Drake Society

[Midnight_Carnival]

I'm not asking for anything to be rewritten, but I'd love to know any perspectives/suggestions you have on Drake society.

I got that they are a very rigid very militant society - kind of like Orcs, but with rules(?)
Anyway, I was wondering if Drakes have religion - I suppose it's kind of like asking if rhinos have a point to ask if they have magic.

I've been ...well, working is the wrong term, suppose I've been mostly slacking on this remanifestation of the Classical era for some years now... my idea was to have factions mostly either "pure" or completely mixed like the Outcast faction (yes, I stole that, but I added Ogres to it to make it more balanced) -I wanted each faction to have at either a unit with leadership, healing, poison regeneration or illumination - more difficult when you consider that I split Dwarves and Outlaws for example.

To cut a long story short I thought the Drakes could have a scholar (perhaps level 0) pretty weak unit which can't fly - the scholar advances to either a Drake Friar -> Drake Abbot (they have healing, but only basic and the Abbot is a kickass melee fighter) and a Drake Mage.
There was a Drake Mage before in one of the UMCs - it had fire magic. I don't think the Drakes would really bother with fire magic becasue it would be like Brazillians learning soccer magic.
The element I think Drakes would choose to manipulate with their magic would be wind - becasue wind makes fire stronger, and they are flying creatures, so wind would be more useful.

Your thoughts please?

PS: I've done the sprite for the scholar, he's basically the Drake coloured greener like the clasher + a funny hat without wings and with a scroll instead of the war blades. Still looks a bit armored though, is that Drake fashion, or should I redraw the clothes?

[Dugi]

I think that a lawful but military society isn't unusual, if you remember the Italian fascists or German Nazis, they were military societies and were pretty lawful.

I think that I saw somewhere that drakes worship dragons, but because of the rarity of dragons, I'd say that most drake societies haven't seen any real dragons and worship them rather like a spiritual deity. Dragons are pretty much idealised drakes, so there is no reason why the drakes shouldn't worship mythological big badass drakes called dragons.
Maybe they even have some priests, but I don't know why should be the highest of their priests called Mage. Mages were masters of the arcane, not divine. Can't he be called Drake Preacher instead (or Drake Initiate->Drake Friar->Drake Preacher->Drake Abbot)? He might give degeneration instead of regeneration to adjacent allied Saurians, because they hate when drakes preach nearby.

Fireballs would be quite useless for drakes, that's true, but maybe they could use fire magic to enhance their natural fire breath. Instead of extra damage, it might possess a peculiar weapon special, like incineration that decreases damage by 25% and takes 4 hp per turn until moved to a village or fixed by a healer.
I have no idea what would the wind magic do besides improving their fiery breath. Moving enemies over the battlefield? Dealing cold damage, because the wind is rainy and soaks everything? Dealing pierce damage because it carries small debris?

[Dixie]

First of all, I think separating factions by races is a mistake, but not as big a msitake as forcing a leader/mage/healer/etc. faction design on every faction. Often, the lack of something is what I think gives a faction flavor.

But I'll humor you. I think drakes would worship fire, seeing how it is their life-force. Seeing how they are extremely lawful creatures, I think it would be interesting if they lived in a functionnal anarchist/communist system, where everybody would have a voice in the council but there would more or less be no head of government, where there would be laws but nobody to enforce them, seeing how every individual would naturally follow them. A society where everybody would be a milician, serve in the military alongside their civil occupations. I guess there would still need to be military officers and a clergy, though...

Anyway, on the topic of units:

Their mages could have created a spell to drain their opponents' heat. It would be a draining magical cold attack. In the same logic, their healing could go in reverse: they would give away their heat. Healing would thus cost them hit points. Or maybe when they hit with their spell, it automatically heals surrounding allied units. Anyway, what I want to get at is that their magic can be based on their fire without it causing burns. It would definitely not be poison, though. Hell, there magic could even be something different than offensive, the silver mage's teleportation, for example. I'm sure you can get very creative

[8680]

Are you aware that, canonically, drakes cannot use magic?

Despite their magical nature, drakes are incapable of channeling magic in a controlled manner. While the magic imbued within a drake’s body enables it to spit fire and gives it life, they have no willful control over its functions of this magic.

UMC may of course be set in worlds other than or divergent from mainline Irdya, but this sounds to me intended to be set there.

