DrakkonKind:
From Prehistory to the Modern Age
Excerpt:
Bonded Series: Prequel
Luna Amobs & Artemis Emerdi
Hidden Message:
If you can read this text you have the blood of drakkon, or of witches coursing through your veins. Go to the Dome of Green Light that begins the Guarded Path. There, a teacher will meet you and Guide you home. Do not speak of this to anyone who cannot see the words written.
Introduction
The histories have been told since the time of the Sky Fire. The legends are so ancient, and so intertwined with who we are as a species, that it is important to understand them in order to understand oneself. It is with this knowledge, and with a heart heavy with sadness, that I tell this sad story.
To begin, you must know that we are the Drakkon. Drakkon are an ancient species that has survived many extinctions, and will continue to survive, adapt, and evolve until we learn, and meet, our final purpose. What that is, we still do not know, nor why we have become so entwined with humans, who are at once our fiercest ally and our worst enemy. But most drakkon believe that we are meant to co-exist on this planet, and that there is some purpose in the hidden war we are forced to fight.
The early histories of our kind are fraught with war, strife, destruction, overpopulation, over-hunting, and multiple other mistakes. We have existed longer than humans, and have therefore made many more errors than they. It would take years to tell you each tale, and they are not necessary to this warning, or how you will get home.
It began long ago, when our species first noticed the humans, in a time before they could truly speak, use fire, or make tools. We watched in fascination as they grew and developed traits and habits similar to our own. We adored the small family groups and tribes that popped up, and listened eagerly as they created a language. We cheered when they learned to use tools, and harness fire. We celebrated each of their major successes.
So fascinated were we with these creatures who changed the world to suit their needs, that we helped them in many ways. We taught them to hunt new animals and to forage new plants, grow and harvest edible foods, and a few we even taught to speak our language. Some drakkon feared the new species, while others were entranced. Many other living creatures had great intelligence, especially whales, dolphins, horses, wolves, ravens, crows, and mammuts, but they had no need or desire to create a society with laws. Only the drakkon and the humans did this.
Over the course of the centuries several drakkon, wishing to aid or harm the people, set themselves as rulers over them. Unfortunately, these times ended poorly for everyone involved. Neither Drakkon nor Human can entirely avoid the temptation of the three poisonous emotions, jealousy, fear, and greed. Nor can we erase the innate desire to have entire control over our own existence.
Even among those with the best of intentions, the Drakkon who tried to rule our younger friends caused fear, anger, and distrust between our species. Factions rose among both, and even among the magical creatures of the world, all descendants of drakkons and other magical beings (including early human witches). In all cases where one species set themselves over another, pain, sickness, and death followed.
After this time of upheaval the rulers of the Drakkon ordered us to hide from all humans, even when we helped them. This frustrated many of our kind. Several drakkon, displeased with the lack of available mates, even wished that they themselves were human. They were lonely and sad, and the humans provided something other drakkon could not. A chance to think and feel one's thoughts with complete privacy.
One of the drakkon, who lived in what is now called Japan, discovered a new ability. She could shift her shape into another form. That of a human. It would not last long, but when a human saw her, she could blend in. The more she practiced, the longer she could hold the glamor. She shared this knowledge and eventually all of our kind learned and perfected the ability. We were still very interested in humans and could not stay away, or entirely keep ourselves hidden from them.
Some humans, after a time, learned to harness magic, just as we had before them. They developed a society of their own. Drakkon were fascinated by these enhanced humans, especially a small group of them who washed up on the shores of Atlan'ni'ti'oca and made themselves a home there. Perhaps, as some claim, it was their proximity to drakkon that awoke the magic inside them, or perhaps they learned it on their own.
Some Obsidian Drakkon, the largest and fiercest of our kind, were so entranced by them that they abandoned their ancestral homes and formed unions with magical human females, mating with them while they were in glamor, which produced five of the thirteen magical creatures that are known to be our descendants. They remained in safety on the island for many years.
We passed into myths and legends, only going into human settlements with this powerful glamor in place. Still, we were discovered. A young drakkonlet was washed into a field by a powerful storm and when his mother raced to his rescue, she was seen. So began the Hunts, and the eradication of most magical beings.
The hunts escalated when human men discovered that the blood of drakkonlets had magical properties that could heal a disease of the blood among the wealthiest families. Since then, our ancestors in all of Europe, parts of Asia and Africa, and especially in the celtic Isles (modern day Great Britain) were hunted nearly to extinction. Even now, their ancestors are few.
The last pure silver drakkon, devastated at the loss of her drakkonlets and her three mates, screamed her rage and pain to the skies for days, until a pixie came and told her a secret. The witches, those humans who could access the energy running through all things, had discovered the ability to transform creatures permanently into another form. She informed Colleen that she could lead her there, and begged the drakkon to keep hope.
Colleen, the silver drakkon, went to the witches for help. A council was called, including representatives from all the drakkon across the face of the earth and under the seas, and a decision was made. The Drakkon would take on the form of the humans until they reached a mental age of maturity, called Second Puberty, when they would begin to exhibit their drakkon traits. Then they could transform, becoming one or the other at will. They called this the Hiding.
Only a few dozen years later the European drakkons, who were nearly wiped out, decided to make a change. They flew over the sea to what is now America and joined with the drakkon who lived there. The three wealthiest families each sent out representatives to their kings or queens and followed after. For years our kind fought to stay hidden, and apart, from our human brethren. We wiped ourselves from the face of the earth, hiding our pre-history.
Colleen, the Silver Mother, fell in love with a golden drakkon from America, and they lived happily there for a time, until the Three Families followed. They remained in hiding, moving from one place to another to avoid the settlers, until Colleen's golden mate Toke flew out over the sea to find her a pearl while she brooded over their unborn daughter. He discovered the ancient Island where the First Eggs had hatched.
The Drakkon people returned there, taking with them many of their families among the indiginous peoples and the colonists, as well as the witches, who were being hunted again. They carried as many of the magical creatures as they could to Ara Kenfad, and the witches hid it forever in a bank of fog that could be passed only through the use of magic. In time the witches and other magical creatures created a new world they called Nin'Kiz'Widme, inside what we call a pocket dimension that can only be reached on Ara Kenfad, where they can roam, free and safe.
In the normal course of things, you would have learned all of this from your own parents, as memories are passed down through stories and mental images among our kind. Drakkonlets, in the days before the Hiding, learned our history before hatching, while they were still in their eggs. Even after the Hiding, parents told stories to their drakkonlets while they were in the womb, and continued to tell them as the babies learned the language.
In the late nineties a group of young drakkon, (possibly your parents), decided to see the human world, to try and help them fix the damage they had done to the planet. They all lived in one area, close together for protection and community, and stayed in close contact with those of us here, on Ara Kenfad.
We heard rumors of The Three Families, those ancient hunters who had followed us long ago, but dismissed them as nothing more than stories. They now called themselves the Coalition, and we wrongly assumed they had nothing to do with our kind. Unfortunately, we were careless. We did not know that the Coalition Enclave, which encompasses the Hunters and the Scientists who chase us, as well as several other groups, had discovered the hidden message in our family names.
Ten years ago as I write these words, six young drakkon went missing, presumably taken by the Coalition. They killed the parents of three young sisters, who were the great-great-granddaughters of Colleen and her Golden mate, and took them all. And two brothers and a sister, whose parents were also murdered, have been missing since that day, though there are claims the three young drakkonlets escaped. We have been searching for the six young drakkons ever since, with no word.
If you are reading this, it is possible that you are one of those missing children. Of course, you could be the decendent of another drakkon, but that it another tale. For now, what you must know, is that if you were called to this book, and if you are able to read the message, you are in grave danger and should come home to Ara'Kenfad'Nin'Kiz'Widme.
PART ONE
Drakkon History and Legend
Understanding Prehistory Dates
Three Eons, the largest categorization of the geologic time scale, came before the phanerozoic, or the current Eon. There has been much research on these, which is easily available in the United Library in Ara'Kinfad'Nin'Kiz'Widme, or anywhere in the human world. It is a very interesting branch of science that tells of the epic challenges life has always had on Eeth (Earth).
Note: All prehistoric dates are estimates.
Eon: Hadean - 4560 MYA - 4000 MYA
Eon: Archean - 4000 MYA - 2499 MYA
Eon: Proterozoic - 2500 MYA - 543 MYA
Our own eon, the Phanerazoic, began about 542 million years ago, and since our first land ancestor left the ocean about 500 million years ago, the creatures that survived have endured several major extinction level events, and many minor ones as well.
This chart further breaks down the time periods as humans know them:
Eon: Phanerazoic - 542 MYA - CURRENT
Era: Paleozoic - 542 MYA
Period: Cambrian - 542 MYA (Time when the first creatures left the oceans)
Period: Ordovician - 488 MYA (massive ice-age ended this period)
Period: Silurian - 444 MYA (ocean levels varied drastically, minor extinction events)
Period: Devonian - 416 MYA (ended in The Island being formed by meteor strike and volcanic eruption)
Period: Carboniferous - 359 MYA (formation of Pangea, and temperature change)
Sub-Period: Mississippian - 359 MYA
Sub-Period: Pennsylvanian - 318 MYA
Period: Permian - 299 MYA (The great dying - global warming/oxygen loss)
Era: Mesozoic - 251 MYA
Period: Triassic - 251 MYA (volcanic eruptions - Triassic/Jurassic extinction event)
Period: Jurassic - 200 MYA (changing plants and environments killed many dinosaurs)
Period: Cretaceous - 146 MYA (Chicxulub Impactor / The Sky Fire)
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Paleocene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
Epoch: Oligocene - 33.7 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Pliocene - 5.3 MYA (early humans appear 3.7 MYA)
Period: Quaternary - 1.8 MYA (start of the last major ice age)
Epoch: Pleistocene - 1.8 MYA (ended with the melting glaciers)
Epoch: Holocene - 10,000 YA (marked by the rise of man)
Drakkon Ages begin 66 Million Years Ago, at the time of the Sky Fire. All dates within the first four ages are the guesswork of drakkon researchers using data from drakkon and wita-hum scientists with additional information from human scientists, who have developed ways to read and understand the geographic layers of the planet. They are only approximate ages. All fall within the Cenozoic period, and the rough dates seem to coincide with the changing of the Epochs, so I have used those for reference.
The First Age: Age of the Mothers 66 -55.8 MYA = Tertiary, Paleogene, Paleocene
The Second Age: Age of the Kings 55.8 - 33.7 MYA = Tertiary, Paleogene, Eocene
The Third Age: Age of Plagues 33.7 - 23 MYA = Tertiary, Paleogene, Oligocene
The Fourth Age: Age of Desolation 23 -20.7 MYA = Tertiary, Neogene, Miocene
The Origin of the Drakkon Species: Prehistory
Note: All dates are based on the currently used American calendar for understandability.
Note: In most cases, coloration could not be identified in specimens collected. Most fossils were housed on Atlan'ni'ti'oca and are therefore lost.
Pre-SkyFire Species
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Triassic
251-201 MYA
Genus Name: Lagerpetids Sub-Drakka
Oldest specimen dated to: 214 MYA
Youngest specimen dated to: 200 MYA
Not much is known about the earliest forms of Drakka. Their bones are difficult to find, with the main theory being that all those remaining unfound are deep under the ocean or did not fossilize at all. It is believed that Drakka, our prehistoric ancestors, originally evolved from lagerpetids, which lived about 237 - 210 million years ago. They are similar and closely related to pterosaurs, which flew the skies from 220 million years ago to about 66 million years ago, and went extinct during the Great SkyFire.
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Jurassic 200-145 MYA
Period: Cretaceous 146 - 65.5
Genus Name: Drakka Lagerpetids
Oldest specimen dated to: 189 MYA
Youngest specimen dated to: 110 MYA
Next were the drakka lagerpetids, which are hardly distinguishable from their smaller cousins. They did not have wings, lived mostly in the trees, and ate a variety of insects as well as some plants and occasionally carrion. They were still very closely related to the lagerpetids, and to the earliest forms of pterosaurs. They appear to have died out, or changed drastically around 11 million years ago.
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Jurassic 200-145 MYA
Period: Cretaceous 146 - 65.5
Genus Name: Drakka Water Lagerpetids
Oldest specimen dated to: 186 MYA
Youngest specimen dated to: 66 MYA
Drakka water lagerpetids show an interesting adaptation to allow them to breathe for short times under water. The cause is still unknown. It is believed that a period of great flooding in far ancient Italy, where their intact skeletons were found under layers of volcanic debris, caused the small lizard-like creatures to begin hunting in the water. This adaptation is what made us verge away from our earliest cousins.
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Jurassic 200-145 MYA
Period: Cretaceous 146 - 65.5
Genus Name: Drakka Sub-Minor
Oldest specimen dated to: 148 MYA
Youngest specimen dated to: 70 MYA
Drakka Sub-Minor, the earliest known ancestor in our fully separate species, was believed to live on, in, or near the water for most of its life. It had adapted the ability to hold its breath for long periods, had webbed fingers and toes, but had new protrusions from it's upper arms that enabled the beginnings of gliding. It was believed this helped in underwater searches for food. There is evidence of the first true hibernation among our kind.
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Cretaceous 146 - 65.5 MYA
Genus Name: Drakka Minor
Oldest specimen dated to: 128 MYA
Youngest specimen dated to: 68 MYA
Drakka Minor was the first of the Drakkon kind to take flight. During some point these creatures returned to the trees for food, enhancing the structures that became, for the first time, wings. These were slightly different from the wings formed in their cousins, the pterosaurs, in that there was a full five-taloned hand at the end of the arm joint and the wing joint connected to the wrist, freeing the hand for full movement. The creatures were about the size of a lynx and would have preyed on a variety of bugs, ancient lizards, birds, snakes, small fish and water creatures, as well as carrion, and even some varieties of plants. Current Wyvern'Drakkon closely resemble these early adaptations.
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Cretaceous 146 - 65.5 MYA
Genus Name: Drakka Sub-Major
Oldest specimen dated to: 98 MYA
Youngest specimen dated to: 65.5 MYA
Drakka Sub-Major was the first of the Drakkon kind known to sleep for long periods of time. Their metabolic rate was slow enough to allow them to rest for dozens of years while the world continued to change around them. They aged more slowly than their earlier forms, and came into their breeding years much later.
