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Fred's been pretty busy trying to finish off the Jade storyline currently running in the GD comic so lately the letter's column in the book has been rather empty. Not wishing to discourage people from writing, he's given me some letters that were rather long in length so they can be displayed fully without need for editting where everyone can read them at their leisure. - Stripe
Genan wrote:
I had a few questions I wanted to ask, most of them just miscellaneuous
thoughts, but I'm cureous none the less.
1- What made you decide to do a second regular series in the form of Legacy?
(Not that I'm complaining about an extra issue every three months...). And will
Legacy be continuing on after the sixth issue, or is it a limited?
Considering how little space you can squeeze in for letters, I seriously doubt this
is in any danger of popping up in a future issue. But if you could take a few minutes
to email me a response, I'd be a happy little troll.
Thanks for such a good comic.
Oh, dont worry this is certainly letters column material. I enjoy answering
questions.
1. Legacy will continue to come out. The whole story is just bursting to be told.
But I feel way too limited with the past distribution system. The next 5 parts will
be made as Graphic Novels. Produced yearly..
Thanks for writing, Genan.. see you later.
From: Ogre302@aol.com
Loving the book, in fact #18 and 19 are the best reading I have had in
SO long. I know exactly what Dr. Diggers is going through. In fact I did just
this 28th. Tanya is on her retirement tour, just exhebitions. With a bad wing
and a long way in life to go it is best to keep that arm safe, though she
will be training others on the side of her 9-5.
Man the emotion that the story starts to bring out, is wild. The anger
when Gnolga started to cheat and break free, JUST when you thought she was
going to turn out at least a little cool. I always get a kick out of the Edge
Guard as well. They really DO deserve thier own book.
We all wish you the best here! Tanya gives you an online noogie while
"gonna do that pic? Say Uncle! Say uncle!" and I say I look forward to MUCH
more. We finally have a comic store in this little town! This town is SO
small I joke not, we celebrate the life of a headless chicken! It happened
HERE. UGH! I need some big city life.
<---reply--->
Thanks!
Please let go of the noogie now
F
MagicOwl@aol.com wrote:
Dear Fred,
While we are waiting for the answers to come up on the tote board, let’s
look at the last four issues of Gold Digger:
#17 (Cover): A visually distinctive When Titans Clash cover, with Julia
seen only in the mirror-like reflection of her adversary’s sword. Well done.
#17 (Issue): The issue began with an arresting minor character romantic
subplot, as Luan sets out to win Gar, who is still pining over the loss of
Brittany (ed. Britanny is the proper spelling) to Stripe. Gar’s love of the unobtainable perfection of Brittany
possessed a fine mythic quality. Luan’s unrequited (as of yet!) love of Gar
had a sympathetic sweetness to it. This is your best minor character subplot
work to date.
Such wonderful stuff was, alas, followed by another uninspired Julia fight on
her way to the ultimate showdown with Gnolga. Category Three opponent Rhaoton
(name and unusual prideful personality, but no individualized personal motivation
necessary for category four) looked imposing. Fine foreshadowing techniques are
used to make him seem formidable, as we learn Rhaoton is one of the best fighters
on Jade, Master Leep regards him as a superior, and he is able to land an early
smack on Julia.
However, their struggle never generates much excitement for reasons worthy of
careful study. Julia helps to drain story tension by taking Rhaoton lightly.
Even Rhaoton notices Julia’s slouching posture and sleepy eyes, and feels
disrespected. As an audience, we draw our emotional cues from the characters.
Julia’s "Is it over yet?" attitude robbed the story of interest. After Rhaoton’s
slap, Julia is slightly more alert, but she is still more petulant than afraid;
"Oh alright, I’ll try not to doze off while I’m battling you."
Launching an all out attack, Julia cuts off Rhaoton’s headband medallion. Presumably,
this was Julia’s subtle way of letting Rhaoton know that if he didn’t quit, his head
would be next. Stopping just short of the death blow is the time honored martial
arts movie tradition of deciding the winner, but its not the only possibility in this
instance. Alternative conclusions are that under Jade’s tournament of arms rules, if
someone cuts off your headband holder you have to freeze like a statue, or even that
Julia knew for Rhaoton’s people, having you headband thing cut off is the ultimate
disgrace, so you have to admit defeat on the spot. Hey, we’re only the audience, why
tell us? Bored to the last, Julia doesn’t even bother to see if Rhaoton concedes,
she just sheaths her sword and turns her back on him. The haughty Rhaoton does give
in, though for a nervous panel, it looks like he might try to cop a feel from the
surprised Julia (What the heck are the rules at this tournament? If you get to cop
a feel when you lose, what do you get if you win, hmmm?).
