonnewt becomes a dragon is to destroy Thier egg destroying the thing that attaches them to the mundane world

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One thought here is that when a dragonewt is "dead", they're really regenerating within their egg. So killing them is almost a reversal of what death means for other people- when a dragonewt dies, they are rejoined with a separate part of themselves and are only separated again when they return to life. 

Now, Death coming out of the Underworld is pretty old. I think the latest you can date it is the end of the Green Age, and quite possibly it happened even earlier. So it's entirely likely that dragonewts only emerge after this point, once the sword is available to cut them from the egg. 

Earlier than this, of course, there would be the utuma claw or tooth. So possibly pre-dragonewts, since they didn't die, simply accumulated experiences and grew larger and larger until they were dismembered by utuma into multiple individuals? 

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Though a Lunar through and through, she is also a human being.

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12 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

A nice answer @Joerg , Danke !, especially about dragonewt, and it gives me some information and idea with them. But that doesn't clarify an issue I have :

the death (or the last death : the eurmal / humakt gift) seems to me not the same.

Separation of body and soul: sounds fairly similar to me.

The release of Death from Subere's Hell made this rejoining a lot more difficult for most creatures

 

12 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Why (mythically) a difference ?

The death stolen by Eurmal, Vivamort and Humakt may have been the border between the Void and Glorantha. The Void is endless potential, and the true Death managed to keep that on check. Previous Death did not sever all the potential of a creature, but true Death does.

 

 

12 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

by the way,

Seems to me that peaceful cut is somewhere the magic able to "replay" the

Peaceful Cut replays that Golden Age effect. Almost a Green Age effect. It is a rebirth or re-creation into a re-made body.

 

12 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

but that would mean the resurrection spell (chalana, etc...) is the same "replay"

Chalana Arroy's Resurrection is a replay of her experience of the Lightbringers' Quest. It requires a repaired body of the deceased, which is different from regaining a new instance of one's previous body.

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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The neonate Dragonewt uses its vestigial utuma-claw to slash the eggshell open, allowing it to emerge from the egg. The egg heals afterwards, of course, and is still there and perfectly functional the next time the Dragonewt needs it. Parallels with a disputed and somewhat contentious event at the climax of the Third Age are far too obvious to stress.

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If the Thanatar Create Head spell is used, the Dragonewt's spirit is trapped in the head (and as a mad head ghost after the head is destroyed). That seem like a good way to keep a Dragonewt's spirit out of the game for an awfully long time. It is not truly dead :20-power-death:, but undeath :20-form-undead: is a close enough approximation.

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Eurmal Swallow spell. The book says death, but perhaps with Trickster it is not exactly death, so I would argue the Dragonewt may not reincarnate. Whatever happens to them I suggest their chances of returning to the mundane world are pretty slim. Unless Trickster decides it would be incredibly funny to unleash a broken, half insane dragonewt wearing a permanent clown face in pursuit of justice against one of his followers.

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On 10/29/2021 at 12:34 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

So... is it a death ? is the egg the dragonewt other world ?

I think of the Dragonewt rebirth issue like this...

The Dragonewts are unlike other species in that they can experience and interact with an extra physical dimension.  It isn't a spiritual dimension or shamans and other magical professionals could see it with spells.

Their eggs act as the means of enfolding the dragonewt into this dimension so it can dream its body.  While in the egg, they literally have to re-dream an entire body.

As Dragonewts live, they set about building the body for their next stage of the cycle in their dreams, and it remains in this egg dimension.   When they use Dragon magic, they cause part of their body to manifest prematurely, by folding it in from the egg dimension.  This then causes that part of the dream to fade away and requires them to have to re-dream everything they just used.  Sometimes it is worth it to do so, but dragonewts find dreaming a lot of work, so they don't like to use dragon magic.

This is why the Dragonewt Rune looks the way it does.  Imagine it like an iceberg (not a dragon's eye), with the dreaming part below the line and the simple triangle (reminiscent of the beast rune, no accident) above the line.  The Rune references the egg dream. 

We see this referenced in Dragonewt architecture, which is built using this egg dimension, which is why the cities seem dimensionally warped to humans, who don't naturally interact with this extra spacial dimension and find it very confusing.  Dragonewt architecture incorporates a lot of dragonewt egg shells to allow this to happen.

This also goes a long way to explaining Dream dragons.  This is likely the result of dragonewts who have become confused by human notions of souls and spirits and think they should have one too, but it becomes an expression of their repressed desires, like an ascetic's repressed desires becoming a demon.

Dragonewts need the sacred utuma ritual to sever their spiritual connection to their former bodies by dismembering them.  They don't like killing themselves this way, but it is preferable to some outcomes, so they will do it to prevent people making a skin suit out of their hide, and permanently sapping their magic points which would normally be going into dreaming up their next body, and potentially retarding them on the dragon path forever.

Edited by Darius West
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11 hours ago, Darius West said:

The Dragonewts are unlike other species in that they can experience and interact with an extra physical dimension.  It isn't a spiritual dimension or shamans and other magical professionals could see it with spells.