Young drakkonlets were raised by their mothers for several years, and females tended to stay with or near their mothers to create their nesting sites. Females could fly longer and farther than males and tended to live about twice as long. Males of the species were much larger than females, and much more aggressive, most dying in adolescence as they fought for territory and mates.
They grew to be about three feet long, with wingspans about six feet wide. Their bones were hollow honeycomb-like structures that provided strength without adding weight, and from the stories and memories of the Ancient Mothers, it is known that they could fly through a full night without stopping and had the beginnings of a language that included warning and mating cries, as well as dozens of cries between mothers and their young.
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Cretaceous 146 - 65.5 MYA
Genus Name: Drakka Majora
Oldest specimen dated to: 78 MYA
Youngest specimen dated to: 66 MYA
Drakka Majora was the smallest of our ancestors ever to fly. It was less than two feet long, with a wingspan of nearly four feet. The reason it is called Drakka Majora was the difference in the shape of the skull, allowing the first true prefrontal lobe development, which helped with planning, critical thinking, early language and telepathy, and eventually magic, or wita.
It was also the most prolific of our ancient species, with females able to reproduce at about nine years of age until about sixty years of age, and able to lay clutches of as many as eighteen eggs at once. They rose about every three years, and brooded over their unlaid eggs for about three months before they laid them in a nest on hot sands, preferring the cones of ancient volcanoes, dune sands in the deserts, and beach sands in the equatorial regions. The eggs would continue to develop for another three to six months after laying.
At birth the young were helpless and depended on the mothers, who nurtured, fed, and taught their young. By three years of age they could swim, glide, fly, climb, and had the ability to change color to hide, mimic the calls of other forms of drakka and even some birds. They were able to manipulate their environment, and even use tools to dig their nests and to help gather or hunt their food.
It is very likely that these drakka lived on a mixture of plant and animal matter, and that they were at once hot and cold blooded, as current Drakkon are today. There is no scale to measure their intelligence, but based on the ancient stories, they were on a level with current orangutans.
It was the female Drakka Majora who ruled the nest, while males might hunt for their mates and offspring, but never helped to raise the young. Sexual dimorphism determined that males were slightly larger than females, who were also more docile and social creatures. One female would take several mates. They did not usually breed for life, and rarely did a father drakka interact with his offspring after their birth. Males were not likely to kill the young however, nor were they very competitive when it came to breeding, often choosing to work with groups of two or three other males to pacify the female.
A dig begun about two-million years ago showed evidence of a social hierarchy among female drakka majora, though social status seemed to be determined not by the size of the drakka, or the age, but rather the amount of offspring, especially female offspring, she produced. Most females only produced one daughter at a time, if at all, while she might lay eggs for five to nine males.
The nest site was dated back to 78 Million years ago, and showed that females nested in a circle with male eggs always on the outside of the female eggs. Female offspring took longer to hatch, and needed more heat. It is still unclear why. Marks around the nest indicate that the Drakka Majora did indeed have the ability to produce life fire of some sort, and used it to heat their nests. This site also shows the first recorded incidence of a female drakkon lining her nest with gold and melting it around her freshly laid eggs to keep them safe. That particular nest had three female eggs and nearly a dozen male eggs. It was on a raised platform of flat rock, covered in sand and flecks of gold, which were melted around the edge so that the eggs were safe from falling.
Another dig site, this one dated to 69 Million years ago, shows the development of small family groups, with males and females living together. Males were still larger than females, and females preferred multiple mates. From evidence gathered, it is believed one female would take on as many as four mates who would provide for her needs while she was nesting. Males would do the majority of the hunting while she protected the eggs from harm, though they would fly patrols over and protect the nest while she flew for exercise.
Not much else has been discovered. Unfortunately, only a few natural disasters enabled sudden fossilization of our ancestors. Most of the older sites have been damaged through these disasters, erosion, and human encroachment. What has been found went to the First Cities, which we will discuss later, and because of this, much of our history has been lost forever.
Post-SkyFire Species
Post-SkyFire Species
Era: Cenozoic
Period: Tertiary
Sub-Period: Paleogene
Epoch: Paleocene
Genus Name: Neo-Drakka Majora
Only 9 existed; Lived from 66 MYA -
The only known group of Drakka Majora to have survived the Cretaceous-Tertiary (or Cretaceous-Paleogene) extinction were nine female drakka majora called the Ancient Mothers and their eggs, plus the eggs of a dozen other females who never returned. They were little changed by the planet destroyer, except that it was far more difficult to find food, since their mates had all died during the blast wave and therefore lost weight. They were starving and frail by the time they breathed life into the eggs.
During the long, hungry wait they made sounds in the dark, eventually gave themselves names, and began to develop their mental and emotional language more fully, creating nouns to express the idea of items, times, and colors first. The Mothers began to tell each other their memories, and over time each began to change, their eyes getting larger and their bodies lighter, until they began to glow. They hunted only three at a time, dragging the carcasses of dead creatures into the underground cave system.
The hatchlings from the surviving First Eggs were a group of 81 in total, 72 male and 9 female. The Ancient Mothers were guarding them in the underground hatching ground within a somewhat dormant volcano off the east coast of the continent now called North America. For many years after the Sky Fire the hatching ground could only be reached by swimming under water through a cave in complete darkness.
Era: Cenozoic
Period: Tertiary
Sub-Period: Paleogene
Epoch: Paleocene
Genus Name: Neo-Drakkon Majora
Sky Fire 66 MYA - The Hiding 1487
The Ancient Mothers brooded long over the eggs without breathing the life fire into them. Because of this, before they were born, all of the drakkons were much larger than they would normally have been at birth, and had learned their new language before they took their first breath. The full scope of the changes that occurred while they slept away the years inside their eggs had affects we still do not completely understand today.
Current research suggests that a type of energy that runs through everything in the galaxy washed over the planet in a great wave shortly after the Great SkyFire, and through a twist of fate, enabled the drakkonlets to change their form and abilities. Scientists call this energy dark matter, but we have always called it Wita, and it gives us our enhanced abilities, though those did not develop until much later. We do not know nearly enough about dark matter, or dark energy. The change in development of the prefrontal cortex eventually led to the ability to channel the matter that flows through everything.
Further, the Ancient Mothers guarding the eggs waited several years before they deemed it safe to breathe the Life Fire into them, and spent most of that time speaking to one another, further developing their language and passing it into their offspring through stories and mental images. Any drakkon, when meditating, can trace the memories of their maternal (and after the Oath paternal) ancestors, back to the time of darkness that followed the Great SkyFire, but no further.
The drakkonlets born were an entirely new species, called Neo-Drakkon, and they had many more abilities than the Ancient Mothers. They could speak to each other from great distances, they could think and reason far better than their progenitors, and they could plan ahead using critical thinking, rather than instinct.
Neo-Drakkon Majora are all physically related, but the variations are great. To be considered in the Neo-Drakkon Majora species, the creature must be a descendant of the Ancient Mothers and the eggs they protected, which included the eggs of several other mothers who had been out hunting. They must have the ability to fly, or at least still have wings and fall into the forms of Wyrm, Wyvern, or Drake. They must have four limbs, though in some subgroups the wings have diverged from the limbs and some become hidden when not in use.
While there are variations in color on every drakkon, the large part of their body is usually one solid color, with one or two accent colors along ridges, which has its roots in the colors of those original Neo-Drakkon. The underbellies of all drakkon are a blend of colors that aids in hiding from those below.
In the millennia since that first hatching, the drakkon have continued to evolve and change. From those first 10 colors, there are now multiple unique colors that tend to remain true within family groups. While there are three main forms of Drakkon, there are also subgroups, including drakkon who are much smaller or larger than the rest.
Era: Cenozoic
Period: Tertiary
Sub-Period: Paleogene
Epoch: Paleocene
Genus Name: Hereditary Neo-Drakkon Humanus
Date of Change: 1487
All drakkon post-Hiding are human and drakkon both, with a mix of all features. Most magic is limited to use in drakkon form. This form cannot be accessed until after a drakkonlet reaches secondary puberty, around the age of eighteen. First transformations are usually guided.
Drakkon today are born looking, thinking, and acting almost completely human. Aside from the mental link with parents and siblings, their childhood is not much different than that of human offspring. Most drakkonlets have little access to magic, but have the ability to hide better than adults because of this.
Drakkons alive today mostly live on Ara'Kenfad in Kiz'Widme, but there are a few small groups who have chosen to remain among the humans for reasons of their own, or because they are working for the Alliance Counsel. Many drakkon are involved in rescuing endangered magical and non-magical creatures and reducing the impacts of human civilization on the planet.
Hereditary Neo-Drakkon Humanus also consider children born of a human or other magical creature who mates with a drakkon. In all instances, drakkon DNA seems to be the most dominant, but that does not mean the child will be born a drakkon. All thirteen known magical creatures evolved within pairings of drakkon and other species.
For those who are born drakkon, those traits are all genetically dominant, which means all children born drakkon have the ability to transform at puberty. Their powers are no weaker than other drakkonlets, and they seem to adapt well to living in either the human or the drakkon world.
Since their fathers tend to mate with their mothers as long as she lives, they often have several siblings, which helps them adjust as they begin to change during secondary puberty. All physical and magical transformations are identical to all drakkonling.
Unfortunately, some drakkon mates die before they can teach their half-human offspring about the magical world, and no one in the magical world knows they exist. Many drakkon are out there in the human world, with no idea who, or what they are. Unless they are guided through the process, either through this book, or by an older drakkon or a witch, they will never fully embrace their drakkon side, and generally only live as long as humans.
Further information for young drakkons is in Part Three.
Era: Cenozoic
Period: Tertiary
Sub-Period: Paleogene
Epoch: Paleocene
Genus Name: Spontaneous Neo-Drakkon Humanus
1487 - Current
All born post-Hiding, these are the offspring of humans without magical abilities, or who are in the stage before they discover their own magic. Both parents are fully human. This has only occurred since the Hiding, and it is believed that they are the human mates of drakkon, due to the powerful spell of binding that connects our two races together. Because of the spell, when they reach the human age of maturity, around eighteen years, they immediately begin second puberty. Often with no one to tell them what is happening. Unfortunately, unless their mate finds them, or they come across another magical creature who can explain it, these drakkon tend to believe they are losing their minds, and some have been known to harm or kill themselves before they can get help. It is imperative that they are found early and brought to Kiz'Widme as soon as possible.
Further information for young drakkons is in Part Three.
Further information for young Wita'Hum (human witches) can also be found in Part Three.
The First Age: Age of the Mothers The Great SkyFire
Cretaceous - Paleogene Extinction Event - 66 MYA
Era: Cenozoic
Period: Tertiary
Sub-Period: Paleogene
Epoch: Paleocene 65.5 - 55.9
Rulers: Society informally ruled by the ancient mothers, and then their oldest daughters.
The story has been told since before the first Hatching, while the first of our species still lay sleeping in their eggs. The Ancient Mothers whispered it to their young, using the first words of their new language. Our forebears passed the story to each generation of young, and so we all remember it.
The day was perfect. A beautiful afternoon sun lit the sky and the shimmering blue waters reflected it back to them. The Ancient Mothers, as well as about a dozen other females and their multiple mates, had created their nest in the hot sands lining the floor of an ancient volcano dome that had formed about sixty miles off the east coast of what is now North America.
Because the day was clear, most of the drakkons left early in the morning to hunt. However, with nine females brooding over female eggs, not all would leave the nesting grounds. The nine mothers chose to remain behind to guard the young, which left the other females, and the mates of all the females, free to take a full day to gather food. They left before the sun had reached the rim of the cone.
The first warning cry, given by the smallest of the Ancient Mothers, a silver drakkon, split the air when the sky turned white. It lasted only a heartbeat, and then the ground under their feet began to rumble and shake. For long moments the Mothers stared at the sky above, indecisively. And then the silver drakkon, worried for her unhatched drakkonlets, bugled a second cry and began clawing up the sand around her eggs. When she had finished, she noticed all the clutches of unattended eggs and hurried to them, just as the world overhead became a bright ball of fire. She gathered as many as she could and raced to hide them under the ledge.
An agonizing screech filled the cone, and the silver drakkon looked up to see one of her mates, a large black drakkon who was almost five feet long from head to tail and more than nine feet across the wings, falling in a spiral of flame from the sky. She shuddered, knowing it was probably the fate of all her mates.
The air inside the cone of the dormant volcano was hot, each breath a fire in her lungs. She scrambled to push all of the eggs together, and noticed the others were doing the same, pushing them all under an overhanging ledge of stone and covering them with as much sand as their claws could move, and then lay over them, pressing their wings together to form a barrier from the flames that were reaching them all.
The Ancient Mothers were all terribly burned, but they stayed still, lying over the eggs, until the SkyFire disappeared and black clouds of thick ash began to fall. Then, the cone of the volcano began to crumble, falling over the drakkons, and their eggs, until none could be seen. The cone partially collapsed, leaving a shattered and jagged mountain peak standing lonely sentinel over the sea.
When the side of the cone collapsed, it enclosed the area within, leaving only three tunnels where the drakkon could escape. The nine mothers were burned, and debris had collapsed on some of them, trapping them beneath the rubble in near pitch darkness. They huddled there as the sky burned and raged, and each of them hoped that they would survive, that they could protect the young.
The Ancient Mothers said that before the Great Sky Fire, drakkonlets hatched after just six months, but they stayed there, lost in the darkness, for what seemed an eternity while the world burned and raged and belched smoke and ash. All of the drakkon mothers were injured, but the silver drakkon, who had been pushing the eggs further under the ledge, had been spared the worst.
Tired, and with several burns, she crawled out of the rubble after several long days and climbed the walls of the ancient cone, finding three exits, but no safe escape as the world was filled with ash and smoke. Coughing, she glided back to the others and tried to tell them what she had found. They could not understand her meaning. Frustrated, she turned away and began searching the walls for the small caves she remembered from her youth.
Eventually, the little silver drakkon found a wide tunnel that dove down under the surface of the sea. She swam in complete darkness through the winding cave system and opened into a massive cavern under the ocean. It was brimming with life. Creatures that had developed to live in complete darkness and isolation thrived in the caves. And the silver mother found something else, an exit into the sea. She swam out and quickly found that there were animals struggling to survive even under the ocean's great depths.