In addition to having Julia take the contest seriously, another way to make us care
about the outcome would have been to make Rhaoton a category four opponent, by giving
us the reason he was in the tournament. We were told he made the finals the last
time, but was called away by something and could not complete the competition.
Jinkies, there could be a potentially fascinating story in what Rhaoton valued more
than a chance to be the arms master of Jade. Nor do we learn why Rhaoton entered the
contest this time, so we had no reason to care if he won or lost. The second half of
this issue had a rushed quality to it, with a shortage of helpful information.
#18: (Cover): Julia and Gnolga about to enter the arena for their climactic battle.
Strong tell a story work.
#18:(Issue): Wow, issues like this make my occupation as a comic’s critic the easiest
job in the world. On her way to face Gnolga, Julia’s walk past those who love her
was a splendid way to show their caring for her, which makes us care about her as
well. The epochal battle begins, and Julia receives a smashing outfit for the
occasion. As a backdrop, the mystery of Jade’s artifacts deepens, and we belatedly
learn of Rhaoton’s interesting motivation.
This is captivating story-telling, and to clinch another best issue of Gold Digger to
date, we are given Dr. Digger’s ominous warning that Julia and Gnolga reach a point in
their contests where battle lust threatens to overwhelm them. Although good is a pretty
safe bet to triumph over evil in heroic adventure stories, possible damage to Julia’s
soul provides yet another reason to care about the outcome. Techniques for creating
reader caring (where, at the subconscious level, the readers already know who will
win), are what each comic creator doing heroic adventure needs to be successful. You
have that part of the business all figured out. Congratulations, Master Perry.
#19:(Cover): Julia lies defeated and unconscious, while Gnolga prepares to strike
a fatal sword blow. Another classic from
Mr.-Sending-Chills-Down-Our-Spines-When-Deep-Down-We-Really-Know-Who-Will-Win.
#19:(Issue): Can’t really rate this issue, as it is part of a larger continued story.
One thing that was fun, however, was consciously noting Fred’s action lines, aggressive
and reacting characters, fencing, special impact effects, and other artistic touches
which he has discussed in How To Draw Manga (Antarctic Press-available at comic shops
wherever quality comics are sold, and sometimes even at comic shops where Marvel comics
are sold). Even is you’re a stick-figure artist like me, its enlightening to have the
ingenious artistic stylings of Fred Perry, as well as Ben Dunn and Adam Warren,
explained. End of plug.
As for the martial arts sequences, they are the best you will find outside of Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The larger fight seen panels this issue (an average of only 4.3
panels per page, as opposed to 4.95 is issue 17, 5.1 in issue 18, and 4.43 in issue 20),
reminded me of Fred’s work in Legacy. Since we are taking a break on Gold Digger, let’s
briefly look at Legacy. The positive side of Legacy is that it gave Fred an opportunity
to experiment with larger action segments, and mightier blows have never been struck in a
Fred Perry comic, not have they ever hurt more. Of course, the negative side of Legacy
is that for the first few issues, the characters were so devoid of interesting human
desires (except for wanting to beat the, yawn, bad guy), that there was nothing better
to do than to fill the book with page devouring action sequences. This set up a vicious
cycle, where the characters were so boring they had to fight for their lives the entire
issue to try and keep us awake, and with the characters so occupied, there was no space
left to develop them into interesting people by showing us what they wanted out of life.
Now that’s not to say that there hasn’t been some improvement in the last few issues of
Legacy (Trace’s semi-supernatural love of Joe, seeing the sympathetic light briefly
shine on the villainous Pointdexter), but prior to that, Legacy had a disappointing
shallowness to it. By the way, my wife always asks how I can say critical things about
the work of a pen pal. I always respond that it is precisely because I regard Fred
Perry as a friend, that I take the time to critique his work and offer techniques for
making it more powerful.
#20: (Cover): Dr. Diggers and Tirant stare down each other, while a lightning bolt in
the background echoes the tension between them. A nifty variation on the When Titans
Clash cover theme.
#20: (Issue): More exciting seesaw action, as the battle between Julia and Gnolga rages
of two fronts, with Julia in danger of losing due to Gnolga’s cheating. Gnolga’s
emptiness at winning dishonestly gives the story a vital unpredictability, as Gnolga’s
pride may (or may not!) make it impossible for her to win without honor. This shows how
utterly fascinating Category Four villains, with their intensely personal motivations,
can be.
