THE
CREATION AND HISTORY OF DRAGONS
Dragons are an ancient and powerful species that have existed before the dawn of man. Many legends about the origins of these magnificent animals have existed over the centuries. Some stories claim that the dragons first appeared in the medieval times and that they were made by an evil wizard. A forgotten Norse myth says that Loki's son Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent, created the dragons as a new type of animal to inhabit the world and so they could become an army for his father when Ragnarok arrived. But in reality, the answer is far much simpler that, much like every human and animal in the world, dragons were born from evolution. Of course, you can't really begin talking about dragons without the creation of their ancestral home, the Realm Beneath, also known as the Hidden World or Babylon.
Before we dive into the scientific origin of dragons and their ancestral home, we must go over the creation story from dragon mythology. According to texts that were written in what is now called Ancient Dragonese, in the beginning there was a great void of nothingness. But then through mysterious unknown forces, two species came into existence simultaneously: the Lava Reptiles and the Dust Bats. The Reptiles had the power to create by using their fire while the wing beats of the Bats destroyed whatever was in their way. For eons, these forces clashed until one day, their powers combined by accident and created a mysterious golden colored egg. While some watched the egg in fascination and curiosity to see what would emerge, the others would just ignore it and continue their war. Finally, after many eons, the egg hatched and emerged an entirely new deity, Lyrlon. She had the appearance of a Reptile but with scales that were the color of white and had the wings of a Bat. And as a result of how she was created, she had the power to create and destroy.
Lyrlon was neutral in the fight between her predecessors, despite each's best effort to get her to fight for their side. Eventually she grew sick of it and used the combined powers of creation and destruction to give birth to existence. Within this bubble was the powers of creation and was protected by destruction, the powers of the Reptiles and the Bats couldn't penetrate it. After Lyrlon finished forming this separate realm, it also brought forth two new beings, Spatium the embodiment of the cosmos and his brother Adamantem, the embodiment of time. Following their birth, Spatium and Adamantem wanted to explore their realm so Lyrlon used her powers to make the universe ever expanding allowing the brothers to spread the vastness of space and time and so they could find other beings. But they were disappointed when they found nothing.
In an attempt to appease their desire to see more, Lyrlon created three more deities: Gebion, Pacifica, and Andrem. Together they became known as the Life and Planet Builder Trio, so named because they were responsible for creating all the planets in the universe as well as breathing life into them. Gebion and Andrem would form the world by using rock and lava and Pacifica would create the oceans to help with the formation of the inhabitants of said planets. Any leftover energy that came from creating these new worlds would lead to the creation of various gods and goddesses who would go on to rule their respective worlds.
On his own, Spatium created twin deities, more powerful than any created by Gebion, Pacifica, and Andrem, the Sun and Moon Twins, Apollia and Lunos. These two played with the worlds, creating night and day. Apollia collected stars to form massive suns and Lunos used left over rocks that surrounded planets to create moons to bring light at night.
As life on all of the worlds continued to thrive, Lyrlon and her other deities realized that not all of them were good and that the souls of the deceased needed to have their own places to go to depending on what they had done in life. Should they be rewarded for their good deeds or should they be punished for eternity? So, Lyrlon created two separate realms, one above the universe and one beneath it. The upper realm was a place of beauty and would be where Lyrlon would make her home and where all the souls who have done good would go. However, the bottom realm was the complete opposite, being a giant inferno where the most wicked of souls would be condemned to endless suffering and it was here that the most feared deity of them all would reside, Cinnabar. Although many would see Cinnabar as the most wicked and evil, that honor goes to the embodiment of destruction and the eel like deity: Nargydi.
Upon his creation, Nargydi began destroying everything in his sight. Many worlds were destroyed and millions of lives were lost. And it was because of his rampage, that it gave all dragons the instinctive fear of eels.
When he finally reached the planet Earth, Nargydi created a massive asteroid and flung it towards the planet in an attempt to destroy it. Upon seeing that one of her most favorite planets about to be annihilated, Lyrlon finally decided it was time to intervene and was able to slow the asteroid down enough so that it only destroyed the life on the planet's surface. But not before Gebion used his powers to hollow out massive tunnels and caverns all over the Earth to help the dragons escape the approaching asteroid, thus leading to the creation of the Hidden World.
Distraught by the loss of so many lives and worlds and for the darkness she created, Lyrlon ordered for Nargydi to be kept locked away in the deepest parts of Cinnabar's realm before retreating to her home domain and falling into a deep slumber.
Despite being safe in the underground caverns of their new home, the dragons were consumed by paranoia and fear that they split into what would be best described as 'barbarian tribes', becoming complete savages, fighting and killing each other to survive. But then one day, a large white crystal erupted from the ground and from it emerged the first Titan and King of Dragons who brought peace amongst the dragons: the Bewilderbeast. And many more Titan species soon followed, each one doing its best to secure a bright future for dragon kind by following the example of the first Alpha.