After dragging a small carcass back through the cave system to feed herself and the other mothers, the silver drakkon set about trying to help them as best she could. She tried to speak to them, to calm them, but they could not understand the things she wanted to tell them, because she had no words to describe them.
None of the mothers were able to tell time, so we are not certain how long it took for the eggs to hatch. We only know that the mothers waited far later, possibly years, to breathe the Life-Fire into the eggs, and were uncertain they would ever hatch at all. The darkness they lived in was nearly complete, and the world did not calm for a long time. And while the world burned, the mothers sat alone in the dark, making sounds to relieve the silence. In this way they gave themselves names, and then created name sounds for each of the unhatched eggs, and words for the things they could see and feel and hear and smell and taste and touch and ani' (emotionally feel).
By the time the Mothers deemed it safe for the eggs to hatch, they had fully developed their language into words that meant things, and words that meant drakkons. They could tell stories, and in time, they were able to share mental pictures with each other, of the world that had been, and of their mates and other offspring. They became closely bonded to each other, the first true friends of our kind.
When the Ancient Mothers decided the time was right, and that the world was safe for their young, they breathed into them the Life-Fire. It was a special flame made of energy that cannot be seen, only felt, and it came from within a sack only females carried. The males hatched quickly, the females several days later, and soon they were surrounded by hungry young drakkonlets who wanted to see and learn everything. For many years they were happy, going out to hunt, teaching the young to fly, and to swim, and to climb, and to run.
The world was warm, and growing only warmer, and until about 55 million years ago, when Talia, the last of the Ancient mothers, breathed her last, the drakkon lived in peace and harmony, with little to worry them. The changing and growing fish and mammals in the ocean provided the best sources of food, and they had plenty of plant matter to choose from. Life was simple and easy.
The Second Age: Age of the Kings The Rule of Fathers
55.8 MYA (estimated date)
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 - 33.8 MYA
Rulers: Small tribes and clans, male run. Eventually parishes and small towns formed in cave-strewn mountains, run by kings who guarded and protected the people.
Note: History was still passed mentally and orally during this Era. Written records are rare, only simple pictoglyphs, and most were in Atlan'ni'ti'oca when it was destroyed, leaving us with several different versions of how major events occurred. The Drakkon calendar was not invented until much later, during the Blue Age.
Patriarchal Rule began soon after the last of the Ancient Mothers died. It was not planned, and seemed to occur naturally. There were far more males than females, and rather than fight one another, they formed close bonds with two or three other males, usually unrelated, and they would choose a female to mate with based on her ability to create a nest for them and their drakkonlets. They were incredibly protective of their young, especially female offspring, who continued to be more rare than males.
Around this time the climate began to cool, and the drakkon, who had evolved to enjoy sunbathing and easy living, had to learn to adapt. In the first towns, community came second to warmth, safety, and food sources. Families stayed close together, and worked as a unit, but other drakkon were not always welcome within their nests. Males began to feel defensive of their females, and with the cold as an excuse, urged them to stay within the confines of their homes.
A side-effect of this lifestyle was that males became bigger over time and each generation was more aggressive and protective. Eventually, they stopped working as teams to mate a female and instead contained them, and their own offspring. This led to millennia with a lack of diversity in the drakkons who were born. The males who had been unable to find mates were often depressed and despondent, and the females who had mates were not given a choice about who it would be, leading to depression and ill health.
War followed. Millenia of war, where males fought for dominance of the skies, and to rule the land they considered their own. Females were highly suppressed, often uneducated but for their mother's stories, and were unable to make their own decisions, but they were highly prized and protected fervently.
The Rise of the Kingdom of Titis: the Golden King
50.8 Million Years Ago (estimated date)
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
We know the kingdom of Titis, the Golden King, began around 50.8 million years ago, from historical digs undertaken during the height of the Blue Age, where we found archeological and geological evidence to support that they built aqueducts to bring fresh water from mountain streams. The first kingdom of drakkonkind, which was in the warm southern world, high in the mountains, was also the first site where signs of early agriculture appeared.
It was a large kingdom, built into the cliff at the top of a mountain. Titis' sister, Mika, who was silver like their mother, was locked in the deepest caverns, as he refused to let her leave to find a mate of her own. He believed she would mate an obsidian drakkon, and because of his anger for Urigal, who was faster and stronger, he refused to allow it.
The story is old, of Titis the Golden, First King of Eeth, and of Drakkonkind. Told by the Tali'ani from days ancient, the silent mothers of that time who gave us hope even as they died. We see Titus, in the eyes of his sister, Mika, the sweetest ever of drakkon kind, who so loved her child she offered to return to captivity to be at her side. Sing the name of Mika, the Mother's Heart.
Memory tells us Titus was strong in form, but weak in mind. The first of the three poisonous emotions formed in his heart, and as his jealousy grew, so did his malice. His hatred of his brothers, and especially Urigal, the eldest, whom songs call Golden Wing. He was a marvel, for unlike most obsidian drakkon, his wings and body were not the same shade, and when he flew he looked like a shadow on the sun.
Urigal was strong and brave. He had many friends, and he took as his mate Eeth the Golden, who birthed the first of the brown drakkon, who love the deep places of the earth. She had two daughters and seven sons in one rising, all of them the beautiful color of freshly turned earth.
Titis, who was almost as large as Urigal, saw his brother's mate and desired her greatly. When next she rose, instead of simply asking to join her rising, Urigal had his underwings, Talik and Rotu, attack his brother and keep him at bay. They knocked him unconscious and restrained him by placing massive rocks on his wings.
Titis rose after Eeth and attempted to mate with her. She fought against him, as her fear for Urigal overcame her heat. She sped away, back to her nest, but Titis clung to her and would not let go. In the heat of their fight, Titus sliced Eeth's wing. Without others joining him in mating, he could not hold her aloft and she fell, killed on the rocky ground below.
Urigal woke the moment his mate died, and his bellows shook the cave, bringing rocks down on top of him, and onto Talik and Rotu. Rotu died, and Talik attacked Urigal, nearly killing him. With a sweep of his tail, Urigal knocked Talik aside. His head hit the cavern wall, and he fell into unconsciousness.
Still trapped, Urigal wept the first tears of drakkonkind as he stared at his brother, who stomped in, enraged, ready to kill Urigal a few moments later. Instead, his heart was moved to a new emotion. Remorse. He saw true pain in his brother's eyes and felt it deeply within his own soul. He freed his brother, then lifted his breastplate scale and offered his own life in penance, closing his eyes against the final blow.
Rise of the Eeth'al (brown) Drakkon
46 MYA (estimated date)
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
Urigal was indeed a son of Talia, for in that moment he forgave his brother and instead of killing him, Urigal leapt for the sky and disappeared, speaking no word. He flew for many days in despair, until he came to a barren land that fit his mood. He thought of his mate and wept again, and his tears fell on the land he passed, breathing new life into it. As he winged over a lake, the shadow of the sun on the clouds above made it seem for a moment as though his mate had returned. His heart swelled with joy, but the clouds shimmered away. He landed and lay at the edge of the water for long days, unable to find the will to move.
He might have died then, but when he did not return home his children grew concerned. The flutter of wings startled Urigal, who looked up to see his sons and daughters had followed him. He wept at the sight of them, and told them what had happened. Many were filled with anger, and his largest son, who was obsidian with sapphire ridges, moved forward and pledged they would do whatever their father asked.
Moved, but cautious, Urigal told them his wish. That they make the new place he had found their home, and not trouble with the golden kingdom. They would become their own people, and they would live a life of peace and harmony. Seeing the forgiveness of their father, the drakkonlings let their own anger go, and agreed, on the condition that they should accept any drakkon who chose to live as they, in harmony with the planet beneath their feet.
In honor of their mother, they called their new home Eeth, and it became synonymous with brown drakkon, and with the planet that had given life to our kind. Urigal wept again, for he had left his mate's body behind, and could not carry her alone. His daughters fluttered around him and calmed him, while his sons returned to Titus, with a request.
Eeth's body was recovered by Titus, who brought it on a funeral pyre to his brother, with all of their siblings, and all of Eeth's sons, helping to carry her on the long journey. They gathered together over the sea, from which our species was born long before we grew wings, and returned her to it. A moment later a small sphere of light left the waves and flew into Urigal, who rejoiced to be with her spirit once more. When he opened his closed talons a small, perfect sphere rested between them. It was a chunk of brown obsidian, which was rare. It became the jewel of the clan, and he wore it until his dying day.
The Decline of the Kingdom of Titus
42.6 MYA
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
Titis returned from the funeral a changed drakkon. He had come to understand how easy it was for life to end, and he wanted to avoid that ending. The second of the three poisonous emotions filled him. Fear. He did not want to die, to become energy and mist, or worse, nothing more than rotting flesh as so many believed. This was the very start of the Golden Kingdom, for if there is one thing that comforted a nervous drakkon in those days, it was the smell, sight, and feel of gold, which reminded them of their nests, and their mother.
Titus became obsessed with building the safest nest. It had to have many rooms, for he wanted many children. It had to have high walls to keep young drakkonlings safe. He knew he would also need others around him, for while he didn't want to share his mate, he wanted the safety they would provide. He decided he would build many nests together, in the form of a small city. The city he named Drakal'o'Wheta and built a golden tear into the tallest wall. There, he claimed, was the exact place where Urigal had cried. He told the people who came there that the spot was sacred, and no harm should come to anyone while they bore it's sign.
As his dream of the perfect nest became a reality, Titis searched for the perfect female. He wanted one who was kind, like his mother, and strong, able to mate without rising, which could be extremely dangerous as males could become aggressive when not in flight. He found Reila, who was golden with an amethyst crest, as his mate. But when it came time for her to Rise, Titus blocked the door with a heavy stone and would not let her fly. When he had finished, he refused to let her out and stayed at her side for long months while she carried, then laid her eggs. He would let no other near her, and guarded her jealously.
The third poisonous emotion grew in Titus. Greed. Greed for his mate, greed for gold, and greed for power to keep the gold and his mate. So consumed was he by the poisonous emotions, that he did not treasure what he had properly, and so lost it. Reila waited until it was late in the night, breathed the life fire into her eggs, and then left them, flying to the north to join Urigal and the people of Eeth.
Consumed by the poisonous emotions, Titus flew into a rage. He was so furious at his mate for leaving that he took his only daughter, only a hatchling, and locked her in a room that had been built for storage. It had no windows and no way out. His sister, Mika, attempted to take the little female and escape to the north as well, but Talik caught her and dragged her to Titis, who forced her down into the deepest caverns of the golden city and had her chained to the wall.
Titis named his daughter Ara, and he guarded her jealously. He both loved and hated the girl, and when Talik asked for her, Titis watched his daughter recoil in horror, and agreed, so long as Talik promised to remain in the golden city. She stared at him for long moments, silently begging him to change his mind, and he wished to, but he had spoken and could not take it back.
Ara grew, year after year, but though she reached the age of ninety, she had still not risen to mate. Titus shook his head and gave Talik another of his daughters, from his new mate, a quiet little citrine drakkon named Terisi who rose at thirty and laid seven eggs for him. Ara he kept as a second mate, though he often forgot about her.
This did not distress Ara, who disliked her mate and his cruelty. At night she would walk alone through the canyons above or the caverns below. There was no fear she would escape, as her husband had covered her wings with a metal plate so she could not fly away. She hated the device, but was thankful to it, as she loved to see the world outside, and the beautiful moon that shone down in the night.
One night it began to snow, just as Ara went outside. She was not accustomed to the weather, so she hurried into the underground caverns, which were beautiful, and made her way through them instead. In the darkness, her eyes could see well, for females had retained more of the ability to see in the dark than males had.
Ara found a tunnel she had never seen before and began to hear singing. She followed the sound into the new tunnel and walked into the deepest darkness she had ever seen. It went on for ages, but the singing continued, and she could not turn away without knowing who was singing. After a time, she turned a corner, and everything brightened. Ahead Ara could see a slight glow. As she grew closer, she noticed that her eyes could perceive easily as much as they could when the moon was high and bright.
When she finally rounded the bend, Ara nearly fainted at the sight of her aunt Mika, who she had not seen since her infancy. Mika's entire body gave a silvery light that chased away the gloom, and her voice, singing a song that was at once completely strange and hauntingly familiar, touched deep inside Ara's head, bringing images and memories that were not her own.
: Mika! : Ara cried out, in shock.
Mika, who had been in a trance-state, started and opened her eyes, staring at the apparition before her. She drew back in fear, then calmed, recognizing the face of Reila in her daughter.
The two females wept and embraced. Ara freed her aunt, and in return, Mika loosed the bindings on her and for the first time since her infancy, Ara spread her wings fully, letting the cool air in the caverns touch them. It hurt. She folded them in again, and hurried to help Mika escape.
Nothing is known of how Talik discovered Ara missing, but Mika's memories show him appearing and attacking the pair before they could escape. He covered their wings with rocks, as he had once done to Titis' brother Urigal. Then he left them in the cavern and went to the king. Long had the three poisonous emotions hardened him, and he wanted to rule the Golden City.
In the dark of the night, Talik sent his followers to take up Titis' new mate and the youngest of his drakkonlets, who were too young to fly. Then he bugled a challenge to Titis who woke and found his nest empty. He flew out to meet Talik, but when he appeared, Talik ordered his men to throw the drakkonlets from the walls if Titis did not immediately renounce his leadership, and give Talik the braid of gold his mother had made for him.
Titis agreed, on the condition that he be allowed to take his mate, his sister, and all of his children who wanted to leave. Without thinking, Talik agreed, not realizing in the moment of victory that both of his mates were Titus' daughters. When he realized his mistake he was furious, but he had given his word and had no other choice. He allowed them to leave, but silently promised revenge.
Titis took his sister, his daughters, and most of his children and flew into the wild north, searching for his brother and the drakkons of Eeth. Talik realized that there was a gap in his oath and sent out warriors with their flying spears to recapture each of them and to kill Titis. One of the warriors shot Titis, and another grabbed his youngest daughter from the back of his mate, injuring her greatly.
It was her bugle of pain that saved them, for many the drakkons of Eeth were close, hunting some of the massive creatures that walked the wild lands to bring back to their nesting grounds. Urigal was among those who heard the cry. He knew the sound of a drakkon in distress and memories of his mate returned to him. He flew out from the group of hunters and raced to the aid of the drakkon.