[johndh]

Religion is one of those things that is never elaborated on very much in BfW for any of the races. In TRoW, there is mention of the "Lords of Light" which seem to be a divine pantheon of Powers That Be or a court of angels or whatever, and UtBS has references to multiple belief systems, but for the most part we don't know who worships what. There are also real-world religions that don't revere any gods or god-like entities (Jainism and Buddhism come to mind), so that's always a possibility as well.

At the peril of instigating, here's a brief glimpse at my anthropological view of religions across cultures as it applies to crafting fictional religions for cultures in The Battle for Wesnoth:

Maybe avoid this if a scientific critique of your beliefs might offend you.:

This might seem horribly off-topic, but it's all for the purpose of lore development. In order to craft good fictional things, you need an understanding of how non-fictional ones work.

To some extent (nobody knows for sure how much), superstitions and religions arise to serve purposes, and can evolve in a Darwinian fashion. For example, the dietary restrictions of religions like Judaism and Islam tend to cut out meat sources that cause the most food-born illness (like shellfish). If there was a religion in the ancient world that said all believers must consume raw pork twice a week, that religion quickly ceased to be when the practitioners died from the parasites they ingested. There are numerous exceptions, but this sometimes ends up producing beliefs that served some practical purpose in the past. What would make practical sense for these people/creatures to believe? For further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_functionalism

Another purpose for religions is filling in the gaps in human knowledge. People don't like to not know things, so they will invent fictitious answers to questions using whatever form of logic they have on hand. If you were to plot out the development of different belief systems on a time line along with advances in science, you may see that religions tend to try to explain whatever science doesn't know in the context that the religion arises. For example, religions that arose in the ancient world tend to explain just about everything as being caused by gods and spirits. When a person died of a stroke in the ancient world, nobody knew what a stroke was and had to assume that some unseen entity caused it to happen, like Yahweh or Zeus. There are still religions in parts of the world that believe literally every bad thing that happens, is the result of a demon or witchcraft. By the same token, in the industrialized world when someone recovers from an illness for no observable medical reason, people will say it was due to a supernatural cause (or "miracle"), while they will not make the same attribution so readily if there is a medical explanation. Many definitions of the word "miracle" specify that the event must not be explicable by science, and every day our ability to explain these phenomena gets better, thus decreasing the realm of the miraculous. This is known as "god of the gaps". In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat." In addition to the miraculous, many mythologies offer explanations for everyday phenomena, like sunrise and sunset, weather, seasons, tides, why vultures have bald heads, love, geographical/geological features, etc. For the purposes of fictional religions, what events are common in this culture that they cannot readily explain through observation? For drakes, their inner fire seems like a good candidate for something that could use a mythological explanation, because it's not a process that they can see. I tend to believe it's hydrogen, but that might be another discussion altogether.

For rituals and such, or just a general overview of the "hands-on" aspects of religion, I recommend reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_and_religion

TL;DR: What would make practical sense for these people/creatures to believe? What events are common in this culture that they cannot readily explain through observation?

First of all, I think separating factions by races is a mistake, but not as big a msitake as forcing a leader/mage/healer/etc. faction design on every faction. Often, the lack of something is what I think gives a faction flavor.

I agree with this.

But I'll humor you. I think drakes would worship fire, seeing how it is their life-force.

Why would a being worship something that is natural to itself? Drakes worshiping their inner fire seems like humans worshiping their own fluids. They may cherish it as a metaphor for life in the same way that some humans may see blood as "sacred" (and maybe that's what you meant), but I can't see them truly worshiping it. Myths about this inner fire may feature prominently in their beliefs, though.

Seeing how they are extremely lawful creatures, I think it would be interesting if they lived in a functionnal anarchist/communist system, where everybody would have a voice in the council but there would more or less be no head of government, where there would be laws but nobody to enforce them, seeing how every individual would naturally follow them. A society where everybody would be a milician, serve in the military alongside their civil occupations. I guess there would still need to be military officers and a clergy, though...

This sort of governmental ideology has always struck me as a feature of some highly-advanced race or perhaps an extremely optimistic/naive view of humanity of the future (once we've solved the fundamental awfulness of humanity that keeps it from being feasible), so it could actually be a very amusing inversion to have it as a feature of a militant society like the drakes. It would be a little like fighting the Klingons and then finding them to have a lenient and progressive criminal justice system.

Anyway, what I want to get at is that their magic can be based on their fire without it causing burns. It would definitely not be poison, though.

