User:Captaincarrot/To Be Dragon
Written by IceFireWarden
“From the maw of eternity were the heavens breathed upon this earth, shattering into infinite wisps of power, that flew over the lyrics of time. Bormahu as he was then and now, forever and a day, unraveled the cosmic cloak of the Aka-Tusk and wrung it from the silvered pages of his indomitable vessel, for his children to drink greedily at its waters of divine fervor and empower him through them. And so did Glamoril know itself within dragon-kin, from drake to [two more entries follow this line, but they are indiscernible].” – Shalidor, Shalidor's Insights
Perhaps out of all mythical creatures, it is the dragon that dominates most discussion about fantastical beasts and where one could possibly find them. This, of course, makes a considerable amount of sense; when the Atmorans first came from the Elder Wood to drive out the fabled ice elves of ancient Skyrim, their dragon overlords followed suit and established hundreds of cults in their name. Saint Alessia received visions from Lord Akatosh and other lost (perhaps purposely so) dragon-gods that eventually led to the Slave Rebellion that secured the foundation of the First Empire of Man. Furthermore, how could history forget the Akaviri invaders who fought against Reman I and became his faithful Dragonguard, who taught Tamrielic warriors the mystical arts of the dragonknight for centuries before reemerging as Tiber Septim's Blades when he won the Ruby Throne.
If I were to be honest, I'd argue that dragons symbolize Tamriel as a whole almost as much as they represent Akavir. Dragons, as both legends and historical correspondence recount, strive for strength and power as much as we mortals do. They are capable of acts of selflessness, but are unfortunately more inclined to behave maliciously, just the same as us. They use magic, speak coherently, and think intellectually; and judging from the scrolls in our libraries, they even have distinct looks and personalities.
But that has been something I've always wondered as a member of the Akatosh Chantry: since there are different types of man and mer, would there also be different types of dragon? When I brought this question to the attention of Primate Angelica, she tried her best to help me but only succeeded in giving me more things to think about.
“Dragons are the children of Akatosh, who were birthed into the Mundus at the start of time, and will never not be eternal. This is proven fact thanks to academic collaboration with holy aedric beings and detestable daedric scum. Even so, it is hard to say if there are different types of dragons. For example, the beings that dwell within Oblivion and Aetherius are as infinite in potential as their realms are in scope; the Daedra especially enjoy vestigial surgery and mutation in order to express themselves. Meanwhile, Aedra tend to remain static in their forms as a show of authority and willpower, but there are several exceptions.”
“Since dragons are related to Akatosh they should be classified as lesser ada, or minor gods, just like how Pelinal and Morihaus are. But zoologists and scholars refuse to do this, for they view dragons as little more than animals, since they have been predominantly found within the Mundus like any other animal. The dragonriders of the Shadow Legion once boasted that their draconic partners were able to fly through the liminal barriers separating the mortal realms from the outer planes, but they never encountered rogue dragons in the slipstream before their order died out. And with them gone there aren't any more dragons we can talk to about this matter outside of Skakmat and the ones in our Sacred Grove. But…”
The Primate trailed off and broke into tears, but I knew her reasons for doing so. My Order had been infiltrated by a member of the Heirs of the Black Dragon (a zealous order of assassins that consisted of dishonored Blades and insane dragonknights), who went on to murder a few of the dragons that lived in the transmundane garden gifted to the Chantry by Akatosh in ancient times. Since that fateful day in the 405th year of the Third Era, noone has been able to find the sacred grove, and I remember my father telling me that the upper echelons of the Chantry had mourned the loss of this divine favor for decades.
After this line of questioning, I ceased bothering my spiritual superiors; it was not my attention to bring up bad memories brought about by foolish mortal errors. I briefly considered taking a small leave of absence in order to find the dragon Skakmat who had disappeared from the Daggerfall Court following the Warp in the West, but records dating back a decade stated that he allegedly went east towards the island-kingdoms of the Padomaic and this sparked my curiosity―why would Skakmat travel east?
Resolving myself to discovering the why of the situation, I perused the Scaled Archives of the Chantry in their entirety until I came across several writings not only relevant to Skakmat's whereabouts, but also to my groundbreaking research into a potentially extensive dragon civilization and society. Apparently after discovering the Padomaic Kingdoms, the Temporal Monks of the Dragon took particular interest in a subcontinent known as Yneslea, which their writings state: “has draconic creatures like Esroniet, but also a great and strange true dragon, one of a like we had never seen that called itself 'khimera', and allowed us to parlay with it as part of our spiritual wanderings.” This information struck a chord of familiarity to me, as I remembered the name “Yneslea” from somewhere, and upon my reading I suddenly realized it was the homeland of the Bat Elves I had heard so much about from the older members of the Order.
The Echmer and the Imperial Faith have had a largely negative history, to say the least. It is well-documented that the Bat Elves of Yneslea are not keen on worshipping any gods, despite acknowledging hundreds of divine spirits that we in Tamriel have never heard of, and through conflict and study we have discovered that one of the deities they truly despise in particular is the dragon god of time himself. In their land he is known as Akkrahz, an insane and corrupted entity that does more harm than good for the inhabitants of Mundus.
At first his description reminded me of the Nordic god Alduin. But after reading texts like A House Divided, Spirits of the House and Lost Spirits that defined Echmeri faith, I immediately realized my comparison was shallow.