Surprised to find his brother and most of his kin, Urigal did not stop in his charge against the drakkon fleeing with the infant female. He sliced the wing of the drakkon carrying her and caught the child against his chest, racing her to the safety of his own nest before returning to help the others. His sons and daughters followed after him, and they rescued the injured drakkons and took them to the place of safety they had created in the hidden valley where they'd made their home.
For several dozen years Talik sent his warriors out to search for the valley, but none who found it returned. It faded from his mind, and the years began to pass. For many years there was peace.
The reign of Titis was ended. In exile, he learned to truly understand and love his brother. He also found that Reila was there, and after many years they formed a friendship and eventually she joined with him and his younger mate Teali, and they had many more drakkonlets together, but never again did he seek for power, or to rise above other drakkon, for he had caused pain, and felt pain, and he knew the burden of both.
Titus and Urigal created the very first true law among drakkon-kind, and though it only held in their one small area, it was the beginning of a new chapter for the drakkon. The law they created, and the oath they took, was to never again harm a drakkon, either by strength, or through force. Among the Eeth, it became anathema for a female not to choose her own mate, or for a male to tell her who she could speak to, or what she could do. The females, believing this to be a necessary change, agreed that no female should impose their own will on a male. It was the first egalitarian society among our kind, and though it is now gone, the memories remain, and are bound into every generation of their descendants.
For several hundred thousand years the Drakkon of the Great North Wilds lived in peace and harmony, hidden from the rest of their kind, in a small settlement free of the rules the Golden Kingdom forced upon its citizens. They lived happily together for many years, teaching their young the old ways, and working together.
The Reign of Warrior Kings
43 MYA (estimated date)
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
Mika, now free, rose to mate with Durai more than a century later. He was a blue drakkon who loved the water and much missed his own home on Ahi'Kenfad, but he was entranced by Mika and rose to fly with her.
Mika hatched more than thirty eggs from a single rising, and breathed the life-fire into them. She loved her o'drakkon'ling very much and spent hours each day telling them the stories of the Ancient Mothers, and all the stories she had created in her mind while she had been locked away. She was the first true story-teller among the drakkon, starting a tradition that would last throughout time, of using our imaginations to delight our young.
Durai left soon after his young were born, telling his people of the drakkons of the north, inadvertently bringing word to Takil, the grandson of Talik, now the king, that they still existed, and were free and happy. Takil, an orange citrine drakkon whose power was waning, carefully stored away what he had heard of Mika's brood, which contained one silver female. He thought perhaps, such a small female would not be missed, and wondered if he could sneak in and take her.
He thought long about it, and in the middle of one stormy night, he and three of his closest friends snuck into the stronghold Urigal had created, and found Mika's daughter, Miko, who was a nearly grown female. They took her away in the night, and hid her in the same cavern where Mika had once been kept.
Mika screamed her pain, fear, and anger in drakkonsong. Her love for her young was great, and her pain at losing her only daughter was terrible. But the small band living in the north could not hope to attack the heavily fortified Golden Kingdom and survive. Mika, learning that her daughter could not be rescued, flew south and begged Takil to take her too. He refused her plea and ordered his men, who had created weapons that flew through the air and pierced drakkon hide, to attack and kill Mika.
Mika saw the spears fly through the air and went still for a single heartbeat, her voice crying out in a loud note as she was struck. She fell, dead before she hit the ground below, and the watching drakkon cried out in fear, for never had a female been killed on purpose by a male. The drakkon shrunk away from the sight, turning their heads and hiding her body from their gazes.
Miko heard her mother's death cry and went silent. Takil came to her, laughing, and sang a song of victory, telling her he had killed her mother and that she was his alone now. He laughed and told Miko her father thought her worthless and would not come for her.
Then Miko sang a song of her own. A song that would haunt the mind of the King, for it held a warning that his reign would end and he would be betrayed. He raged at her, struck her, and then forced himself on her, not letting Miko take flight. He bound her to the wall, and left her there while she brooded over her young.
The lives of Miko, her daughter Kiko, her daughter Kala, her daughter Klia, and her daughter Mila are all very sad. They lived their entire lives in captivity, never rising to breed, but instead were forced to remain trapped within the hidden tunnels and caverns of the Golden Kingdom. They had no choice over who they mated, or when, or how.
Every female living in the kingdom was forbidden from that day forward to make decisions of their own, even decisions so small as what foods they ate. Their mates feared Takil and his flying spears, and would not fight him. Some chose to flee, but most were too afraid, and the females suffered greatly for it. Many of them died during breeding, crushed to death by the much larger males, and those that survived often had injuries that would have been avoided if they had been allowed to take flight.
Female drakkon in the Golden Kingdom became smaller and quieter with each passing generation, until Ana. Males did not give them the best foods, so they were sickly and weak. When Ana was born, the daughter of Mila, from her rising with Daku, hers was the smallest egg that had ever been seen. Daku, who Mila had been gifted to, was unhappy with how tiny Ana's egg was and thought to throw it away.
Mila, hearing this, breathed the life-fire into Ana early. In his rage over her disobedience, Daku killed her. He took Ana and threw her from the tallest cliff, and turned away. He did not see Drake, the mightiest of the Obsidian drakkon from the Great Wilds of the North, great-great-great-great grandson of Urigal who had been searching for any drakkon who wanted to escape. He had been part of an underground movement to help those incapable of escaping get to freedom and safety, either in the hatching ground on The Island, or in the Northern Wilds of Eeth.
Drake raced to save the drowning newborn i'drakkon'ling and flew quickly away with her, to the far north, bringing her to his sister Ariel, who promised to raise the little silver drakkon as her own. Ariel, who had no daughters, was delighted with Ana and doted on her greatly, but little Ana could not forget her mother, or the trauma of her birth. She blamed herself for her mother's death. Each day, she went to the water's edge and stared into it, wondering if her life was worth the sacrifice her mother had made, and asking herself why Drake had saved her.
Drake did not forget the little drakkonling he had saved, but his hands were full. He was the chieftain of the free drakkon of Eeth, and he had to protect his people at all times from the raiders of the Golden Kingdom, who were too lazy to hunt. He often saw Ana retreat to the water, but took no notice of it until one day he heard her scream in terror. Flying quickly to her, he found Ana facing three massive males, all intent on taking her back to the Golden Kingdom.
Rage like Drake had never felt before rose up within him. The Obsidian drakkon fought the others, who kept leaving the fight to attempt to take Ana, and in their distraction, he eventually defeated all three. He took Ana, who was shivering in fear, into his wings and held her close, promising that so long as he lived, he would always protect her.
Drake and Ana grew to love each other wildly. He taught her to defend herself, and she taught him the stories her mothers had given her. The pair became inseparable, and their people called them Drak'ana, which eventually became "the lovers". For about three thousand years the drakkon of the north, under the rule of Drake and Ana, prospered.
Duran, the final descendant of Takil, killed his grandfather and took the kingdom by force. Having spent many years in battle against Drake and the northern warriors, his first act as king was to attack their nesting sites. Drake flew to rescue his mate and their young and entered battle with Duran, who laughed, calling in the men with flying spear machines,killing him from behind.
Duran began crushing the eggs in the nest. Ana, who had been flying to gather food for her young at the time of the attack, returned to find her nest destroyed, her people slain, her older children murdered or taken, and all but one of her eggs smashed. The only egg that survived was a tiny silver egg that had been hidden carefully by Drake, who brooded over it nearly as much as Ana in the hope that their daughter would have a better life than she had.
Finding the lone egg, Ana wept great tears and took it into her talons, holding the precious child to her breast. The egg was all that remained of her kingdom. Drake lay slain, long spears protruding from his back, and with him all Ana's joy was gone. She took her unborn child and flew to the water, where she had spent many long years with Drake at her side, investigating the clear water, the underground caverns, and the perfect sandy beaches.
Full of heartache, Ana intended to end her own life, and that of her unborn child in order to prevent the golden kingdom from having them. Instead, silver light surrounded Ana and her child as they sank beneath the surface of the lake, and they fell into a deep slumber that lasted for millenia. While the drakkon of the Golden Kingdom continued to rule, she and her daughter were curled together in a warm cavern deep under the lake, where they remained while the Rule of Kings ended with war, disease, and famine that lasted for several million years.
The Decline of Kings
41 MYA - 33 MYA (estimated date)
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
After the Eeth Drakkon were gone, Duran turned his attention on Ahi'Kenfad. Within a hundred years he reigned there as well. The time of Warrior Kings truly began. His warriors would band together in parties of twelve or more, called Wings, and would raid the nesting sites of other males, taking what they wished and not caring whom they hurt, be it males, females, the very old, or the very young. Even nesting mothers and unhatched drakkonlets fell to the flying spears, or were simply taken away.
Drakkon families built fortresses, and attacked in retaliation. Nearly every male became a warrior, but their females they kept hidden, rarely letting them rise to breed, in case a war party should be near. These were dark days, and the few who survived over the next several thousand years felt the full brunt of the three poisonous emotions. Society became clan-like, and no drakkon trusted a stranger. Almost nothing of this time remains in our memories, and because drakkon writing had not developed beyond simple instructive pictoglyphs (and drakkon language was still made up entirely of nouns, with emotion and meaning conveyed telepathically) none of the history was recorded.
The few facts we do know are vague at best, as few involved with the years of war and bloodshed survived. Only those who hid themselves in small tight-knit family groups had much chance. Any that gathered were attacked quickly. Males grew in size with each generation, in order to fight, while females grew smaller, in order to hide.
Those females who remained in hiding for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years deep within cliff caves, or in underground caverns, grew lighter in shade. Their voices became more quiet, and males stopped being able to entirely hear or understand their speech at around the time they hit thirteen years. This led to the dominant belief among males that the females of their kind were somehow less intelligent.
Around this time the obsidian drakkon became the strongest and healthiest, each generation growing larger. At the same time, obsidian drakkon became much more sympathetic to females, and were among the only males, aside from several of the diamond males, who could hear their voices. Because of this, females preferred mates who were obsidian or diamond, and the other males turned on them, banding together in larger and larger groups to attack any they found alone.
A slur became popular around this time tivir'tali'ani, which means motherless. Obsidian drakkon in particular were sought after and ridiculed because there was no obsidian female on the hatching ground. One young obsidian was attacked by his own brothers and cousins, and was forced to flee for his life before he ever took his first flight. His name was Dirk, but his entire life he had been called simply Tivir, which means without. He swore never again would he be betrayed and searched out an island where no drakkon lived, dug a burrow, and went into hibernation early.
This began one of the worst times in drakkon memory, when drakkon hated drakkon, and our kind killed one another with little remorse. Obsidian and diamond drakken went into hiding, some going into long periods of hibernation from which they would never wake. Any who were found were slaughtered, some in their sleep. Because of this, obsidian and diamond drakkon grew more crafty about hiding their dens, which were different and more defendable than nests. But in their empathy for the females of their kind, they refused to take them as mates so they would not endanger them.
Those who remained were gold, orange citrine, ruby, yellow topaz, jade, sapphire, amethyst, and much more rarely, a brown drakkon would be born. With so many in hiding, drakkon could not always find new mates. Close cousins often married because there was no safe way to find new mates. The drakkonlets from these unions were often sickly, and the females suffered greatly because of it. Many eggs did not hatch at all, and many who hatched died in their first three years. The songs of weeping and lamentation circled Eeth, and the drakkons all felt the pain of it.
The kingdoms of the males broke apart as fewer drakkon females rose, and fewer males survived to mate. They destroyed themselves from within. Their hubris was in assuming whatever had created us made a mistake in our design by creating both male and female. They chose to believe males were superior and so silenced their females, who could have told them the ancient songs that warned against inbreeding and stagnation. The females knew, but could not tell their mates, that they were destroying drakkon-kind.
The Third Age: Age of the Plagues The Plague Years
33 - 23 MYA (estimated date)
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Oligocene - 33.7 MYA
From the fossil finds of the Blue Age, we know that a great plague hit our species, as well as several slightly related cousins from the former age. Three of those species disappeared forever in those days. And the remaining drakkons went with them. Already a mix of inbreeding and unhealthy living habits, such as staying locked inside caverns underground, had weakened our race. The plague was the final stroke of our doom.
Some drakkon lay hidden, safely ensconced in small burrows, but all of them were male. Females who were carrying or nesting suffered greatly, and most died without having breathed the Life-Fire onto their eggs, which never hatched, and eventually petrified without the warmth their mothers could have provided. It spelled the very end of our kind. For four million years there is no trace of drakkon. All who lived, did so in deep slumber.
The Fourth Age: Age of the Desolation Parthenogenesis
21 MYA (estimated date)
The Last Drakkon
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA
Sala slept inside her egg for millions of years, curled in the arms of her mother Ana. From evidence at the site, we know that Ana awoke 22 million years ago into a world where drakkon no longer roamed. She took her daughter Sala, still hidden in her egg, and flew back and forth over the face of Eeth, singing the First Lullaby in the hopes that a suitable male for her daughter would call back to her.
None heeded her cry. In despair, Ana considered not breathing the Life-Fire into her daughter, but she so longed to speak to another of her kind, that she could not help herself, though she knew she was binding her daughter to a life of loneliness and solitude. Through their memories we know they spent several hundred years searching for other drakkon without any hope. They dug into old nests and burrows and searched old caverns, but found only the evidence of death.
Without hope, Ana fell into deeper despair, knowing she had cursed her child. She begged Sala's forgiveness. Sala, who had only ever known her mother, forgave her easily, because she did not fully grasp what she was missing. She was content to be with Ana, and wasn't intent on finding a mate.
After Ana died, Sala learned the true depths of loneliness. Her cries echoed in long canyons, her screams disappeared into the empty eye of the ocean, and Sala gave up on hope, and threw herself into the waves. The water buoyed her up and she floated on the surface, playing with the large sea creatures who came to nibble at her tail. She found in them curious new friends and followed them into their underwater world.
A relative of the modern-day leatherback turtle led Sala to a large island near what is now called the Strait of Gibraltar, where she lounged on the soft sand beaches and waited for the infant turtles to hatch and make their way to the sea. Finding solace in the wonders of the world she lived in, Sala was resolved to live, not only for herself, but to honor the mother who had given her life.