I didn't think about another dimension but it makes sens

the questions then

is this dimension part of glorantha ? or is glorantha a "point" on the "scale" of this dimension  ?

What about chaos ?

 

now I imagine the world as an egg, chaos being the "white" and glorantha being the "yellow" !

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

is this dimension part of glorantha ? or is glorantha a "point" on the "scale" of this dimension  ?

Scale is the wrong way of thinking about it perhaps.  It physically co-exists in normal space, and dragonewts can fold things in and out of it.  This video might help to explain it:  Miegakure 

It is what gave me my "Goddamn, that explains Dragonewts!" moment.

6 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

What about chaos ?

Within the Dragon Path (or my imperfect interpretation thereof), everything is measured on its scale of dragon-ness.   Chaos is only an immature dragon that has diverged from the proper path.  By draconic metrics, human gods like Orlanth are closer to dragon-ness than some dragonewts, and in fact some aspects of chaos can be quite draconic.  The great problem with these non-dragonewts is that they are ignorant; they don't know what they know, while even a crested dragonewt understands; it knows what it doesn't know.  Clear as mud?😜

Edited by Darius West
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1 minute ago, Darius West said:

Scale is the wrong way of thinking about it perhaps.

But it's a good choice for "points for a dwaggin-pun!" purposes.

 

1 minute ago, Darius West said:

Within the Dragon Path (or my imperfect interpretation thereof), everything is measured on its scale of dragon-ness.   Chaos is only an immature dragon that has diverged from the proper path.  By draconic metrics, human gods like Orlanth are closer to dragon-ness than some dragonewts, and in fact some aspects of chaos can be quite draconic.

I vaguely recall Greg once saying something to the effect that for the Orlanthi, if something's not on their mythic maps of the otherworlds, then it's presumptively chaos.  You could perhaps apply similar logic to some other religions, except of course their maps will be at least a little different.

 

1 minute ago, Darius West said:

The great problem with these non-dragonewts is that they are ignorant; they don't know what they know, while even a crested dragonewt understands; it knows what it doesn't know.  Clear as mud?😜

Even given Sandy's comment that remaining dragonewts are all really bad at their jobs -- they've been trying to become dragons for literally all Time, and likely a good deal longer, all the bright students passed the course centuries ago -- I can't help but feel that Donald Rumsveld would have still been bottom of even the Class of 1625! 😄

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On 10/28/2021 at 10:10 PM, Ironwall said:

Plot twist the Way a dragonnewt becomes a dragon is to destroy Thier egg destroying the thing that attaches them to the mundane world

That's the thing about these debates about "pure" vs "impure" and "correct" vs "misguided" mystical paths. If you manifest gross magical powers, you may be suspected of giving into worldly temptations (or even having deliberately sought to "fail" in that manner, per one or two prominent alleged examples).  If you don't, but you and your followers abide in the material world indefinitely, are they being noble bodhisattvas, or are they having a metaphysical jolly at everyone's expense?  (Looking at you, anyone with "Empire" in the name, and with a notionally mystical religious practice!)  And if you don't do either of these things, and just disappear utterly from the world and the cycle of birth and death...  Is that complete success?  Or utter failure?

People -- and especially other mystics, though by way of more subtle forms of shade and snark -- will of course have their own view on any and all of the above permutations.  And perhaps with some validity, but it's all a bit more wibbly and wobbly than the theismcore "my Fire Rune's bigger than your Fire Rune!" stuff.

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21 hours ago, Alex said:

But it's a good choice for "points for a dwaggin-pun!" purposes.

Puns make my blood run cold 😇

21 hours ago, Alex said:

I vaguely recall Greg once saying something to the effect that for the Orlanthi, if something's not on their mythic maps of the otherworlds, then it's presumptively chaos.  You could perhaps apply similar logic to some other religions, except of course their maps will be at least a little different.

The EWF period of Orlanthi history means that Orlanthi have some clue about the fact that dragonewt mysteries aren't chaos, but they are weird, mysterious and better left alone for the most part, but not necessarily hostile.

21 hours ago, Alex said:

Even given Sandy's comment that remaining dragonewts are all really bad at their jobs -- they've been trying to become dragons for literally all Time, and likely a good deal longer, all the bright students passed the course centuries ago -- I can't help but feel that Donald Rumsveld would have still been bottom of even the Class of 1625! 😄

Yeah, I wasn't trying to quote D. Rumsfeldt, but pointing out that actual dragonewts, even if they are the bottom of their caste level at least have some idea what the Dragon Path actually is, while humans could (and did) make rapid progress towards becoming Dragons if they have the right mentality, but are often completely disinterested.  It is quite likely that there are draconic teachings hidden in several myth systems of Glorantha, including the Orlanthi, you'd just have to be a specialist LM sage to understand what they were.

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On 10/29/2021 at 12:34 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

Does that mean there was no egg before Eurmal foud the death ?

Think of it more as a situation where Dragonewts are the only species who remained unchanged by Death as their magic surpassed Death by its intrinsic nature.  Gods die, but Dragonewts are just reborn, with all their memories intact time and time again.  Now, if only they could reliably get their heads around this whole "eating" thing...😉

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