>>FROM:@AEGONNER

[northerndragon]

Tell me about your gods.

If you don't have that kind of faith, then tell me what else you believe in. There must be something.

And if not that, tell me what you think of when you know a battle is coming.

Comments

[excelsus]

[Southron? What a quirk of character you have.]

The chantry and the circle are related, yes. The Southern Chantry was little more than a cult at first, until Kordillus Drakon formalized it into a religion, his victories in the war against the second Blight gave him legitimacy.

Probably getting ahead of myself. So a blight is something that happens when Darkspawn corrupt one of the Old Gods. Darkspawn are tainted, bloodthirsty creatures, their touch corrupts and sickens everything from people to the lands. They typically dwell underground, because their soul purpose is to seek out these long buried Gods and because they have a hive mind that's what they do. They rarely come to the surface, though small raids or minor invasions have been known to happen. You see them though, from time to time, but droves of them are present when a blight is about to happen, that means they have found an Old God and have corrupted it into an Archdemon to lead them.

Archdemons take the form of a dragon once corrupted, they are intelligent and they are purely evil.

As you can imagine, having success in battle during a Blight does win people towards one's cause and religious beliefs...wouldn't you agree? Thus the chantry was born and when the chantry was born it took the southern Circle of Magi and transformed it from a school of learning into an effective mage prison overseen by the ever watchful Templars. Marvelous, isn't it?

So what exactly are your First Men and the Old Gods of the Children of the Forest...almost familiar terms, it makes me a bit homesick.

[northerndragon]

I'd agree about success in battle. It might be out of admiration, or it might be out of a desire to appease a conqueror, so that the conqueror might be merciful. But dragons aren't evil where I come from, nor are they necessarily good, and I only know of two in the world now. @STORMBORN can tell you more of them — she's their mother.

The old races were the Children of the Forest and maybe the Giants, in the Dawn Age. The Children were small and had magic, and the Old Gods were their gods, and while the Old Gods didn't have names or faces of their own, they were thought to be in every tree and rock and river. The Children carved faces in the weirwood trees so that their gods could watch them. The First Men were men who came up through the south from another part of the world, and it's said that they fought the Children for territory, until there was something else they had to fight and defeat together.

I can't speak to whether or not the Children were real. I've never seen them. But I've found cave drawings they must have made, and I've seen a giant. He spoke the Old Tongue, and he died fighting by my side to help me retake my home.

Lately, nearly everything I've always been told was only a legend has turned out to be all too real.

[excelsus]

I wouldn't say all dragons are inherently good or evil where I come from, but an Archdemon? Absolutely. It's not a dragon per se, but that is the form it takes and it's purpose is to lead an army of darkspawn to corrupt and destroy the world.

Granted Dragons in general are...very dangerous, they may not be good or evil, but once a High Dragon has reached it's clutching period it's two consecutive weeks of what-better-way-to-ruin-your-day mayhem. When they are locked in their own territories it is fine, when they decide to leave their territory forests and entire villages are shaken to their foundations leaving hundreds dead or displaced.

Though I would be interested in knowing how a person becomes a mother of dragons.

Your old gods sound just as ambigious as our old gods.

I wish our giants were as helpful as the ones in your world seem to be, the only giants I've ever known were malconnnnnen creatures happy to throw bouldes at me or jump on me. Yours seem to possess intelligence.

I'm sorry he died, by the way.

Ah, legends are steeped in truth for better or worse, there are some things I believed legend as well that are not quite so legend. Funny how that works.