Dragons of the Pact

“Secretly Scaly”

They are among the very oldest of supernatural beings, imbued with primal magics from the dawn of time. Massive, sturdy, and immortal, they ruled the planet for millions of years, spending much of the time fighting amongst themselves for territory (and so their population has never been large). Of late, however, draconic influence on the planet has... diminished. Significantly. At one time, all of Earth belonged to the dragons, but now the conquest-minded of their ilk consider themselves lucky to “own” a remote town in the countryside. And it all has to do with humans.

There are many varieties of dragons, divided by body type, by whether they have feathered, membranous or even no wings, and (most commonly) the color of their scales. European dragons especially have distinct differences based around scale color. Red dragons, for example, were (before the Pact) towering creatures, the oldest growing as high as skyscrapers, while Golds were much smaller, much more nimble in movement and flight, skilled in magic and able to breathe underwater and in a vacuum (all things Reds made up for in pure physical and destructive power). The most important differences in the past eight thousand years, however, have been the various dragons’ attitudes towards the upstart apes that were trailblazing through their territories.

Along the banks of Huang He and the Yangtze River, in ancient China, serpentine dragons of sky and water made themselves known, and were worshipped as the wisest and most powerful of creatures. Over the millennia, countless legends and customs based around these beings arose, not only in China, but Japan and Korea as well, and the dragons were amused. Being wise, they stopped their own squabbles, and devoted much of their time to simply watching the humans live their little lives, sending devastating floods every so often to liven things up (as it cannot be said that dragons are kind beings). They even became tutors to the wisest of human sages, amazed that such lowly beings could understand their philosophies and writing system. Far away across the Pacific, American dragons erected a similar system. Ancient civilizations worshipped them, basking in the glory of their magnificent feathered wings. These, unlike those in Asia, demanded overt sacrifices, but in return taught the people mathematics and astronomy, allowing for great feats of engineering.

In India, close relatives to the Chinese/Japanese/Korean dragons called Naga (with the magical spheres of storms, rivers, fertility and good fortune) became very prominent. They were serpentine, among the most snake-like of all dragons, and sometimes took to altering themselves to appear as human/snake hybrids. Naga feature prominently in many Hindu traditions and legends, in both positive and negative ways, and when Buddhism spread North, to China and Japan, these legends blended easily with those already in place, especially because of the many similarities between them.

Finally, there is the large and internally varied group of “Western” dragons, from North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus region, North into Europe, where they are further divided. Mediterranean dragons, Germanic dragons, Slavic dragons, Iberian dragons, the hydra, the sea serpent, the basilisk, Fafnir, Jormungandr, Nidhoggr. Various cultures saw them in different lights, but in fairly stark contrast to the Asian dragons, many in the “West” were considered irredeemably greedy and evil, collecting vast hoards of cursed treasure and devouring maidens, just to fuck with the humans. Most of these stories stem from the various broods of fire-breathing Red dragon, one of the most ubiquitous of the many sub-species, as they were (still are) indeed combative, greedy, prideful and land-hungry, always seeking to increase their territory and torment the humans. Many innocent dragons were slain over the centuries, after being blamed for the deeds of the Reds, and it was this that provided the opportunity for the Gold dragons to invent the Pact. (As a side note, most mythological dragons around the world were serpentine in some way, and it is only recently that the lizard or dinosaur-like dragon became recognizable in popular culture. This includes the European dragons, whose original bodies were generally snakelike, sometimes with legs and/or large numbers of heads).

All of these various types originated in and emigrated from one place: the Fertile Crescent, along the modern Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Here the ancestors, the “gods”, the most ancient and powerful of all dragons resided, and used their god-like magic to hide their true forms from all but the highest of priests (unlike their offspring, who generally made themselves known wherever they went). The people saw only displays of their power, and called them gods, with names like Tiamat, Anu, Enlil, Abzu, and Ashur (among many others). These “gods” were also the most prideful of dragons, however, and were always at odds with each other, competing first for territory, and eventually for the affections and worship of the humans. In great and terrible battles they slew one another, until only two-thousand years after cultivating their various faiths (c. 3000 BCE), it seemed there were none left. Their offspring (the Chinese/Japanese/Korean, the European, the African, the American, the Indian) had been spreading over the planet for a long time, and thought it was no great loss, but their destruction was indeed important, as it allowed a specific breed of “Western” dragon, the Gold, to be born, and the Gold would eventually change the future of all dragonkind.

The youngest sub-species of dragon in the world, the entire Golden race was born from the corpse of the final dragon-god to die. A prophet, she succumbed to her wounds after vanquishing her greatest foe, and used her last bit of godly magic to set in motion a powerful chain of events that could only lead to one place: her greatest vision of the future, the Pact. Becoming a massive egg, the prophet vanished, and they were born. Exactly seven hundred and twenty-nine dragons, thrust into life with only the knowledge that they would one day fulfill a secret prophecy laid down by their mother. They had no idea what it would be, when they would fulfill it, or any details at all. It would be around four-thousand years before they even thought about it again.

Europe, sometime after Charlemagne established his empire but before the first Crusade, and the dragons were being hunted like never before. Anything vaguely serpentine and considered too big to be mundane was hunted down and slaughtered, regardless of actual wrong-doing. The Reds, in their greed, had added so much to the undercurrent of animosity between humans and dragons that the former finally became desperate and indiscriminate, violently “defending” their towns and livestock from the “marauding” dragons. Though the dragons were very powerful, they were also small in number, and were almost always alone, allowing for large groups of the much more populous humans to surround and kill them through sheer attrition.

For the first time in millennia, a dragon moot was held, excluding the Reds, and after years of debate and preparation on the part of the Golds, Silvers, Yellows, Feather-wings, a couple of foreign Naga and many more, a powerful spell was invented: the Pact. Every sub-species that participated would be given human forms, protecting them from the mobs of dragon-slayers while still retaining bits of their power, including their immortality, supernatural durability, and a relatively small amount of their magic (but not their monstrous strength or their ability to fly). Sub-species that were more magically gifted were able to keep a bit more, but not every transformation was perfect. A few of the Pacted dragons became full humans, losing all of their abilities beyond immortality, including agelessness. Mostly, these killed themselves over the next couple of centuries, as they aged and aged, but wouldn’t die. Still others had no magic at all, or too much, causing them to spontaneously transform between dragon and human (most of these were hunted down by their fellows). In addition, by excluding the Reds, the Gold dragons all but ensured the destruction of one of their most ancient foes, and became the undisputed leaders of the draconic communities of Europe and the Middle East, as they had retained much of their already-substantial magical ability even after the Pact.

For the most part, the Pacted dragons have by the present day assimilated into the already extant culture of supernatural creatures, making their homes far away from one another among groups of human mages, werewolves, vampires and others. Their numbers are lower than they have ever been (Pacted life has not been entirely kind), but they know that without it they would likely be near extinction. The ancient American dragons have entered the Pact as well since the first moot, but many Chinese/Japanese/Korean dragons and Naga are confident enough in their abilities to hide themselves in water that they have not joined.