Other highlights included Brianna is amusing full battle tank mode, and the unexpected
defeat of Dr. Diggers, whom Gina, Brianna, and ourselves all anticipated would quickly
thrash the villains. Keeping a long story fresh and surprising is a difficult challenge,
but you are accomplishing it admirably. Maybe when its all over, this long multi-issue
epic will win the coveted Best Issue of Gold Digger to Date award.
Speaking of prizes, the fabulous trivia contestant categories, based upon the number
of correct answers, are:
The answers are: 1)Djur, 2)Sander, 3)Brod, 4)The emerald caves of Bursa,
and 5)The tomb of Genghis Kahn.
Still deciding if that’s my final answer,
I'd have to agree with you initial assement of Rhoaton. He comes to the story with
no background information. No initial apparent motivation. But there is a premeditated
reason for his being in the story. It's sort of forshadowing for a later plot that
happens on earth and I thought it would be nice to show him now. I wish I could have
revealed more about him. But its irrelevant to everyone except me till I do. So, yes.
His character is currently shallow... until the revelation of his history.
Issue 21 has everything coming together and the fight draws to a climactic end. Who will
win? Well, I'm glad I've managed to keep it up in the air (if, indeed, I have managed..)
I'm very, very satisfide, however, and thats what counts most in my writing. (After all,
if I can't satisfy myself, how do I expect others to be satisfied?) Issue 22 will be a
lot lighter with some wrap-up for the whole tournament story line.. (You know.. the "what
are they doing after"-sort of thing. Thanks again for writing, Mike. As always, I truly
appreciate your input.
Fred.
From: Kyle Davies
Dear Fred:
Apologies for not having bugged you with a note in nearly a year. I have been
enjoying the series as always. Especially liked the giant "dust buster" of the
Shadows vacuuming up the countryside of Jade a few issues back.
If you’ll forgive me, I’d like to go back to something: I started writing a
speculation on it over a year ago, just before we got into the "get the new
museum building open to the public" crunch and I had to lay it aside.
Back in GD v.2 #8 we're introduced to a lowly worm who's named herself "Jane".
(Is that like in "Jane Doe" with a tip of the hat to the movie "Galaxy Quest",
i.e., the stage name of the alien who stayed on with the human at the end? Or
maybe it’s a set-up for her to be found injured as a woman by one of Gina's
party and having one of the party say: "Looks like we've an injured Jane Doe
here." and poor Jane will think: "How'd they know my name was Jane?") Anyway,
the short conversation between the drake, Wife no. 6, and Jane has a lot of
interesting implications for basic dragon biology. That they are at least a
trimorphic (three forms) species out of the same genome (the sum of all their
genes) raises some questions as to why and how. Beyond sexual dimorphism,
having multiple body plans is something exotic in vertebrates, in contrast to
it being common in some insect groups, like termites, ants, or bees, where in
a few species up to eighteen body plans are known to result from the same genome.
What's going on with dragons is clearly not sexual dimorphism since our informants
clearly say only dragons can breed, which implies female as well as male dragons,
and by further implication, male worms and drakes to compliment the female ones
shown. (Do female dragons have multiple husbands?)
However, there are some multi-morphed vertebrates. Consider naked mole rats:
They are a colonial mammal, a type of rodent. Naked mole rats have an enlarged
female that is the only one in the colony to give birth, essentially a "queen" or
"alpha female" depending on what the terms preferred. There are hosts of young
"worker" naked mole rats and there is another enlarged morph, both male and female,
the "guards". The guards spend most of their time resting, but when danger threatens
the colony they go to the attack: a dangerous business, since some naked mole rat
predators are dealt with by the guard holding them off unto death so the workers
can collapse the tunnels behind the defender. Interestingly, worker mole rats will
mature into guards when an opening appears, and if the alpha (queen) mole rat dies,
one of the female guards matures into a new alpha. Male guards take care of the
impregnating duties. This scenario clearly isn't the case with dragons, Wife No.
6 states that worms, drakes, and dragons all hatch from the same eggs, which implies
they manifest their nature young and are stuck with it. Besides, the two should
know their own biology well enough to know if worms grew into drakes grew into
dragons. Their wish is to become dragons, not grow up faster.