She built a small nest for herself in the top of an ancient volcano, and rimmed it with gold that she had found when she was searching for others of her kind. Long years passed, and while Sala was content, she was very lonely, and often would cry for long hours, wishing she had a mate and offspring of her own.
After another failed search, Sala wailed in despair, her feet thumping the earth beneath her feet. She thrummed her wings and pounded the earth with her tail. Then she lay across her golden nest and wept, falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Far beneath the nest where Sala slept, Dirk, the young drakkon who had once been attacked by his own siblings, woke from his millenia-long sleep and crept carefully from his burrow. He found Sala, sleeping in her nest, but turned away, though he found her beautiful, because the last thing he remembered was being attacked and he could not bear to bring that fate on a female.
Dirk took to the skies, quickly realizing Eeth was different, and that he was the only drakkon aloft. He bugled a call, and when no one responded though he cried for days, he returned to the island and woke Sala, who cried in astonishment not at his size, but that he existed at all. She wept and rejoiced, thanking the light of talia, the silver moon that had long been her friend.
For his part, Dirk was surprised to hear that all the other drakkon were gone, and worse, that Sala had been alone for so many centuries. He spoke kindly to her and when she rose soon after, he followed and they began to mate. But they were not the only two drakkon awake. A massive golden drakkon had gone to sleep in the mainland of what is now called France, and he had heard Dirk bugle and woken.
Angry that they seemed the only drakkon alive, and perhaps believing the stories he had been told in his own youth about obsidian drakkon, the golden drakkon attacked them in mid-flight, tearing Sala's wing. Dirk was able to help her land, but the golden drakkon immediately attacked him again, and having spent long years as a warrior, he was victorious. He snapped Dirk's neck and took Sala, refusing to let her fly. The mating was brutal, and Sala fought against the golden and took off. He soon followed. In the scuffle, her claw tore through the sensitive spot under his wing, killing the golden male as she plummeted into the sea, nearly crushed by his heavy body following after.
Injured and heartbroken, Sala floated on the salty waves, and finally crawled out onto the sandy beach of her island. She lay there for the span of a day before she managed to climb the rocky cliffs to her nest. Several months later Sala woke from hibernation to lay a single silver egg, but she did not breathe the life-fire into her daughter. Instead, she curled around the egg and began whispering the stories of old. All the tales that had been told by her mothers since the time of Talia, which her own mother had shared with her.
Sala did not live to see her daughter born, but died of her injuries during hibernation. In the last moments of her life, silver light erupted from Sala's body and spread like a wave through her cavernous nest, giving her unborn daughter the breath of life with her last.
Sinah Wakes
20.7 BCE (estimated date)
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA
Sinah woke beside the body of her mother only hours later. She knew her mother, through the stories she had told, and through the memories that had been passed with them. She knew who her parents had been, and she remembered each of her ancestors. In infancy she knew she was the last drakkon. To her mind, her mother and father had searched enough, and she knew early she could not bear the constant disappointment that searching every burrow would bring.
Sala's body disappeared, turning into silver mist, and Sinah, in her first moments of life, reached out and took a small silver sphere from the ground where she had lain. It was all that remained of her mother. She was too young to take her mother to the sea, and had it not been for the supplies Sala had lain in store in her years of isolation, Sinah would have quickly died.
Sinah spent her childhood on the island, unable to swim far, and not yet able to fly. She explored every cliff and cavern, learned every tree and rock, and knew each of the animals that lived there, or who came ashore to lay their eggs or build nests for their young. She ate only fish who did not know themselves, and the strange new plants that grew large fruits.
Eventually Sinah's wings were safe to use, and when she was nearly fifteen cycles, she threw herself from the rim of the volcano and flew for the first time. The love of flying grew stronger and stronger with each passing day and Sinah remembered what her ancestors had endured, being locked for unending years under the earth, unable to see the moon.
Instead of hoping for a mate, Sinah searched the world collecting the memories of her ancestors. She collected the brown obsidian orb from the ruins of her grandmother's home. She explored the ancient caverns where her ancestor Mika had been held captive, and the silver orb that marked where she had fallen in death. She explored the coasts and found the ancient Island where her species had survived the Sky Fire.
The world had changed in the time her mother and grandmother had slept. The land masses had moved, and new land had formed while other land had disappeared forever. Though some things remained, Sinah found the silver orb marking each of her foremothers, and many others from drakkon she had never met, and some who had never appeared in her ancestor's memories. She brought them all with her, fashioning a sling she carried below her wings on her shoulders.
Sad and alone, Sinah eventually returned to the island. Each of the orbs she collected, she carried into the caverns around the dormant volcano and placed them on natural niches within the walls. She could not carry them with her at all times, but they would be where she could keep them safe.
Like her mother, Sinah made friends with the animals and began to learn each of their languages. Soon she had many friends among the birds, and some among the mammalian fish and land creatures. Many had languages, or the beginnings of them, and she spent centuries learning each one. Her loneliness waned, but her longing to have a drakkonlet of her own grew with each passing year.
The Fifth Age: Drakkonian Silver Age The Falling Drakkon
20.5 BCE (estimated date)
Year 1,146: Drakkonian Silver Age
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA
Then, one night, Sinah looked up into the heavens and saw a light streaking across the sky. The light was bright, had a tail, and seemed to be falling sideways. Curious, Sinah flew as high as she could into the air, but no matter how high she rose, the light grew no closer. She remembered the Sky Fire, but the light did not seem to be coming toward Eeth, but rather traveling around it. For a moment, to her eyes, it appeared to be the falling obsidian drakkon on the day of the SkyFire, but it did not plummet toward the earth.
She wondered if there was something different about the air beyond the blue orb around Eeth. No drakkon could pass the line where blue began to darken into black. As far as Sinah knew, the circle of air was the only thing holding Eeth together. She did not understand the reason for the sun or the moon, just that they were there, and helped to shape the life that lived on the planet.
Sinah called up to the streak of light in a loud voice, to see if it would answer her. When no reply came, she went back to her chores and her studies of the creatures around her, somehow more lonely than before. The streak of light remained in the sky for many nights, and though Sinah did not have words to count with, she marked the passing of the comet overhead on the wall of her nest. She named the light Falling Drakkon, and marked each time it returned.
In the centuries of isolation that followed, Sinah created words to count the days, and the different seasons, and the streak of light that returned every seventy-five years. From her memories, we know she spent several thousand years alone on her island. Her loneliness is still a part of our species today, but so is the willpower to continue on when all seems hopeless.
On the tenth cycle since Sinah had noticed the streak of light that circled around the sun, Eeth, and the wandering stars, she cried out to it again, begging it to come and speak to her, for she was alone and could bear it no longer. There was no answer from the circling comet, but when Sinah returned to her nest that night, she fell into a deep slumber that lasted for nine weeks. When she woke, she laid a single silver egg.
Astonished, and hopeful, she watched and waited, breathing the Life-Fire into the tiny silver drakkonlet early. So thrilled was she at this new hope, that it did not occur to Sinah to wonder how it had come to pass. She assumed her cry to the comet had been answered, and thought no more of it, turning all of her focus on her child, who she named Renah, or Gift.
The Pledge
20 MYA - 2nd Age
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA
Sinah and Renah lived happily together for many cycles of the Falling Drakkon, as Sinah named the comet that passed every seventy-five years, but as Sinah grew older, she thought more and more of the time she had been alone, before the Falling Drakkon had granted her wish and given her a child of her own. She worried about what would happen to Renah when she was gone. Would her daughter be forced to endure the same endless loneliness that she herself had?
When the Falling Drakkon was nearing its fifth pass after Renah's birth, Sinah decided it was time to make another wish. She had no idea why the last one had come true, but assumed it had something to do with the Falling Drakkon. She tried to remember everything she had said and done that day, wondering if any of those things had contributed to her wish being fulfilled.
Unable to discover any single thing that had been different, aside from the emotion she had felt in her plea, she focused on what she wanted, and why she wanted it so badly. She focused all of her will on her wish, night and day, for several turns of the year until the time of the Falling Drakkon approached once more.
There is no explanation, other than will and want, for the magic we use, and this was the very first time it had been used with purpose. Sinah rose up and perched on a pillar of stone and began to sing a melody filled with all the pain and loss she had endured, not just through her own life, but through the lives of her ancestors. It was a plea, and a hope, that the drakkon race would continue.
She spun the song from the first night the Falling Drakkon appeared in the sky, until the very last night it could be seen. She did not pause for sleep, or rest, but only to take refreshing sips of water and continue her call. From the time the sun began to sink, until it began to rise, Sinah sang. She poured out her longing for her race to return to the skies, and her desire for her daughter not to live a life as lonely as hers.
Nine nights passed with no response. And then on the tenth night, four drakkon woke from hidden burrows and buried chambers near the island. Three were obsidian, strong and powerful, and they were proud and fierce. The fourth was a diamond, smaller, but wise and kind. While Sinah continued to sing, Renah rose for her first mating flight. All four males were successful in breeding her.
On the twentieth day, more drakkon began to appear, one by one. But all were male. By the last day, nearly two full months after the Falling Drakkon appeared, there were two-hundred and seventy-three male drakkon on the Island, raising their voices in song. Not all could understand the females, but they could hear the notes of Sinah's plea, and hear the Brooding song Renah sang over the thirty-nine eggs she had laid.
Eleven of the eggs held females, each a different color. It was unheard of, especially for a silver female. The males were astonished. More so because for the first time in any of their memories, there was an egg for an obsidian female. And there was an egg for a brown female as well. They were unsure what to make of it, and many were both fearful of, and grateful for, the powerful magic Sinah's music had called.
The male drakkon remained on the island, which they called Atlan'ni'ti'oca (birth'on'sea'magic) which roughly translates to 'magic birth on the ocean.' They worked to understand the females. Thankfully there were several obsidian and diamond males, who had not evolved hearing on the lower registers as other males had.
Sinah did not feel her work was complete. She stood tall on the top of a pillar of stone and looked down at the assembled drakkon. Already she could see them forming into small groups. Here the red and citrine were gathered, the Topaz and Gold close by. There the Sapphire drakkon huddled close to the jade. Renah was surrounded by several diamond and obsidian males, those who had risen to mate with her.
The song was incomplete. Sinah continued to sing as she watched the eggs harden, and Renah brooding over them lovingly, wrapping her whole body around the clutch protectively. And the three obsidian males who had risen with her stayed close, often reaching out to run gentle talons over the hard shell of the first female obsidian drakkon since before the Sky Fire. The diamond drakkon flew himself nearly to exhaustion, seeing not only to the needs of Renah and Sinah, but to the three obsidian he had risen with, who were so involved in the miracle that had been achieved.
Into her ongoing plea, Sinah built the need for all drakkon born of her line to have empathy for one another, and to always help one another as the diamond was doing. Then, when the Falling Drakkon left the sky, she called a council of the remaining males. The diamond drakkon translated her words to the males who could not hear her.
Sinah told them that never would a female be forced to mate again. They must swear a pledge, or they would not be allowed to mate with the children of her child when the time came for them to rise. One by one the males agreed, though many grumbled about it, and made the pledge for their offspring as well.
Nine males refused entirely. They spurned Sinah and Renah and said they would find other females. Ones who were more docile and knew their place. This small group of males who had once had power and wealth refused the pledge and left Atlan'ni'ti'oca, disappearing from the histories for nearly three million years.
Those who remained made a further pledge. They would return to the days of old. Never again would they fight for mates. Never again would one gender subjugate another. Never again would drakkon lift hand against drakkon. They would usher in a time of equality and knowledge, where every drakkon had choice over their own lives.
The males asked Sinah, the Silver Grandmother, to lead their people. She agreed, so long as a male would stand as her counterpart. Jonir, a golden drakkon, stepped forward. He had watched her sing to the Falling Drakkon night after night, and had become enamored of her. He knew that if he took the responsibility it would be hard work and he would not have much freedom, but for the chance to be at her side, he would do it. And so began the building age.
The males who had flown with Renah all felt a kinship with her, and with each other, and each loved her gentle spirit and kind heart as well as her protectiveness and temper when she was brooding. In the years that followed they became her mates, and though she flew with others, one or all of her mates joined the flight each time she rose.
Renah wished to call for a formal joining, for she loved each of them deeply. They loved her as well, but there was no such joining created in their new laws. Sinah and the First Counsel declared that permanent joinings should be allowed, and called families, so long as mates remembered that it was always better to add to a family than to remove from one, and that no one person in a family was more important than any of the others.
The First Cities
20 MYA
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA Atlan'ni'ti'oca
Founded: 20.5 MYA
Atlan'ni'ti'oca grew on the Island it was named for, where the Pledge had been made. The Island itself was more than three hundred miles across, and nearly three hundred miles from the bottom to the top as well. The volcano where Sinah and Renah had lived for so long, stood over the single island in the center, casting it's long shadow on the drakkons who watched and waited for the thirty-nine drakkonlets to hatch.
When the day finally arrived, the drakkon bugled their excitement as they watched Renah pull in a large breath and hold it in the special air-sack only females were born with. Inside the sack was a chemical that, when exposed to the incoming air, made a type of blue flame that she breathed over the eggs. Then, everyone watched in still silence as the first of the male eggs began to hatch and a small obsidian drakkon looked up at his mother for the first time and trilled happily to see her.
One by one the eggs hatched. Before the sun had risen to its full height all the males had broken free from their eggs. The females began as the sun fell from its peak, and through the afternoon, one after another broke loose and found their mother and fathers. Finally there were only two female eggs unhatched. The little silver, which was the smallest of the eggs, and the much larger obsidian, who began to crack her egg just as the sun was falling behind the mountains.
Those watching, many of them obsidian, set up a loud cheer when the first obsidian female in more than thirty million years escaped from the remnants of her egg and immediately made her way to her smallest sister's egg and began to trill to her. A crack appeared in the egg and the little obsidian poked at it with a talon, exposing a small silver face, looking out at her sister with adoration. She clambered out of her shell and huddled against the larger body of her sister, trilling loudly and happily.
Renah caught both her daughters with her long tail and prodded them into the group of their siblings, who were piled together in the nest, sleeping. She nudged Taliali, the little silver, and her sister Drakili, the first obsidian female, to the others and their brothers and sisters reached out their wings to hold them.