Note: Greetings reader, my name is Irve the Clever (but you may know me better as Sneaky) magic instructor of the Striker family. Sorry to interrupt but I thought it best to inform you that some of these factors of the ancient Creation myth are used for the religion of Lyrlonism. The history of this religion is long and complicated that it has its own separate history book/bible. But to sum this religion up and what it's like, it's basically Christianity, Judaism, and the Mewnian religions of Celestialism and Uraniaism all mashed together. Now, back to the lesson.
As for the scientific origin of dragons and Babylon, most of it can be found in the origin of the Earth itself, or more specifically, when the planet's oceans were created. Inside the various meteors that brought the water, were hundreds of crystals that when they collided with the still young planet, they would very slowly start to form and grow bigger the same time as the stalagmites. As the ground cooled, it formed a rock layer that hid the crystals from view: eventually becoming the ocean floor. With the ocean adding to completely hide this new realm.
Time passed, the surface remained a chaotic place as it was being pelted by storms so fierce that it would make the hurricanes of today look like a cherry bomb. Due to these intense tides and lightning storms it was powerful enough to crack the very ocean floor. These cracks would soon erode away as the years progressed, creating the various entry points, called portals by the dragons, to Babylon. The storms calmed, and the first landmasses formed. Deep below in what would soon be the dragon's home, the crystals and rocks grew to enormous size, including the Alpha's Crystal, where all future Alphas would make their home and use as a throne (until the Strikers made some huge changes that is) with the fungi growing thanks to the sunlight that came in.
Because of the massive entry points to this underground world, lifeforms that were still evolving on the surface found them and got trapped in cave systems. But, as life always does, they adapted. They evolved. In time, these organisms that got trapped between the two worlds became the dragons that can be found today.
As the centuries passed, the dragon population grew not only in size but shape, size and appearance as well. However, knowing that the Realm Beneath couldn't hold their expanding race for very long, they soon decided it was time to journey to the surface. What awaited them were some of their predecessors who had branched out differently when it came to evolution. They had encountered what the ancient dragons refer to as 'the Wingless', more commonly known today as Dinosaurs.
These two species clashed for dominance over the surface with the dragons gaining an advantage when they developed their ability to breathe fire. Though not many of these battles were won by the dragons.
But then one day, a meteor of colossal size fell from the sky and struck the planet, wiping out all the dinosaurs as well as few dragons who couldn't make it back to their ancestral home. Despite rendering the surface uninhabitable, the meteor also blessed them, the future humans, and the world with an extraordinary power that was, according to the religious, a gift from Lyrlon herself: magic. The first few thousand years after gaining this power were pretty hectic for the dragons. They couldn't control it at all and there were many accidents throughout the Realm Beneath that resulted in numerous causalities. Some even saw this power as a punishment from the gods to reduce their population. But in time, they mastered it as they had mastered the power of flight and to breathe fire.
When life returned to the surface, the dragons mustered the courage to emerge from their home to explore the land once again. Believing that nothing would be able to harm them like the dinosaurs once did.
But they were wrong. Not long after they returned, they had encountered humanity and, acting out of fear, began to fight the beings they saw as mindless monsters.
However, there were some humans who saw the dragons not as vicious beasts, but as intelligent and at times gentle creatures that wanted to belong and for peaceful relations between their species. The humans who were able to see this formed special bonds with the dragons and became the first ever Dragon Riders. This bond was so strong that the dragons helped humans learn about their history, how to perform magic, and much more. These collaborations eventually gave rise to what became known as the Golden Age.
The Golden Age was a time when there were many achievements in science, magic, the arts, and for the world peace the humans of today try to hope for. Attacks from Dragon Hunters, rouge dragons, and rebels were very rare and were pretty much nonexistent. It was a paradise. But sadly, nothing lasts forever as the Golden Age came to end with what was known as the Realm War.
What is the Realm War you're probably wondering? Well…you'll have to ask Alpha/King Shadow the Storm Bringer that question but what you do need to know is that the end of this conflict led to the war that would last all the way to the into the Viking Era: the Great Human-Dragon War. And it was this war that many dragons came to believe that their existence was about end…except for a survivor of the Realm War to rise up and unify the dragons into believing in a future that would ensure that their kind would survive for centuries to come.
Author's Notes:
Hello, sorry for the long wait but I decided to finally update this little project. Enjoy and Happy Holidays! Also, I'm not an expert at religion so I'm not be going to make the whole Lyrlonism bible. Sorry for the inconvenience.
HTTYD belongs to DreamWorks and Cressida Cowell, Star vs. belongs to Disney and Daron Nefcy, Celestialism created by jgss0109, Uraniaism created by MewniHistorian, and DareDreamer for his dragon history.