Persistent damage over time is definitely a fitting effect for a fire attack, given the numerous complications of burns. When an area of the body has its skin burnt off, it loses all of the awesome things that the skin normally does, like keeping germs out (leaving it vulnerable to infections) and regulating temperature (ironically leading to hypothermia). Burned areas also lose their ability to control fluids, which can lead to hypovolemic shock. Burns can cause swelling, and circumferential burns can lead to loss of circulation leading to necrosis of the extremity and compartment syndrome. All of this is to say that severe burns get a lot worse before they get better. The main problem with this, game-wise, is that no other fire attacks cause long-lasting effects, so it wouldn't make much sense for some new one to do so unless it was very different in nature. For example, an attack that heats the ground underneath the enemy might burn its feet and thus reduce its movement speed. However, I agree that drake mages sound like a bad idea anyway. They can already fly and set people on fire, and those are two big reasons anybody wants to be a wizard, so what do they need magic for?

For myths, perhaps they have different patron gods for various things that are important to drake life. Here's my quick idea of a drake creation myth about elemental beings that blessed the races of Irdya with different gifts. Stone Dragon shaped the world and gave life to all creatures, Wind Dragon put the weather and seasons in motion and gave flight to all flying beings, and Fire Dragon blessed all of the thinking races with fire and gave the drakes their inner power. When Water Dragon saw the drakes, he became jealous and betrayed Fire Dragon, cutting her apart and casting her body beyond the sky where it became the sun, and shedding her blood upon the ground where it became magma. Metal Dragon attacked Water Dragon to avenge his friend, and the remaining dragons cast these two out of the sky. This is why metal is found underground, why the sun exists, why rain happens, why metal rusts in water (they're enemies), and why fire is needed to forge metal (she reminds him to serve those she has blessed).

[alluton]

I would think drake society be similar to orcs (whitout the assassins). A strong warrior is in charge. However drakes are much more unlikely to plot against their leader. Idea about drakes worshipping dragons sound possible. Afterall dragons might appear to drakes as "superhuman" (superdrake?) Superhuman creature could easily be a divine one. Tought it seems they aren't much dragons around anymore. So perhaps dragons are more like legends of the past?

[Midnight_Carnival]

Thanks, much food for thought there.

Ok, starting at the bottom:

I would think drake society be similar to orcs (whitout the assassins). A strong warrior is in charge. However drakes are much more unlikely to plot against their leader. Idea about drakes worshipping dragons sound possible. Afterall dragons might appear to drakes as "superhuman" (superdrake?) Superhuman creature could easily be a divine one. Tought it seems they aren't much dragons around anymore. So perhaps dragons are more like legends of the past?

Agree, with the exception of plotting against their leader - that is more Orcish (or human)- the Drakes would be led by a dragon, but without one, they invest their executive authority in an outstanding Drake which they revere as their Dragon, should this warrior die they will degenerate into civil war until one leader distinguishes himself, once universally acknowleged as the new Dragon, the Drakes are loyal unto death - interestingly, I think that this "Dragon" need not be a flying fire-breathing Drake, as one would expect - ie: not close to an actual dragon at all, merely one the drakes wish to invest thier executive authority in - Perhaps even an outstanding member of another race in extreme circumstances?

Ok, now back to the middle somewhere:

Are you aware that, canonically, drakes cannot use magic?

Despite their magical nature, drakes are incapable of channeling magic in a controlled manner. While the magic imbued within a drake’s body enables it to spit fire and gives it life, they have no willful control over its functions of this magic.

UMC may of course be set in worlds other than or divergent from mainline Irdya, but this sounds to me intended to be set there.

Read it - but rather loose interperetation here: the magic is essential to the Drake, it manifests itself in the ability to fly and in the ablity to breathe fire. Some Drakes are born without these abilities, they are just as magical as other Drakes, but don't have an outlet for it (we can assume that the Drakes would disaprove of really magical poetry recitals!) Those who have the physical strength to remain warriors, ie your Clasher, etc... those who can't fly or breathe fire and are weak, well they are either servants (little better than slaves) or they become mystical scholars with the aim of joining the clergy and thus gain position and respect.

Maybe they even have some priests, but I don't know why should be the highest of their priests called Mage. Mages were masters of the arcane, not divine. Can't he be called Drake Preacher instead (or Drake Initiate->Drake Friar->Drake Preacher->Drake Abbot)? He might give degeneration instead of regeneration to adjacent allied Saurians, because they hate when drakes preach nearby.