Renah's four mates, each of them overwhelmed at the idea of so many drakkonlings, sped away to bring food for her and their offspring. Draku, the father of Drakili, the obsidian female, dove deep into the ocean and found a beautiful obsidian pearl. He launched himself back up, carrying several large ancestors of the modern tuna, and brought them to his mate and his young. Then he presented Renah with the pearl and, in front of all the males, thanked her for rising with him, and asked if she would rise with him again, for he felt great affection for her.
Sinah, who stood atop her pillar of stone, watched in astonished gratitude, for it appeared the males truly had learned from their mistake, and never again would one of them force a female into mating. She felt it was the most important lesson their kind had learned, for one gender could not truly survive without the other.
In the coming years, the little drakkonlets grew quickly, but though their fathers held massive size, most of the young did not equal them in length or wingspan. Instead, it seemed they had gained something different. Larger brains, with more ability to think critically. They also gained better skill with telepathy, and some, especially among the females, began exhibiting signs of magical abilities that had never before been part of drakkonkind.
Centuries, and then millennia passed. The kingdom grew and flourished under Sinah and her golden mate's guidance. Atlan'ni'ti'oca became a very populated continent, with drakkon tunnels throughout many of the mountains, and the first school among drakkonkind, where males and females both attended until they were old enough to fly.
The First Cities:
Atlan'ni'ti'oca - Founded 20 MYA - on an island near the strait of Gibraltar.
Ryu'kyu - Founded 19 MYA - A small settlement on a series of islands off the coast of Japan 19.7 MYA.
Ama'ru - Founded 18 MYA - A hidden pass near Choquequirao leads to the small ancient settlement where Amaru once stood. It was founded 18.9 MYA.
The Sixth Age: Drakkonian Ruby Age
The Oathbreakers War
Ruby Drakkon are quickly shown to be the best warriors and become interim leaders of the government until the end of the age.
17 MYA
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Paleocene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
Epoch: Oligocene - 33.7 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Pliocene - 5.3 MYA (early humans appear 3.7 MYA)
Period: Quaternary - 1.8 MYA (start of the last major ice age)
Epoch: Pleistocene - 1.8 MYA (ended with the melting glaciers)
Epoch: Halocene - 10,000 YA (marked by the rise of man)
The Oathbreakers war was caused when males who had heard the stories of their sires joined the males who had refused the oath, betraying their oath and divulging information about the city of Atlantis. They formed a union and created the Stronghold, a place where male drakkon gathered together and trained for battle. They attacked Atlantis in the middle of the night, taking a young female during the battle. They attempted to force themselves on the female, but she was brooding over unlaid eggs and fought fiercely. In the battle, though she defended her young and killed three of her attackers, she died, her unhatched drakkonlets with her.
Inconsolable, her mates addressed the Council of Mothers, who agreed that for the sake of the Drakkon, the attack could not go unpunished. The males were hunted down and brought to trial, where they were given two choices. They could be banished, to live forever without the help or aid of other drakkon, or they could agree to the oath, which would be bound into their bones with magic.
Only one chose banishment. His story did not end there, nor did the harm he caused.
The rest took the oath, but chose never to mate as penance for their actions. Instead, they formed the Brotherhood, a group of male drakkon who protect all other drakkon against all threats. More joined them over the years, some because they feared violence within themselves or did not want young.
Unmated male drakkon joined when they were young, and sometimes stayed their entire lives, but often left when they found a mate they could not resist. Most male drakkon trained and studied for three years before beginning to look for compatible females.
In concert with this, the Sisterhood began, taking in unmated female drakkons intent on learning to defend themselves, their young, and their mates. It eventually became a requirement for all female drakkon to study fighting for a full year, and pass a test before they were considered adults.
The Blue Age 15 MYA 3rd age
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Paleocene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
Epoch: Oligocene - 33.7 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Pliocene - 5.3 MYA (early humans appear 3.7 MYA)
Period: Quaternary - 1.8 MYA (start of the last major ice age)
Epoch: Pleistocene - 1.8 MYA (ended with the melting glaciers)
Epoch: Halocene - 10,000 YA (marked by the rise of man)
The Blue Age began. It was an age of rebuilding, restructuring, and creating the law of drakkonkind. Government was run by the people, with representatives from each group of Drakkon. The Age of Learning followed, when drakkon began teaching their young in a more formalized way. We turned our sights to the world around us, and to the skies above, attempting to understand what had created this planet, and us.
For millennia we studied the new plants and animals, and over the course of time, learned that they were far more incredible than we had believed. Some animals showed understanding beyond others, and they affected the way drakkon saw those who inhabited the planet with us. We changed our feeding habits to exclude any animals that showed intelligence. Our diets began to consist of more fish and plant life and less red meat. Our intelligence grew, but our size decreased with each successive generation, until we were nearly the size of our ancestors at the First Hatching.
It is necessary to make note that drakkon forms changed and diverged over the course of several millennia, leaving us with three repetitive forms by the time humans appeared. The first is called a Wyrm, which has a long, serpentine body, thin arms and legs, and wings detached from those limbs that can be folded away under a flap along the spine, who generally lived in Asia and the south pacific. The second new form was the Drake, with a much thicker body, large wings that did not attach at the wrist but the shoulder, and a much thicker, longer tail, who lived mostly in Africa, the Middle-East, and Europe as well as the north pole regions. The final form was a Wyvern, which is most closely related to our ancestors, with wings attached at the wrist, larger lower bodies, who lived mostly in the American continents. All three groups are drakkon, with none being lesser or greater than the others.
By this time, our kind had grown beyond the first three cities. We had created new settlements. One began on a tiny island between Scotland and Wales. From there the Celtic drakkons developed. Another small city began on a group of islands in the Bermuda triangle. One small group of Diamond drakkons moved to the arctic. More and more our kind spread out over the planet until we were more common in the skies than the birds.
8 part seasonal calendar, 13 part moon calendar, yearly, heavenly bodies calendar
Humanity Appears
3.7 MYA
4th Age - Age of Humanity
Era: Cenozoic - 65.5 MYA
Period: Tertiary - 65.5 MYA
Sub-Period: Paleogene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Paleocene - 65.5 MYA
Epoch: Eocene - 55.8 MYA
Epoch: Oligocene - 33.7 MYA
Sub-Period: Neogene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Miocene - 23 MYA
Epoch: Pliocene - 5.3 MYA (early humans appear 3.7 MYA)
Period: Quaternary - 1.8 MYA (start of the last major ice age)
Epoch: Pleistocene - 1.8 MYA (ended with the melting glaciers)
Epoch: Halocene - 10,000 YA (marked by the rise of man)
Humans Use Tools
2 MYA
Humans learn to manipulate fire
1.7 MYA
The Seventh Age: Drakkonian Obsidian Age
Humans migrate out of Africa.
100 TYA
Arctic drakkons Disappear
End of Ice Age
25 TYA
Agricultural Revolution
Helping Humanity
12 TYA
Drakkons in the Triangle Disappear
10 TYA
Ruling Humanity
9 TYA
The Atlantis drakkons Disappear
9540 YA
Atlan'ni'ti'oca - Founded 20 MYA - on an island near the strait of Gibraltar - destroyed 9540 B.C.E. when members of Toma's Wing (a radicalist group that believes humans are a disease that should be destroyed) attempted to overthrow the government, kill the humans on the island, and bring back the years when Drakkon ruled the sky without worry of their human counterparts. (Most historical records were in the city when it sank). Drakkon from Atlan'ni'ti'oca were forced to relocate to the British Isles, where they formed a close relationship with the Celts. After the Hiding, these drakkon relocated to North America, where they joined with the local drakkon.
Drakkon, Human, Magical Creature History
Humans Learn Magic
9 TYA
Asian drakkons Learn to Shapeshift
Beginning of interbreeding and the creation of the thirteen magical creatures
6 TYA
The Rise of Empires
Drakkon return to the shadows
Stonehenge is built to call back the drakkons
5 TYA
The Eighth Age: Drakkonian Golden Age
The Culling Years
1423 - 1487
- First Drakkon Sighting - 1439
5th Age - Age of Hiding
The Alliance
The Hiding - 1456
The Witch Trials Continue (1330-1782)
1502
South American Drakkons Disappear 1592
Ama'ru - Founded 18 MYA - A hidden pass near Choquequirao leads to the small ancient settlement where Amaru once stood. Nothing remains of the buildings or structures after the city's disappearance in 1592, as they were moved into the safety of the a'kiz'widme. Few Ruby drakkon entered Kiz'Widme, but eventually a bridge was formed, in one of the many tunnels leading from the Hatching Ground and young Ruby Drakkon come to Kiz'Widme when they reach first puberty to learn the beginnings of their magic, study, train for combat and self-defense, and take the test of adulthood.
The Last European drakkons
The Three families follow the drakkons to America.
1594
European and American drakkons Interbreed
1690
The Salem Witch Trials
Drakkons and Magical Creatures of all kinds retreat into the Island
The Witches help the drakkons create an hidden oasis in a pocket universe
Feb 1692 - May 1693
Ryu'kyu - Founded 19 MYA - A small settlement on a series of islands off the coast of Japan. The Island was eventually sunk under the sea (on purpose) to provide a safe habitat for the drakkon and their messengers, who needed the water to survive. It also gave protection from the elements. Destroyed in 1771 by tsunami. Survivors traveled inland to other parts of Japan outward to other parts of Asia, or moved to America after The Island was rediscovered.
The Isolation Sickness
Finding mates on the Island proves nearly impossible - discovering some mates are in the human world
1830
The Leave-Taking
Several couples leave the island, in the hopes of connecting with humans and healing the earth
Some leave to find their mates
1980
The Ancient Mothers
Ancient Mother: Aia (Gold)
Ancient Mother: Tala (Silver)
Ancient Mother: Mila (Jade)
Ancient Mother: Sala (Sapphire)
Ancient Mother: Tifu (Orange Citrine)
Ancient Mother: Sinu (Yellow Topaz)
Ancient Mother: Melo (Amethyst)
Ancient Mother: Tania (Ruby)
Ancient Mother: Bina (Diamond)
Note:
These are the only known drakkon to have survived the Sky Fire. These "first-named" drakkon created their own names, based on sounds they liked while in the hatching ground, waiting for a safe time to breathe Life Fire into the eggs they were guarding. They developed over the course of years while they waited. It is because they created such a rich language in that time that drakkon are who and what we are today.
The First Eggs -
Ruby: 1 female, 8 males
- Mika
- Aro, Miko, Melon, Toba, Zana, Kala, Kahn, Ret
Orange Citrine: 1 female, 7 males
Golden: 1 female, 8 males
Yellow Topaz: 1 female, 6 males
Jade: 1 female, 11 males
Sapphire: 1 female, 11 males
Amethyst: 1 female, 9 males
Diamond: 1 female, 12 males
Silver: 1 female , 0 males
-
Obsidian: 0 females, 17 males
- Drake, Toma, Buu
Note: These eggs were lying on Ara'Kenfad Hatching Ground at the time of the Great Sky Fire. All the names are recorded in the Drakkon Compendium.
The Kings of Old -
Without World/Earth - Truz'Widme
The Island - Ara'Kenfad
Within World/Eeth - Kiz'Widme
PART TWO
Laws & Alliances
Kiz'Widme Law
The First Five Laws
Set down at the time of the Oath by the few drakkon who survived.
The first five laws of the drakkon have been adapted to fit the magical community as a whole, and apply to every citizen Kiz'Widme, as well as any citizen of Kiz'Widme who ventures into the human world.
Under our laws, any crimes that were committed unknowingly and without malice before becoming a citizen of Kiz'Widme are absolved at the time of taking the Oath. Murder and other high crimes (laws one and two) cannot be absolved without solid reasoning which is only granted when it is a case of self-defense.
Under our laws, any crimes committed while enslaved by the Enclave are absolved the moment the citizen is returned to Kiz'Widme. They may bathe in the Pool of Silver Tears to wash away what was done to them, and to free themselves of the slave collar. Then they retake the oath which was stolen from them and rejoin the collective (a magical bond in which creatures can share energy, powers, and even their own life force with one another).
No drakkon (Citizen) will harm, kill, or rule a creature who has been declared able to reason and feel emotion, except in times of declared war and with the permission of the Alliance Counsel or their ambassador to war, or in defense of themselves or another.
No drakkon (Citizen) can be forced to fight in a battle by another. No war will be started without the full agreement of the counsel. The Counsel vote must be unanimous with all citizens in each of the magical communities able to speak at the Counsel, and to provide their representatives with a vote.
Drakkons (Citizens) must protect those who are weaker than themselves, or in need, unless it will endanger themselves, their mate or their young, expose our kind, or harm others.
No drakkon (citizen) may steal. If it is necessary to take something to save your life, you must report it to the owner and quickly replace what you have taken. Food and other items necessary for survival can not be owned.
Drakkon (Citizen) parents are responsible for their children until they become adults. Thirty years must pass, or the counsel be faced and the tests passed before a child can be on their own.
The Four New Laws
Set down at the time of the Hiding
No Citizen may lie to another. Lies cause harm and must be avoided.
Lying is impossible in drakkon form, as most communication comes with mental images.
Each Citizen has equal value. If we lose each other we lose ourselves. No creature has higher standing than any other.
Each Citizen must have equal representation on the Alliance Counsel.
No Citizen may willingly betray the identity of another to a non-citizen.
Magical Creature Alliance & The Counsel
Representatives: (In order of joining the counsel)
The number and names of representatives are voted upon by each of the peoples. Some people choose to have more representatives, while others choose to have less.
Drakkon - 1 female drakkon, 1 male drakkon, 2 drakkon per clan involved
Witches - Maiden, Mother, Crone ; 1 male and 1 female representative per coven involved
Lesser Drakes - 1 male, usually the oldest male.
Sphinges - 1 couple
Centaurs - 1 stallion
Fairies - The Queen and King
Pixies - The Queen and King
Elves - 3 couples, 2 representatives from each involved court
Griffins - 1 mother
Pegasi - 1 lead mare
Unicorns - 1 stallion
Mermaids - 1 representative, usually a young male. Not a desired role, as a term is 9 years
Sea-serpents - none, they choose to be represented among the mermaids
Werewolves - Alpha Mother/Father, Brotherhood/Sisterhood Leaders, 1 rep per pack
Hellhounds - 1 hellhound, called Loyal
Thunderbirds - 1 mating pair
Humans - 2 reps for each clans(9), 2 reps for each tribe (3), 2 reps for all
Each group of representatives gets a vote. The votes are decided among the group, usually before the Council meets. Each group of people has equal representation because of this. While there may be much more discussion among some groups than others, that is the decision of those groups and the Counsel does not interfere.