This general dislike towards their dragon god of time is so strong that they had several riots and revolts in the year 3E 288, collectively remembered as the Dragon Fear, when they learned about the lineage of Dragonborn Emperors and how important they were to the continent of Tamriel. The Echmer recognize dragonborn as Raokkra-Nem, an “effigy-god” (I must confess I still do not completely understand their belief system) sent into the mortal realms by Akkrahz during times of great temporal change; since Raokkra-Nem have often caused more harm than good in Yneslean history for its inhabitants, this discovery soured their opinion of Tamriel and made it hard for them to trust us. Thankfully we were still able to build a strong partnership during the ensuing years, though the later Stormdrake Crusades almost shattered that trust completely.
It is this exact negativity towards Akkrahz that causes the Echmeri perspective on dragons to be incredibly in-depth and peculiar when compared to Tamrielic traditional thought. Of particular note is the book Akkrahz's Rage, which details the mythical account of how their dragon god of time took a wife from each of the landmasses of the world (Yokuda, Akavir, Atmora, and Aldmeris), and those wives (maybe mortal, maybe divine) gave birth to new dragon gods in charge of different aspects of time. These Children of Akkrahz would then go on to have children of their own, which the Bat Elves categorize as different draconic species that all fall under the umbrella of being “true dragons”:
Drakes, or wyverns, which we Tamrielics are well accustomed to, are the dragons of the “present.” While they were born in the northern wastes of the Old Wood, they would come to migrate across the entirety of the known world. They are saurian or serpentine in form, have two sets of limbs in the form of singular pairs of wings and legs, and are driven by an innate hunger to dominate in the same way time dominates fate. The Echmer state that because drakes live in the Aurbic Now, they are the dragons we most commonly see. Drakes tend to be jealous of their cousins, whose peculiar abilities allows them to go unseen on the Mundus when they will it.
A primary example of these cousins are jills, sometimes called julls in more archaic Yneslean writings, whose existence I had always thought to be a fabrication given credence by colorful storytelling. Several cultures, from the Redguards to the Nords to the Altmer, make mention of jills in their legends as “female” dragons. This is a statement I have always derided. The former Dracographer had told me that students of both science and faith had determined that dragons do not breed and do not lay eggs, and therefore there were no female dragons. With the inclusion of the Echmeri viewpoint, however, I must now believe there must be some merit to the idea even if it's not what some may call traditional.
The Bat Elves say that the jills are the dragons of the “past,” who live in the Aurbic Then, and are vehemently opposed to the detrimental behavior of their father Akkrahz. They are described as having avian-features, being more akin to great birds and mythical phoenixes (in retrospect, I must now wonder if phoenixes are actually just a misremembrance of jills) who are responsible for taking care of the delicate threads of time and weaving them back together when they become “knotted” or “unraveled”; I feel like this allegory is due to the strange puppetry and thread-magic almost exclusively unique to Echmeri society, but it does bring up several more questions. I can safely assume that the threads of time unraveling can be linked to the Dragon Break phenomenon, but what does it mean for time to knot? I have no idea. Interestingly enough, the Echmer also refer to the jills as feminine multiple times with terms like “daughter” and “maiden”.
It makes me wonder if it has something to do with the differing metaphysical roles Akkrahz gave the jills in comparison to the ones he gave to the drakes that results in male and female dragons―drakes are eternally ravenous to the point they wish to gnaw the world as a demonstration of their power and authority, but are also prone to formality and instruction to mortals they form genuine bonds with. As these are typically masculine traits, drakes are “male”. Likewise, jills are motherly and caring, using their extensive knowledge of history and how things were to keep Nirn and its inhabitants from suffering from alterations in their divine-blessed destinies, and therefore appear as “female”. But can drakes and jills change roles, or are these roles dictated to them via divine mandate from their father Akkrahz (who may or may not be Lord Akatosh)?
Well, the last major type of dragon recognized by the Echmer suggests that they can and these dragons are called “khimeras”. Unlike their cousins, khimeras are described as being capable of being either masculine or feminine, as they live in Aurbic Cometh and the future is unknowable and uncontrollable. While jills and drakes both have two sets of limbs (although jills are stated to have long, slender bodies with beautiful tails as well), khimera have three (front legs, hind legs, and wings). They are also supposed to be much more mammalian in appearance, with hardened pelts of fur that can pass off as scales from a distance and feline/chiropteran characteristics to their faces and appendages.
Khimera, according to the Ynesleans, are the dragons devoted to defending mortals from the uncertain horrors of the future. They are rarely seen in the mortal realms of the Mundus, as that is counterproductive to their purpose, but they will step in when they feel that events in the present are distorting the future and vice versa. They are also said to be particularly emotional and temperamental, the Echmer likening them to “ancient adolescents” in behavior, and depending on how they act strong emotions can cause them to metamorphosize (I'm still not entirely sure what that means) into “something else.” In truth, some stories make mention of their incredible ability to casually shapeshift simply by speaking, which makes me wonder if it's related to the mythical thu'um that drakes are able to use and are said to have taught the Nords.
Unfortunately, however, this is the end of Echmeri information about the major species of dragons. While they speculate there may be more, the only other creatures that they claim have draconic heritage are dragonlings (which they say came into existence through the aid of another dragon god, a deity known as Paeikael that I highly suspect is the Daedric Prince known as Peryite in some other form) and sea serpents (which they call wyrms, pseudo-dragons acknowledged as being the malformed offspring beget by a union of Akkrahz and the oceans themselves).
I do hope that, in time, I too can follow in the footsteps of the Temporal Monks and visit the archipelago of Yneslea myself. I feel that we here at the Order of the Hour have been losing faith due to our dwindling connection with Akatosh, and perhaps a talk with this hermetic khimera (and Skakmat, if he indeed settled in Yneslea to roost with another of his “kind” as I believe) will help in restoring it. Gods, I hope that I am right.
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