So let's consider farther afield: there are those amphibians, newts and
salamaders, which depending on the species do some odd things: For example,
there's one in which the gill-bearing larval stage, when in a food rich aquatic
environment, doesn't mature into the air-breathing adult form but instead matures
to a sexually active version of the larval form, thus allowing it to get the
reproductive jump on the ones that waste energy "growing up" to be a full
amphibian. If the environment goes to pot, i.e. the food depletes, the water
starts drying up, or nasty predators show up; the larvae in that case mature
to air-breathers that can then disperse from the pond to new environments.
Then there's another salamander species that's even weirder. When it's maturing
in a puddle, and the puddle is crowded with other salamander larva, one of the
larger of the larva will change its development pattern to a "cannibal morph"
and start eating the same species larva in the puddle. This cannibal morph is
quite different from the normal morph of the salamander: enough so that if the
scientists studying it hadn't seen its development pattern in action they
would've thought it a completely different species. Surprisingly, the cannibal
can apparently taste the difference between siblings and non-family members of
the same species. It will eat its siblings last. This gives the cannibal’s
relatives a selective advantage as they may mature before being eaten and escape
the puddle if things aren't too tight. In fact, by having a cannibal sibling
eating up the competition it can mean more regular food in the puddle for them.
Now what does this have to do with dragons? First, a curious thing, one of the
nicknames for dragons is "salamanders". Did the nicknames use it because of some
parallel(s) in dragon biology?
Well, before I go on, consider the following biological tidbits:
• A number of vertebrates give birth to or hatch very undeveloped young and then
raise them with most of the body development happening outside the egg or womb.
Examples range from altricial birds, to the tiny embryos of marsupials that don't
even have developed hind legs, they only have limb buds. As an intelligent species,
dragons would most likely care for their eggs and thus could have maximally
undeveloped "altricial" young. (Consider the hatchlings worm-like with only one
out of three pairs of limb buds started. [Wings, arms/forelegs, and hindlegs are
the three limb pairs.])
• Barring magic, there appears to be a maximum size possible for an egg. This is
controlled by the conflict that the shell must be thin and porous enough to allow
oxygen exchange for the embryo inside yet strong enough to not break under its own
weight, plus any handling the egg may undergo. Even giant multiton sauropod
dinosaurs didn't lay an egg much over eight pounds. This means that an egg laying
animal cannot pour more energy into the egg to give its young more bulk and thus a
head start on growing up and a better chance of survival. Extra energy for
reproduction can only go into making more eggs. Think of it this way, a six ton
female elephant gives birth to a 250 pound baby; a six ton dragon trying to put a
similar effort into 250 pounds of eggs would have to lay about 31 eight pound eggs,
and would still be limited that all its young would start life small and weak and
grow from there.
• Egg layers, however, have massive growth potential for their populations. Even
supposing a very fecund human female that pops out a baby every year, she’s only
able to have 20 to 30 kids during her child-bearing years. If a dragon were to
match her by having a 31 egg clutch every year it could churn out 620 to 930
offspring in the same time. There are documented cases of human populations in
history hitting the carrying capacity of their environment and stagnating or even
crashing. Dragon populations have the capacity to hit that wall much faster and
harder.
• For any given type of prey, there are limits to the size of the animals that will
dedicate themselves to hunting them. The limit is energetic: it doesn't pay for a
lion to hunt little lizards as the lion will burn more calories of food energy
catching the lizard than the lizard provides as calories of food. Some animals,
like anteaters and baleen whales are special cases as they are gathering small food
that occurs in mass, and it's the mass that counts. This factor is one of the things
that apparently puts a limit on the size of carnivores out in the real world. A big
dragon is going to need big prey items or it will slowly starve to death. (Or
convince the prey to deliver sacrificies to it, as in some dragon legends, so the
dragon doesn't have to expend energy hunting.)
• As anyone who's role-played knows, one who expects to fight wants to keep their
"hit-points" at the maximum and be well rested at all times. In the real world, the
way to do that is to eat and sleep a lot and let someone else do most of the grunt
work. Notice that in the naked mole rat example above, the guards spend most of
their time resting. Male lions can hunt and do so when alone, without a pride. But
when with a pride, they spend most of their time resting and let the females hunt for
them. Same principle, that way they're rested up when challenged by another male for
possession of the pride. Now in legends, dragons spend most of their time -- resting
or sleeping, hmm.
So to explain dragon biology, consider this scenario: back in the early days of magic,
when only a few magic user had gotten spells sophisticated enough that they could start
to change human flesh itself, people involved in conflict faced the same choice we’ll
have to face with technology in the near future: do you use the magic to make a better
weapon or engineer yourself into the weapon.
