[Draconomicon 2] Dragons worshipping gods?
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
Mercurius, you're probably just going to have to agree to disagree about this one with a lot of people. There's all kinds of precedent in various published settings for gods of dragons, dragons worshiping gods, etc.
At worst, you're simply blaspheming against the written word. At best, it becomes a semantic argument about the meaning of the word "worship."
From reading Wyrms of the North, various iterations of Draconomica and other dragon-related fluff.... I also find it hard to justify most dragons "worshiping" in the definitive sense. The psychological profile doesn't fit, IMO. Standard modern industrialized nation lip-service "worship" or "reverence" might be a better fit.
Actually, I think dragons make better analogues to old school gods than D&D gods do.
Pre-industrialized societies tend to have very capricious gods, with very little direct cause and effect between what the worshipers do and how the world treats them. No one in a D&D-based society really has that problem with their gods. Their gods show up and talk to them, grant miracles to their adherents all the time, etc. But, man, do they have that problem with dragons. Big, capricious lizards with magical powers who show up out of the blue and wreck livelihoods or entire communities at random. They are the D&D world analogue to disease, flood, and every other natural calamity that D&D magic is otherwise very good at stopping cold.
They are the best available equivalent to Old School Wrath of the Gods. Even if they are not the baddest boys on the block, that ought to go to their head.
At worst, you're simply blaspheming against the written word. At best, it becomes a semantic argument about the meaning of the word "worship."
From reading Wyrms of the North, various iterations of Draconomica and other dragon-related fluff.... I also find it hard to justify most dragons "worshiping" in the definitive sense. The psychological profile doesn't fit, IMO. Standard modern industrialized nation lip-service "worship" or "reverence" might be a better fit.
Actually, I think dragons make better analogues to old school gods than D&D gods do.
Pre-industrialized societies tend to have very capricious gods, with very little direct cause and effect between what the worshipers do and how the world treats them. No one in a D&D-based society really has that problem with their gods. Their gods show up and talk to them, grant miracles to their adherents all the time, etc. But, man, do they have that problem with dragons. Big, capricious lizards with magical powers who show up out of the blue and wreck livelihoods or entire communities at random. They are the D&D world analogue to disease, flood, and every other natural calamity that D&D magic is otherwise very good at stopping cold.
They are the best available equivalent to Old School Wrath of the Gods. Even if they are not the baddest boys on the block, that ought to go to their head.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
For what its worth the idea of dragons worshipping gods has always seemed silly to me; it isn't something I've ever used in any game I've run (ever).
Presumably there are many people who consider it fine and dandy, but I've always considered the gods to be creations of the humanoid races as it were. The idea of gods for every intelligent species appealed to me as little as the idea of alignment languages.
Cheers
Presumably there are many people who consider it fine and dandy, but I've always considered the gods to be creations of the humanoid races as it were. The idea of gods for every intelligent species appealed to me as little as the idea of alignment languages.
Cheers
Mercurius
Legend
Alignment languages...ugh, I forgot about that one.
Canis, of course this isn't really a matter of agreeing or not as we all have complete creative freedom within our own created worlds. Yet there is also what could be called the archetypal, mythological tradition of our own world which informs our creations. In terms of that it would make little sense for dragons to worship anything or anyone; yet in the D&D corpus there are numerous instances where they do. It is up to us as individual world creators to come up with a cogent cosmology, a back-story for dragons to come to life.
Canis, of course this isn't really a matter of agreeing or not as we all have complete creative freedom within our own created worlds. Yet there is also what could be called the archetypal, mythological tradition of our own world which informs our creations. In terms of that it would make little sense for dragons to worship anything or anyone; yet in the D&D corpus there are numerous instances where they do. It is up to us as individual world creators to come up with a cogent cosmology, a back-story for dragons to come to life.
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Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
That's more or less what I way saying (perhaps badly, what with the digression about behavior of gods and dragons). You can re-fluff however you want, but the fluff as written feels inconsistent on this point. In a lot of ways, the dragons are more present and deserving of out-and-out worship than the gods in the D&D world as presented.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Very interesting point, BTW. I like the cut of your jib here, sir!
Are those even words?
I guess, I'll blame my insufficent grasp of the English language for not getting the joke (I think it's also said we Germans are notoriously humourless, maybe there's some truth in that
). Peace!Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
Thank you. Sometimes the random things that pop into my head are inexplicably interesting. It's a nice change of pace when it happens.