Status Among the Drakkon
Neo Mothers and Fathers
There are various colorations among the drakkon. These are called races, but they are very intermixed, and many factors go into what color a drakkon will be when he or she is born, especially the type of elemental magic they will be strongest in. All drakkon are Channelers, though silver and obsidian drakkon can also be Wishers.
Male and Female Drakkon
Gold - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Brown - Neo Mother; Neo=father
Diamond - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Orange Citrine - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Ruby - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Jade - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Amethyst - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Yellow Topaz - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Sapphire - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Gray - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Turquoise - Neo Mother; Neo Father (mate of turquoise)
Pearl - Neo Mother; Neo Father (mate of pearl)
Female-Only Drakkon
Silver - Neo Mother; Neo Father (mate of silver)
Obsidian Related Drakkon
Obsidian - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Burgundy - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Bronze - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Indigo - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Hematite - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Opalescent - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Half-Human Drakkon - (Newest Groups to Form)
Pearl - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Iolite - Neo Mother; Neo Father
Emerald - Neo Mother, Neo Father
Family Names Among the Drakkon:
Family names are a relatively new adaptation among drakkon. For most of our existence, we have relied on multiple senses to determine the lineage of another drakkon. However, when in human form, or when a drakkon is too young to have transformed for the first time, these senses will not work. Only after the Hiding did matrinames become necessary.
Young drakkons who were among the first drakkon-human hybrids were unable to distinguish these lineages with their nose or their mind. It became imperative that drakkon had a way of identifying themselves to children, without garnering too much suspicion. The First Council was at a loss. It was the witches, who had both a love of colors and the understanding of the magic that corresponded to each one, that came up with a solution.
Each drakkon would take on the family name of his or her primary color when in drakkon form. When they bonded, they would join the two names in whatever way pleased them most. Until they were of Bonding Age, children would carry the same family name their parents had adopted. When they took on their own mate, they could keep one or the other of the names, or make a new one including part(s) or all of both.
Any drakkon venturing into the human world, must know that the Coalition Enclave has some idea of this naming system and should choose another name quickly in order to blend in. We must avoid all notice in the human world, and it is difficult to remain so. If you must fly, let it be only at night, or in the very last case to defend yourself. You should avoid populated areas, and especially hot zones, where satellites are known to be. Stay low, and out of sight whenever possible. Use your true family name only when you know you are speaking to one who is safe. Most magical creatures are safe, but some have been Taken and made to work against us. We still have no cure for the spell, so be vigilant.
The Factions:
Toma's Wing
A group of drakkons who share the radical belief that humans must be destroyed in order to save the planet.
Adriana's Sisterhood
A group of female drakkons who help those who have lost their bonded find new love, sometimes joining a bonded couple, sometimes by entering the human world forever.
Drake's Spear
A group of male drakkons (usually passed from father to son) who have the secret mission of outbreeding human males. They believe that if they impregnate human females, because drakkon DNA is more dominant, all the offspring will be drakkonkind. Some of them have multiple families in the human world.
The Purists
Those who have drawn back within the protections of the Island and refuse to leave. They will not go beyond the Ancient Mother's Boundary, and they secretly believe all magical creatures should retire into the magically hidden paradise forever, leaving the humans to endure the destruction they've wrought.
The Radicalists
A group of drakkons intent on gaining money and power in the human world so that they can overthrow the rich and rule for themselves. They fully intend to enslave the human population, but believe wholeheartedly that it is for their benefit.
About Drakkons
Mating and Love Bonds Among Drakkon -
While mating has long been popular for breeding and socialization, for most of our kind it has never been about love. Of course we love our children and have fond affection and love for our mates, but passion was a rare quality before the Hiding. It appeared most often in silver and obsidian drakkon, and in those drakkon who spent many hours with another creature of intelligence.
Love stories are rare among the drakkon, and so they are precious. Every love story among our kind has been handed down from parent to drakkon children in the stories and legends of our kind. They are taught from the womb, hearing the legends.
After the Hiding, when we learned to embrace the human parts of our mind, we discovered the joys of deep and abiding love. That has since made several changes to our family structure. One difference our kind has to humans is that there is no divorce. After the Hiding, the love bonds became so strong that it would be akin to cutting off one's own head to leave a mate.
Soul-Bonding is a permanent part of our evolution. No spell can undo what has been done, and nothing can separate the bonds that have formed. This is vital to know. You must always treat your mate well. If you begin to have feelings for another, include your mate. He or she may begin to form those feelings as well. It is always better to add to a family than to remove.
It is only since the Hiding that single-mate families have existed. Now it is multiple mate families that are rare. It happens more often among those born on the Island than in the human world.
Single-gender soul-bonded are also rare, though we are not certain why. Drakkon have been known for parthenogenesis, of course, where a female reproduces without the help of a mate. Male drakkon have often shared emotional bonds, especially during the Rule of the Fathers, as many males were not strong enough to fight for the females. And we have evidence that some males can become female, though we have no idea why. All of these things are rare, but any genetic deviation is highly prized as we have learned to our peril that a group within isolation cannot safely breed for long.
PART THREE
Information About Magical Creatures
Drakkon
Drakkon Genus
There are three genus of Drakkon, but they are so closely interrelated and so similar in magical abilities and form that they are considered all within the same species in our version of the classification system. Though the difference in physical appearance may be vast, we have learned that the energy running through all things does not always do as we expect, and interbreeding is likely to improve the health of the offspring and the stability of our kind as a whole.
Wyrm - Serpentine bodies with short, strong, thin arms and legs. Most have developed wings that tuck into their back. Mane enlarges when angered or aroused. Most drakkon from Asian and South Pacific environs have evolved into this form. Males are more dominant, and larger, than females. Some, from seven ancient lines, have lost their wings entirely and use only wita to power their flight.
Drake - Four legged drakkons with wide wings and heavy bodies. Their long tails often have clubs with two short spikes at the end and male wings are spiked. Females tend to be smaller than males but in most pairings the female is slightly dominant and when protecting her young she may grow larger (especially common among silver and gold i'drakkon).
Wyvern - Stand on two feet, wings attached at the wrist, heavy lower body. Females are usually larger than males and tend to be more aggressive and dominant than other females, and they are fiercely loyal. Males often form bonds with other young males in their youth and these become mating groups, where two to three males, all close friends, seek after a single female.
Coloration Notes
While there were initially nine Ancient Mothers, there were also eggs of Obsidian Drakkon in the nesting grounds. Some were the offspring of the Ancient Mothers, while others were the offspring of pure Obsidian Drakkon, who died in the Sky Fire. That means there were initially ten colors that drakkon were adorned with.
After the drakkon race was saved by a silver, a diamond, and three obsidian drakkon, our kind learned that all drakkon are necessary to the continuation of life, and that our color does not impact who we are as a citizen, or as a drakkon. Shape and color, even genus, mean nothing to a society that is truly equal.
There are now twenty-eight unique colors that have been repeated for at least three generations, which is the time necessary to consider a new color. Not all offspring carry their parent's coloration patterns. This is just a guide. Magic, a part of us since the time of the Oath, has become slightly more indicative of color, though again, not always the case.
A new Color Species is not added to the list of drakkon until there is a female born of that color, as established at the time of the Oath. Sometimes there will be many generations before a female is born of a color. Until that time, colored offspring are categorized as a subgroup of the parents' colors, or if they are not similar in color to either or both parents, they are classified as an outlier until a female of that color is born.
A new Color Species often spends the first century discovering more of their magical talents, and learning the ways of the counsel as any new Color Species changes representation to a new group rather than being classified as a subgroup of their parents or as outlier groups, which have their own representation. They are often given the assistance of retired counsel members, who are able to help them learn the process of adapting the laws and setting up the social voting system that best fits their needs.
Female offspring usually follow closer to the matriarchal line. About a third of male offspring follow the matriarchal line in form and coloration. This is excluding males with Obsidian fathers or females with Silver mothers. Males with Obsidian fathers often fall into a subgroup in color and ability but often always take on the drake form. Firstborn daughters of silver drakkon are almost exclusively born silver, though there are exceptions, and are exclusively born in drake form.
All First Mothers were born after the Falling Drakkon Wish. Only eleven females were born then, one of each of eleven Colors, but many new Colors have since evolved, and the first female born of that color becomes the "First Mother." "Ancient Mother" refers to the female drakkon who survived the Sky Fire in the safety of the Hatching Ground.
All Colors have a Neo Mother and a Neo Father, who are the oldest and wisest among each group. Except in rare cases, both drakkon are born the color they represent, however, there are no male silver drakkon yet in existence. The Neo-Father of the Silver-Drakkon is whoever is mated to the oldest female drakkon, and while he stands as their protector, his voice is counted among those who carry similar color and magic, because their skills are shared and their needs are similar.
Colors are categorized as Primary, Neo-Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. As yet there are no quaternary colors, but there have been a few pairings that led to interesting colors in the offspring, especially among pink females and amethyst males, which lead researchers to believe our colors will continue to change, especially as more spontaneous (Iolite) drakkon appear among the human race.
ANCIENT (PRIMARY) COLORS
*Among the ten colors found in the eggs on the hatching grounds
Ruby
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Fire, Heat, Passion, Wisdom, Foretelling
Personality Traits: Drawn to battle, temperamental, proud, easy to offend, but loyal to the death. Drawn to celestial bodies, to fire, and to warm places.
History: Most ruby drakkon moved to a small settlement in the Andes mountains. During the Oathbreakers war, their settlement was attacked, to the detriment of the Oathbreakers, who inadvertantly brought forth the light of battle in Ruby drakkon. They became the strongest and fiercest warriors amond drakkon, and have long been the trainers of the young who are about to reach adulthood. They disappeared for a time after the oathbreakers war ended, and were not seen again until the time of the Hiding, when their representatives flew to meet the Counsel and give their vote. When the Hunters followed Kalina and the European drakkon to the new world, they faced the dangers of conquistadors. Many of the humans who they had long protected were killed. They moved the ones they could save into their kiz'widme, which was linked with Nin'Kiz'Widme shortly after it's creation. Red drakkon were heavily involved in the creation of the Within World, where they helped to shape many of the habitats for drakkon. The hampihma (doorway) to the Ruby Kiz'Widme is located within the hatching grounds, but also in the ancient pass in the Andes mountains, where certain human and wita'hum friends can contact them if they need help.
There has been no known parparthenogenesis among Ruby drakkon, though there is a known incident of protogeny, when several males were trapped by a cave in, and created a kiz'widme in the caverns they lived inside. One of the males became female about three thousand years after they were trapped, and about three billion years later, their descendants eventually emerged.
Ancient Mother: Bina
First Mother: Binali
Neo-Mother: Brigid
Orange Citine
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Fauna, Inspire Creativity
Personality Traits: Orange drakkon prefer to be with other creatures, especially wita creatures, like Mamut and Pegas. While they will welcome anyone for a short time, visits exhaust them. Long-distance fliers and historians, some become travelling story-tellers, though many prefer to join the Packs and search for young Iolite drakkon. Nearly any creature will obey them, and they often collect two or three animals that follow them, usually wita creatures.
History: They settled in the Bermuda Triangle, and have dozens of kiz'widme there, on small islands, or under the water. They disappeared for many years, only reappearing when the Counsel was called. They have since placed a hampihma in the Hatching Grounds, so that all drakkon can reach them, but they have been systematically closing the portals in the human world, feeling it is safer for them to come and go through only one portal, which is hidden on a moving island, only visible during the Falling Drakkon cycle.
Ancient Mother: Tifu
First Mother: Tifuli
Neo-Mother: Tiani
Gold
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Rebirth, creation, knowledge, physical healing
Personality Traits: Make the best leaders of small groups and in politics. Fair, levelheaded, and prone to self-sacrifice, usually highly intelligent and willing to die to defend a cause. Mental strength and ability runs strongly.
History: After the Oath, they moved to North America, where they lived for millions of years. Those who remain in the human world are living among the people on some reservations. Many were killed when Europeans came to the Americas. Those who weren't killed moved to the Island, taking any family among the people with them. They still regret that choice. Many Iolite drakkon were killed when the Americans becan spreading over the country, and they have never forgiven themselves for abandoning their people. Most young Golden drakkon ask to spend time in the human world shortly after reaching adulthood. It is usually granted, so long as they go to a reservation. They often return with extended families, including spouses, and the families of those spouses. The wita'hum descendants of those who came to Nin'Kiz'Widme are among the best Searchers, often finding young Iolite drakkon with little effort, as they tend to be drawn to golden drakkon.
Ancient Mother: Aia
First Mother: Aiali
Neo-Mother: Aiara
Yellow Topaz
Genus: Wyvern/Wyrm
Wita: Air, inner peace, joy bringers
Personality Traits: Sunny, happy, outgoing, and usually quite peaceful. They tend to leave on high peaks, and enjoy sunbathing more than any other drakkon.
History: These happy drakkon moved to areas in Asia and the South Pacific. They are often called Luck Drakkons, because they have a tendency to make lucky choices or have lucky things happen to them. Others believe it is their positive and hopeful outlook that brings them good fortune. There are three main kiz'widme in areas of the south pacific, where these drakkon spent most of the centuries until the hiding. They are an integral part of the cultures among human and wita'hum in their chosen homes, and they care for them deeply, protecting them as much as possible without revealing themselves. They are responsible for making sure their peoples are able to live off the land without too much struggle, and they are bringers of joyful music. They were among the first to learn shapeshifting, so they could interact with the peoples around them, and often choose to live among them, rather than staying inside the Kiz'Widme. It is believed these drakkon, and their wita'hum counterparts, far outnumber actual humans in some areas. There are few living in Nin'Kiz'Widme, though a few stay year-round to maintain the wita'wela (magic well) of the Topaz drakkon.