Imagine some poor hard-pressed tribe or clan in, as sometimes happens, a nearly
genocidal war with other tribes. They have a master magic-user who decides to save
their tribe by changing, at least temporarily his own people into terrifying fighting
creatures. In the same way that "kernels" derived from older programs save time for
programmers, the magic user looks upon what he knows of things in nature for traits
he wants to incorporate in his fighting form. Things like the armored skin of the
crocodile; the flying ability of bats, the sharp claws of cats, etc. In the end he
ends up designing the prototype "Drake" form. Since he cares about his people, one
"kernal" he adds in something he noted in Salamanders: they can not only heal wounds
but completely regrow lost limbs. Someone chops your arm off in battle? No problem,
it’ll grow back. Because it’s a hard pressed conflict, as happens in many cultures
(like the USSR during WW II), both men and women are being put into the fight, and
thus both sexes get the treatment.
So his people win, and they prosper. And once you have this weapon/ability you’re
not going to give it up. Maybe they ask to get the ability to change back and forth
between drake and human (as the Wife No. 6 seems able to do, and I suspect most
dragon-kin can) but give it up, heavens no. The adult veterans of the conflict
probably still mated as humans, but as kids will play, especially horny teenagers:
some of these people are bound to try mating as drakes, only to find as drakes they
lay eggs, and lots of them.
Ah, but for a war ravaged population what a way to recover their numbers rapidly.
Only something strange happens: The kids grow up fine and fast in the human sense,
but never develop legs in the alternate form and instead reabsorb the limb buds they
do have and become somewhat snake-like. They’re all worms. Though these people don’t
know it, they’re about to become the victims of unintended consequences: in taking the
salamander "kernel" program for limb growth they got a few other salamander growth
patterns: the kids "proto-drake" bodies aren’t maturing because they’re being well
fed. Like the salamanders in a food rich environment their bodies are staying
larval-like so they can hit sexual maturity faster. Still parents like their kids,
so what if they’re worms. At least they can make LOTS of grandkids.
Now for a moment, let’s imagine this is taking place on a large island, like someplace
in Indonesia, and the winners of the war took control of the whole island. The
population grows rapidly, the worms mature and have masses of kids. Those kids have
kids. Suddenly the island’s full of worms and the hunting goes bad. Kids have to be
sent to bed hungry. A funny thing happens: hungry kids take longer to mature but they
grow up as drakes. Drakes can fly and the nearly hunted out island raises lots of
drakes. Time to fly off and take over other islands -- tough luck for the regular
humans who might be there. Even if there's no conflict the drakes out hunt them and
producing worms, out breed them. If there is conflict, drakes were designed to fight.
Soon all the island chain is swarming with drakes and where life is good, worms.
Worms, because they mature faster and have kids sooner, allow those populations to
grow faster. But things are about to go bad: back in the core areas the drake
populations simply can’t easily move to a new area even by flying when hunting goes
bad since they’re already surrounded by other drake populations. Some really bad
starvation events start in, and as tragically happens sometimes with starving humans,
cannibalism occurs. Time for the next surprise: hatchlings that taste drake or worm
flesh develop a hunger for it. They start growing into a new, terrible form better
designed to get it: "dragons". Again it’s that legacy from the salamander "kernel",
the species copied from had a cannibal morph and its activated by crowed conditions
and that taste of "the bad flesh" and building up in nastiness from the drake design.
The resulting dragons eat up worms and drakes like candy, or feed them to their
starving kin. In the starvation area their families win out. While some seek a way
out of this horror, others embrace it with a gusto and a wave of Dragons spread out
eating up the drake and worm populations from the earlier dispersal.
Now for the next horror: the new dragons succeed in spades, eating up all the drakes
and worms. Only without prey items in the drake and worm size range, dragons can get
enough sustenance for the work it takes hunting. They all slowly start starving to
death, and most do. Only a few at what was the edges of the range: say some place in
China by then, realize a need for balance. Provided the hatchlings are well fed they
can grow up as worms. Half-starved but not fed dragon-kin flesh they mature to drakes.
Smaller than dragons, worms and drakes can hunt smaller prey. They can gather up a
surplus bulk of small things for the parent dragon to eat while it rests and thus
expends little energy. Or they could be eaten as food themselves. There are a number
of cultural ways to set things up: probably many if not all were tried with terrible
conflicts between different dragon families as to what was right and wrong, evil and good.