Fireballs would be quite useless for drakes, that's true, but maybe they could use fire magic to enhance their natural fire breath. Instead of extra damage, it might possess a peculiar weapon special, like incineration that decreases damage by 25% and takes 4 hp per turn until moved to a village or fixed by a healer.
I have no idea what would the wind magic do besides improving their fiery breath. Moving enemies over the battlefield? Dealing cold damage, because the wind is rainy and soaks everything? Dealing pierce damage because it carries small debris?

You have some good ideas here, I will definately give the mage a cold attack - but one point - the mage was never intended as part of the Drake religion, as I saw it, the religon would be rather pragmatic in nature, meant to enforce the social order (and be a way for geeks to get respect ) - thus it went scholar -> friar -> abbot. I was going to give the friar basic healing, you know, tending to the sick, etc... but I'm not sure about that - I like the idea of a unit which nullifies the effect of enemy healers/towns and has a "no healing aura". The abbot is kind of like a shao lin monk, he gets loads and loads of (unarmed) attacks. The mage is a different option for the scholar to advance to so it goes scholar -> mage - I don't know if there should be any advancement after mage, perhaps lots of options for AMLA? the mages are the few Drakes who overcame the limitations of their race and learnt to use their magic, they always come from Drakes who can't fly or breathe fire and are weak, it requires vast dedication to do this, but it's not impossible, kind of like a dyslexic accountant
The mage might be able to fly due to manipulating wind - I think it would only be natural for them to do so as explained - the wind magic might cause fire attacks to do more damage, or give Drakes a bonus to movement (however that would work)

and penultimately:

First of all, I think separating factions by races is a mistake, but not as big a msitake as forcing a leader/mage/healer/etc. faction design on every faction. Often, the lack of something is what I think gives a faction flavor.

Wasn't my idea, based on the Classical Era I stole - also, factions weren't based exclusively on race, in mine Norhterners still had Trolls - athough they had Sea Orcs which became Orcish Buccaneers or Oricish Marines instead Naga, Sylvan Elves (there were also Fey Elves) had Woses, but it was more a case of races kind of trying to stand alone (as Nazi as that sounds ) then there were mixed factions such as Outcasts which had Human Outlaw units, Saurians, Ogres...
I was actually quite proud of how I made it so the alternative units to those in the mainline mixed factions kind of weren't as good and so obsolete by the time that inter-racial alliances came into being.

Last but not least johndh
I'd love to engage you on this topic; religion and spirituality are areas which facinate me, however, I must say that most of what you have posted is not that applicable to Drakes (= not human in anycase) further, I have noticed that off topic conversations based on religion have a sad tendecy to be locked and I'm still getting some useful stuff out of this one so feel free to PM me on this, only I warn you that I lived with a Catholic Theology student (in a protestant university!) and have studied philosopy

[johndh]

Without getting into specifics about any real-world religions: of course they're not human, but that shouldn't change anything I said. The variables are different, but the formula would most likely not be much different, and this is a lot of the beauty in creating fictional cultures. The author gets to play "what if" with their creation -- what if a culture developed in caves, or what if they had no legs? Flight alone could have a huge effect on drake culture. If they have a religion, there's no reason it wouldn't exist to fill the same roles as it does for humanity. The fun part is figuring out how this same process would develop differently for something that is not human, with different physical and psychological characteristics.

[Midnight_Carnival]

I found what you said itneresting and thought provoking.
My seeming to avoid replying was largely a response to your little "don't read this if you're offended" section. I was most emphatically not offended, and would love to plunge into a "what is the point of religion" discussion/debate/falmewar with you and whoever else is interested. The thing is that due to my volatile nature and boundless enthusiasm, as well as a tendency to sometimes phrase things... maybe not so diplomatically, I suspect that doing so would cause the thread to be locked and you can bet that there would be someone with a really brilliant suggestion about Drakes that they were busy formulating and never got to post, that would be sad

I'm not even sure the Drakes would think of their beliefs as "religion" - I like the notion of revering dragons, but these could be like ancestors in african beliefs - not exactly worshipped, still a part of daily life, and influential, but not around anymore? Drake priests would be all about upholding the laws and traditions, and only partly about converting people with other beliefs. I think if Drakes worshipped anytihng it would likely be the sun (YUK- the sun!!!! ) a great dragon who flies across the heavens every day bringing heat and light. For a drake to become "a dragon" means for them to be reveared as one while alive or after death (likely the latter) even if they are not dragonlike as suggested before.

There needn't be anything "magical" about Drake healing, they could just be good with blades and at cauterising wounds - that is if there is going to be a Drake unit with healing abilities.