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Becoming the Dragon
“Dragon” is an old word, found in pre-Conclave records on a hundred worlds, used to describe entities of great personal magical ability, whose very presence would cause local political structures to take note. Sorcerors, clockers, binders and other traditions that have been lost, all were given the appelation “dragon” if their power, or notoriety, reached a certain level.
Modern Dragons are nothing like that.
Immortal and powerful, Dragons are humanoids who have irrevocably joined with an elemental, becoming something more and less than the sum of the two entities. During the process, the becoming as it is called, the elemental bonds with the subject’s sheut, the wellspring, using this vast reservoir of mana as a substitute for the stars that are their normal habitat. The next change is far more traumatic, because the prospective Dragon has to sacrifice a part of his akh to the alien creature, losing a piece of himself forevermore in the exchange.
Those Dragons who give up their ib, their passions and emotions, are known as the Heartless. They form a majority of the known Dragons in Conclave space, with over half of those who follow this Path taking this option. Once they have become their lives are ruled by pure rationality and logic; while they can remember their emotional selves, they can no longer even conceive those modes of behaviour. The Heartless are also those Dragons most inclined towards the excesses of their kind, their passionless selves having little ability to restrain the alien urges that occasionally burst free.
The Nameless are those Dragons who sacrificed their ren, their memories of self and life. They emerge from the becoming with no identity, their minds swept clean of who they once were. Most prospective Nameless leave messages for themselves upon awakening after the bonding is complete, to prepare them at least a little for the world outside. There is, however, no compulsion upon the would-be Dragon to be entirely honest in this message. The Nameless represent roughly a third of their number, and are known to be far less prone to sudden violent outbursts than their Heartless Cousins.
The minority group of Dragons are those who allow the elemental to consume their ba, the accumulated knowledge of their lives. Known as the Graceless, these Dragons emerge from their becoming having to relearn how to do everything. Unable to walk, speak or even feed themselves they must reacquire those skills before they can return to Conclave society. This intensely frustrating process can last between one and two years, the new Dragon able to remember that he could do these things but unable to connect that memory to the processes involved. The Graceless, while being few in number, are also those Dragons who are least likely to succumb to the rages of their kind.
There are those who question the emotional and mental stability of a humanoid willing to undergo such a fundamental change, but the Conclave strongly supports the right to self-determination of its members, even if that determination is to destroy the self. The motives of the elementals who agree to the bonding are, despite much research into the matter, utterly inscrutable.
