Dragons

***The information presented is distilled primarily from Homecoming and Strange Bedfellows.***

Dragons are the humanoid remnants of an extraplanar race that was exiled to Earth eons past. Earth's magic is too weak to support their reptilian forms, but they are nevertheless extremely powerful mages.

Some dragons have bred with humans and produced halfbreed Scions.

## Dragons 101

### History

Thousands of years ago, by human reckoning, there was a war on another dimension, one with much more magic than on Earth. The apex species were the dragons: intelligent, tremendously powerful magically, and largely solitary. That is, they couldn’t easily get along with each other.

Some of these dragons took it to extremes. Contention grew when certain aggressive – and perhaps short-sighted - sub-groups, came to believe they knew best how things should be run. They attempted to subjugate weaker and/or more level-headed dissenters. The subjugated did not take kindly to this treatment and banded together to use their greater intelligence to devise a plan to overthrow the others. It might have worked, but the dissidents were betrayed from within. A small group did not believe they had a chance to succeed so, in an attempt to curry favor with those in power, they betrayed their own. One of the betrayers was the daughter of Stefan Kolinsky and Thalassa Nera.

Dragons, while not immortal, are very difficult to kill. Further, some of the dissidents had family among those in power. So, the ruling group chose to exile them. They found a plane with a lower level of magic and ordered the dissidents to leave or die painfully. Some chose death, but the remainder (ultimately, less than twenty) accepted exile to Earth.

When they arrived, they discovered more magic than they’d expected. For a time, it was still possible for them to maintain their true forms, if only in particularly magic-rich areas. They carried on as they always had, including playing with the humans, who they considered lesser life forms (See Game of Stone, in which humans are pawns in a deadly game). This, among other things, spurred the dragons to reach various agreements regarding rules of conduct, especially as pertain to humans.

But it soon became apparent that, as the human race grew more populous and belief in the supernatural began to wane, the time would come when their huge and magic-intensive couldn’t be sustained. Dragons were forced to assume human form in order to survive.

Generally speaking, dragons remain aloof from human society. Some, however, decided to explore their new status as humans, including the pleasures of sex – something unfamiliar to dragons who mated only for procreation. A few, such as Kolinsky’s son Gabriel, ‘went native’, fully embracing the experiences and pleasures available on Earth.

One – Aldwyn Stone – set about creating a human dynasty for himself. Matings with the most powerful human mages could produce magical offspring, called ‘scions’ (see Physiology and Magic, below). Aldwyn used the power differential between human males and females of the times to ‘persuade’ female mages to bear his children. . Note that increasing the number and power of human mages served as the excuse that mitigated the proscription against ‘interfering’ with humans. It’s not yet clear how many scions exist but, despite his efforts, only two of Aldwyn’s survive to the current day: Alastair Stone and Trevor Harrison.

In the intervening centuries since their arrival, dragons have discovered the location of their home plane, and how to return to it. They wait for an era when magical power on Earth strengthens enough to allow them to accomplish it.

### Physiology

Dragons in their native form fall into a few different subspecies. The two most powerful of these are now easily recognizable to humans through myth and legend. One, now considered ‘European’, was a winged, lizard-like quadruped. The other is the more serpentine, wingless form possessing a more leonine head, found in the race memories of Asian peoples.

When dragons assumed human form, they did so nearly completely. They retained the greater magic power they held, and their superior health and longevity. They can heal from all but the most catastrophic injuries, do not age, and do not get ill. Therefore, they can be considered practically immortal. While not more intelligent than humans, per se, their brain structure and millennia of experience combine to put them at genius level.

Part of the transformation to human form included genetic compatibility with humans. This why dragons such as Aldwyn and Thalassa Nera are able to mate with humans and produce offspring, however, additional magic is required to do so. But with the correct preparation, a dragon can ensure conception, as well as predetermine the gender of the child.

### Magic

Dragons are, essentially, magical beings. Given sufficient ambient magical energy, a dragon can impose its will on reality effortlessly, without the constructs and preparations required by human mages – or the dragons constrained to Earth. Removal of magical energy weakens a dragon severely. This is why Stone and Harrison were able to wear Aldwyn down in The Lost Scion. In a magically-devoid plane, he had to draw power from himself to fight, weakening himself steadily.

A dragon’s magical heritage can be passed to offspring produced with a human, but only if that human is also a mage. As with humans, though, the passing down of magical power is not reliable. Although children born to a dragon and a powerfully magical human almost always possess significant magical power, that does not hold true for later generations. The lower levels of magical energy on Earth often result in decreased magical potential. In rare cases, magic does breed true, with each new generation more powerful than the last. Only these children are considered scions – those who can trace their line back to the original dragon ancestor. Alastair Stone is a scion, able to trace his line of mages all the way back to Aldwyn. This is apparently also the case with Harrison.

Dragons don’t have the concept of ‘magical sight,’ because they maintain a low-level version of it at all times even in human form. If need be, they can augment it significantly. The interplay of magic with the world is as much a part of a dragon’s concept of the universe as the ground or the sky. Magic innate, and often effortless. Unlike a human mage, a dragon can understand other spoken languages without a specific spell or artifact. They also have no need to gesture or articulate magic, but simply will it, as Aldwyn does when he kills one of the Talented who threatens him in Strange Bedfellows.