In a nutshell, things become a production wargame: raising worms allow a family
or clan to reproduce fast and up their population. Drakes are useful as fast-flying
scouts, and for clans on the frontier, dispersing members into new areas. Dragons
are like battleships in old time naval warfare, horribly expensive to raise, they
can’t support themselves by normal work, but they’re the queen of battle. Clans
that don’t have some are dead clans. The key to running a clan becomes having the
correct mix of worms, drakes, and dragons in it. This requires co-operation, concern
for clan members, and the building of alliances. Which spells the end of the evil
"eat everyone else attitude" clans.
But to get a dragon one still has to feed a hatchling dragon-kin flesh. Well, the
salamander gift means a dragon can cut off it’s own arm and feed it to a hatchling.
You don’t have to kill someone to get the flesh. Hurts like hell though. Some of
the good inclined clans would have realized that early on and put up with the pain
on moral grounds. Eventually, as magic prowess improved some would even develop magic
rituals allowing them to bypass even that step. (Think of the Christian ritual:
this wafer is my flesh, this wine is my blood... Maybe that’s in there for the
dragons amongst us. ) Then, like Victorian Englishmen, they might even start hiding
the darker aspects of their past from themselves, except for proper scholars.
Eventually, restricted to territories by abutting clans, dragon-kin clans would have
to come up with a way to regulate their populations to what the land could support.
With females laying clutches of 30+ eggs, they’re just too fecund not to. As the
powerhouse warriors in their clans, dragons probably took over running it. The
solution of multiple dragon-kin wives/husbands implied in GD #8, where only the
dragons are allowed to reproduce is their solution then. It makes most of the
hatchlings in a generation non-reproducers and thus keeps the population under
control. Dragon clans probably watch each other closely for violators, because
expanding a population almost certainly means war.
Interesting aside, if dragons are allowed multiple husbands, it may be that this
cultural fix allows dragons, male or female, to only marry non-dragon dragon-kin.
If so, being allowed to take only dragon-kin for husband or wife cuts male dragons
out of the breeding cycle too! (Maybe Faunteroy has a desire, that to have kids,
in common with his two remaining wives.)
By the way, there’s the possibility of a fourth morph for dragon-kin: the rare
wyvern of legend, sort of a cross between a worm with wings or a drake with no legs.
It would be a result of well-fed hatching that was suddenly faced with hunger before
all the worm development pattern is fully fixed. In other words, a hatchling that
had started to suppress the limb buds to become a worm but had enough left to change
pathways and save one pair to develop wings. As a mixed bag, wyvern, at best, are
probably considered unfortunate accidents caused by bad times or, at worst, signs of
a poorly managed dragon-kin clan.
Okay, what of the rest of humanity? As postulated, in building the terrifying warrior
form the original magic user incorporated traits from bats and crocodiles. Both types
of animals heavily restricted by nature to warm climes. This wouldn’t have mattered in
tropical Indonesian and on into tropical Asia but would’ve as drakes and worms tried to
spread northward or southward. Normal human thus would’ve had a refuge in the far north
or south. (Some of the nicer dragon clans may have provided refuge within their
territories too, Chinese legend has "good dragons", warm southern China might be were
high morals finally developed in dragon culture, but those willing to eat other
dragon-kin would only view humans as tasty morsels.) This climate effect would be why
European legends have dragons staying in caves (to use caves' temperature equalizing
effect to escape cold weather) as they tryed to invade that area. Eventually, humans
in the cold climate areas improved their magics and maybe technology to the point where
they could have an even or better chance in conflicts with dragons. In the end, by GD
legend at least, the human mages and dragon mages made peace and started working
together, found Jade, created the retreat, etc.
There you have it: my speculation is that the destiny of a dragon-kin hatchling is
controlled by how you feed it early on. Feed it well, you get a worm; starve it a bit,
you get a drake; but to get a dragon you have to feed it some dragon-kin flesh (or use
a magical substitute) and if you do you have a hatchling that hungers for more. That
Faunteroy doesn’t want to have his wives disturb him while eating isn’t a personal
affection. It would be part of dragon culture: because of their heritage and hunger,
they just might eat the wife while feeding. Such is the horror of dragon biology.
They probably don’t even tell the poor drakes and worms. Poor Wife No. 6 may have
been told as a kid she had to go hungry because she was a drake and drakes had to
learn how to be tough and bear it, without being told that that action would be what
makes her a drake.
Hope you might be able to make this years A-Kon. If so, see you then, as I'm planning
to attend, barring disaster.
...Yours, Kyle L. Davies
I love your hypothesis...And the origin race of the dragon would greatly
explain why they can shift to that form...
Fred
---Sign Off---
Stryypgia (: |