Dragon Magic for RQ4 (when it comes out)

[Richard S.]

I came up with some possible dragon magic rules for RQ4 that I feel more accurately portray the system than most previous ones. Of course it's not all complete yet, I still need to come up with spells, but these are the basics as I see them:

What is dragon magic? Dragon magics are both inside and outside, refined and crude, beautiful and ugly, transcendent and worldly. The inner magics are the magics of transformation and evolution of the soul, the purification to achieve the ultimate goal of draconic transcendence. Outer magics are the crude and vulgar magics which transform the body, giving the outside form the power of the True Brothers, but corrupting the soul and tying it to the illusion that is Glorantha. The skill of Dragon Magic begins at 00%, and any training in it for humans is a long, dangerous, and costly road that can only be given by the masters of the art, the Dragonewts.

To walk the path of the dragon is to realize that this world is an illusion. You must sever your ties with the natural and transcend the physical illusion of the elements if you wish to follow the path of the True Brothers and work their inner and outer magics. Until you have discovered how to separate the illusion from your soul and reduce your elemental runes to 00% you always subtract their total value from your chance to perform dragon magic.

One must also balance their mind, body, and soul in perfect harmony with the cosmos, to forget the wild emotions of the body and tread the line between, the path of Right Action. If your power runes are in imbalance, not 50%/50%, then the total of their differences is also subtracted from your chance to cast dragon magic.

Dragon magics of the outer are spiritually damaging, retarding the soul even as it empowers the body and leading the mystic into temptation. Have great care when using the arts of transformation, for a successful use will imbalance the users mind and tie them to the illusion. Whenever an art is used, the GM determines which of the runes that the art was invoking and you must add 1D6 percentiles to the correspondent rune of your soul. If this is a power rune, do not forget to subtract from the other side as well.

Dragonewts are the natural practitioners of dragon magic, which is as much a part of them as a mind is of us. From their first hatching, all dragonewts begin the journey of transcendence, from the lowly ranks of the Crested scavengers to the mighty Inhuman King itself. Through many reincarnations, a crested dragonewt devotes its time to understanding and rejecting the physical illusion and learning the secret arts of dragon magic from their betters. Only when a Crested shows the capability to work dragon magics, when their elemental bonds and emotional imbalance not longer reduce the skill to 00%, are they permitted to commit sacred Utuma and evolve in both body and soul to take their place among the Beaked warriors. However after this stage the dragonewt now risks spiritual contamination, disgrace, and devolution, for with each reincarnation the total of their runic imbalances and elemental illusions is made into a percent, a percent that which, if rolled under while in the egg, means that they still have much to learn and must add the discrepancies which made the percentage to their corespondent runes. If this means that their dragon magic skill is taken to 00% or lower, they must reincarnate among the Crested for further spiritual instruction.

Feel free to use this as you wish when RQ4 finally comes out, though I will of course be editing this to better fit the rules then.

[Richard S.]

Apologies but I'm gonna bump this because RQG's finally out so this is finally relevant. If anyone wants to try out playing some crazy dragon mystic like I would this is for you until when (if?) Chaosium gets some official rules for this kinda stuff out.