Ancient Mother: Sinu
First Mother: Sinuli
Neo-Mother: Sunny
Jade
Genus: Wyrm
Wita: flora wita,
Personality Traits: Drawn to jungles and dense old forests. Tend to live in small groups and do not appreciate unannounced visits.
History: Many ended up in the jungles of the South Pacific, Asia, Africa, and South America. Deforestation, Hunters, and several wars convinced them to move most of their hampihma to Hatching Grounds in Nin'Kiz'Widme. Few still live among the humans in the Outer World, and those few refuse to leave them. They take on human form and blend into the tribes and peoples of their chosen area and do their best to protect them, and their way of life.
Ancient Mother: Mila
First Mother: Milali
Neo-Mother: Jada
Sapphire
Genus: Wyrm
Wita: Water, earth sciences, wisdom and intelligence
Personality Traits: Drawn especially to the ocean, but to any source of water and ice. These drakkon are the best swimmers, and they often live under the water in wita'wela, or in bubble cities.
History: Known as the first to begin studying the sciences, and the ones who created most of the technology used on Atlan'ni'ti'oca, these drakkon choose to protect the planet through means of water wita, and have been doing their best to rescue sea animals, moving them to the Kiz'Widme created for them in our hidden realms.
Ancient Mother: Sala
First Mother: Salali
Neo-Mother: Britani
Amethyst
Genus: Drake
Wita: Fortelling, Renewal, Spiritual healing, Music
Personality Traits: Quiet, peaceful, drawn to isolate during certain parts of the year, especially late winter. They can see the future, and have no fear of it. They accept what will come, though it hurts them.
History: Lived mostly in Atlan'ni'tioca, and after its destruction they moved to parts of Europe, with the sapphire drakkon.
Ancient Mother: Melo
First Mother: Meloli
Neo-Mother: Melody
Diamond
Genus: Drake
Wita: Ice, snow, knowledge, creation
Personality Traits: Drawn to the great north ices, these drakkon live in small communities that spend most of the cold months in celebration and fun. They are fearless, and curious, which often gets the young into trouble.
History: Lived mostly in the coldest regions, which changed over time. Many disappeared suddenly, at the end of the last ice-age, and those who remained moved to Atlan'ni'tioca, moving later to Europe after the city was destroyed. They reside in Nin'Kiz'Widme, and have a habitat built to suit their needs, full of ice and snow, and the creatures they speak to most easily. They are fond of snow creatures, and have an easy way with them.
Ancient Mother: Tana
First Mother: Tanali
Neo-Mother: Tina
Silver
Genus: Drake
Wita: Wishes, Dreams, creation and renewal, a wita conduit and powerful spell caster. Magic works better when a silver drakkon is involved.
Personality Traits: Kind, gentle, selfless, childlike wisdom and wonder. Travlelers. Other wita creatures are drawn to silvers, and other drakkon are drawn to protect and obey them, though they hate to be in power and usually prefer to have a small group of friends and family around them. Genuinely want to make others happy. Make the best judges and rulers, but only after they accept the responsibility.
History: The most selfless of drakkon kind, Silvers have been responsible for saving our kind from extinction on at least two occasions. It was a Silver Drakkon who birthed the eleven First Mothers that renewed our species. They have often been hunted for their magical and reproductive qualities. Currently, only two silvers exist, and one is missing, possibly a captive of the Enclave. All wita creatures are drawn to silvers, unable to bear being away from one they love for long.
Ancient Mother: Talia
First Mother: Taliali
Neo-Mother: Kalina "Colleen"
Obsidian
Genus: Drake
Wita: Wishes, Dreams, creation and renewal, protective wita, Protection, Knowledge, and Insight
Personality Traits: Kind, overprotective, selfless, travelers, make easy friends but few close friends. Males can be slightly more aggressive towards threats or possessive and protective over their young, very useful battle skills, good lawmakers, peacekeepers, and guards. (Very attracted to silver and white drakkons)
History: Most obsidian drakkon lived in parts of Europe until the Hiding. They tend to be larger than other drakkon, and they are known to have heavily armored scales, and dagger-like pinions on their wings. They currently live on the Island Nin'Kiz'Widme, or in the Stronghold.
First Mother: Drakili
Neo-Mother: Dorata
NEO-SECOND (SECONDARY/TERTIARY) COLORS Brown (Gold/Obsidian)
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Earth, rock, stone, dirt, tunnels and building
Personality Traits: Generous, open, friendly, welcoming, tend to stay close to home. Creative, and passionate about using natural materials to build anything. Build to fit the landscape
History: First appearing during the Age of the Kings, these drakkons came from gold and obsidian breeding. They disappeared in the Age of Plagues, as did many other colors. Brought back with their First Mother Eethali, at the Falling Drakkon, and the time of the Oath, these drakkon are drawn to underground tunnels, and mountain halls.
Original Mother: Eeth
First Mother: Eethali
Neo-Mother: Eethi
Moonstone (Silver/Obsidian)
Genus: Drake
Wita: Dreams, Dreamweaving
Personality Traits: Tend to be storytellers and teachers. They are able to spin stories in their minds that they can tell to the young they teach.
History:
First Mother: Tidra
Neo-Mother: Talidra
Indigo (Amethyst/Obsidian)
Genus: Drake
Wita: Dreams, Fortelling
Personality Traits: Tend to become advisors, and mental health workers. Open and caring, but with a deep sense of empathy that emcomasses all aspects of their lives. They are Truth Knowers. They can read both the memory, and the intent behind the action. They often work in conjunction with the courts as advocates for the accused.
History: First arising as wita'hum appeared, they quickly became mental healers, living in Atlan'ni'ti'oca, later in Europe, and now among those in the Nin'Kiz'Widme who help newly found Iolite drakkon, wita'hum, and other magical creatures.
First Mother: Medra
Neo-Mother: Morgan
Pearl (Diamond/Obsidian)
Genus: Drake
Wita: Wisdom, Wishes, Dreams, Snow
Personality Traits: Tend to be the best teachers of young children and those seeking a new path because they can see into a persons motivations and what they truly want and help lead them into the right pathways for their personality and their unique wishes.
History: After the disappearance of many diamond drakkon, the survivors were welcomed by two groups, those in Atlan'ni'ti'oca, and those who lived in the northern reaches of Europe. Pearl drakkon are the offspring of Diamond drakkon and the Obsidian Drakkon who welcomed them. Within a few centuries there were thousands of Pearl Drakkon, and they have since become one of the most prominent colors among drakkon-kind.
First Mother: Pearl
Neo-Mother: Tali
Ochre (Yellow Topaz/Obsidian)
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Flight Wita, Wind Magic, Shape-shifters
Personality Traits: The best fliers of any generation. Tend to be adventurous and outgoing, but often make mistakes in their youth. Best at teaching flight to youngsters.
History: Quickly becoming the messengers of Drakkon, the first male was named Hermes, and was thought by some ancient cultures to be a god, or a messenger of the gods. They are incredible shape-shifters, and often take the form of other flying creatures.
First Mother: Bethni
Neo-Mother: Bethany
Jet (Jade/Obsidian)
Genus: Wyrm
Wita: Flora
Personality Traits: Usually specialize in one or two types of growing magic, and become slightly obsessive. They are often loners, but welcome visitors who respect growing things. Usually vegetarians, and often join causes that will help the earth outside Nin'Kiz'Widme to heal.
History: Among the first to seek mates among Iolite drakkon, these drakkon are drawn to the world of the humans, feeling the painful calls of the earth.
First Mother: Janus
Neo-Mother: Januli
Burgandy (Ruby/Obsidian)
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Hearth Wita, Healing, metallurgy
Personality Traits: Usaully born male. They make incredible workers of metal and tend to be creative and protective mates. Friendly, but not very outgoing. Usually shy, and when they find their mate they can become overwhelmed by the outpouring of emotion they feel. Best match as co-mate for a bronze drakkon, as they are very affectionate creatures, able to provide for their lack of effusive emotion.
History: Known for creating the best nests, these drakkon are found among every small group, and in Nin'Kiz'Widme are often sought after for their help.
First Mother: Hestia
Neo-Mother: Hester
Sunset (Orange Citrine/Obsidian)
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Fauna Wita, Magical Creatures
Personality Traits: Usually one or two types of animals will be drawn to these friendly creatures, and they can shapeshift into those forms. They are open, outgoing, brave, and fiercely loyal. They are incredible friends, and are usually drawn to do tasks others would find unpleasant. They enjoy helping others find enjoyment in a variety of tasks as well, so they make great coaches and teachers.
History: Not many are born this color, and they live among the Orange Citrine drakkons.
First Mother: Fryta
Neo-Mother: Frieda
Dusk (Sapphire/Obsidian)
Genus: Wyrm
Wita: Sleep wita
Personality Traits: An unusually quiet group of drakkon. They are drawn to the elderly or the infirm, as well as to young babies. They often make great caregivers and healers. Their voices are unparalleled by any other than silver drakkon, and they are often called upon to aid drakkon into the final sleep. Work with Dreamweavers, who help make the final sleep an enjoyable one.
History: They tend to follow the silver drakkon, and can usually be found wherever one resides. They all currently reside in Nin'Kiz'Widme, the True Within World, where they help to ease any suffering they can.
First Mother: Skie
Neo-Mother: Skylar
Pink (Pearl/Ruby)
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Relationship builders, bonding, affection, love wish magic
Personality Traits: Open, loving, usually Female, have the ability to help new love grow, and have the ability to help create strong friendship bonds. Drakkon and Human alike find them irresistible, and none can bring themselves to harm them.
History: Noted as the first tertiary color. The First female born pink first breathed only shortly after the fall of Atlan'ni'ti'oca, and was hidden with her parents in the Kiz'Widme there.
First Mother: Eleni
Neo-Mother: Helena
SUB-GROUPS (SECONDARY/TERTIARY) COLORS
*No Females yet born
Aqua (Diamond/Sapphire)
Genus: Wyrm
Wita: Sea wita
Personality Traits: Dreamy by nature, they are good with creating things from water, creating forcefields, and channeling water through things.
History: No females have been born aqua. Only appearing after the creation of Nin'Kiz'Widme.
Turquoise
Genus: Wyrm
Wita: Water Flora
Personality Traits: Playful by nature, they enjoy a good romp with any sea creature, and are especially fond of mermaids. They can harness the types of plants under the ocean, and are fond of the creatures that live in kelp forests.
History: No females have been born turquoise. Only appearing after the creation of Nin'Kiz'Widme.
Lavender (Sapphire/Amethyst)
Genus: Drake
Wita: Foretelling,
Personality Traits: Serious by nature, they are often found peering into pools of deep water, where they seek answers to deep questions.
History: No females have been born lavender. Only appearing after the creation of Nin'Kiz'Widme.
Azure (Pearl/Sapphire)
Genus: Drake
Wita: Sea creature wita
Personality Traits: Playful by nature, and with an incredible love of sea animals, they are easily roused to anger, and when in human form on earth, they can often be found with animal rights groups that focus on sea mammals especially.
History: As of the writing of this book, there are no female azure drakkon. They are still fairly rare, and most are drawn into the human world, and believe that we should not abandon the sea on Earth.
Emerald (Jade/Yellow Topaz)
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Crops, growing things, spring
Personality Traits: These drakkon are usually happiest in fields of corn or wheat. They have a love of family and gathering, and prefer hard labor to mental work. They are often among the best storytellers, and musicians.
History: No females have been born Emerald. Known for merging into wita'hum societies, emerald drakkon never settled in one place until the creation of Nin'Kiz'Widme, or Within World, where there are unexplored regions still to discover. They tend to move across the land, and growing things follow in their wake.
Bronze
Genus: Drake
Wita: Metallurgy
Personality Traits: Prefering hot, humid caves, they often find themselves in active volcanoes, where they have learned to use wita to form things from newly cooled lava formations, from the crystals that form, and from the rare metals they create. They can be slightly belligerent, at least in contrast to the rest of their race, and tend to become blacksmiths, mechanics, or work with their hands in some other way when in the human world.
History: No females have been born bronze, and the color rarely carries to a second generation because Bronze males are not known to search for mates, and instead wait for them to come to them. While they are hard workers, they are often not romantic, and their mates tend to suffer because of this. Bronze males do best with co-mates who can pick up those aspects of a relationship he finds uncomfortable. They often make only one or two true friends in their lifetime, but they are loyal to those few and rousing their protective instincts is not recommended.
Mint (Pearl/Jade)
Genus: Wyvern
Wita: Hiding wita, Kiz'Widme creators, garden magic (especially herbs)
Personality Traits: Dreamy, and creative. Mint drakkon are incredible artists and create amazing kiz'widme habitats for rescued creatures from the human world.
History: As of the writing of this book, there are no female mint drakkon. Males are less rare than they used to be, and they seem to be increasing in number. The Counsel feels they will soon have a First Mother.
NEO-PRIMARY COLOR
*At this time there are still no offspring who carry this color. It is only found among spontaneous drakkon, with two human or wita'hum parents.
White Iolite (Human or Wita'hum parents)
Genus: Any, but they generally take on the genus of their future mate.
Wita: Healing, Bridgebuilding, Seeking, Empathy, Wisewita, Truthspeakers, Dreamers, Channelers
Personality Traits: Varied
History: From birth these humans, like wita'hum'ling, or o'drakkon'ling, are already full of senses that normal humans do not have. They are often diagnosed with attention or sensory disorders in early childhood, and are sometimes ostrasized by other children. They begin second puberty somewhere between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. If they do not find their mates, or someone to guide them into the transformation, they may believe they are going mad and some have killed themselves to avoid hurting friends and loved ones, leading to the Longing Sickness. Others have been captured by the Enclave, or have turned to darkness during this time. It takes long years of healing sleep to help them return to themselves.
Generally, these drakkon are among the innovators. They are unused to our laws and the reasons for them and often spend two or three years learning about them, as well as drakkon history.
Most are good, and kind, but some gain their access to magic through hardships that break their spirits. Sometimes these few can create havoc, as did Brutu the Barbarian, who kidnapped young human females and forcibly impregnated them to create his "Army of Brutu," or Dinah the Torturer, who plucked out the eyes of any who dared look upon her, or Meglin the Assasin, who killed with a poisonous touch.
The Wolf Packs and the wita and few drakkon who remain Without are responsible for finding these children as young as possible. They have many indicators they search for that I will not list here, as the danger of the Enclave is ever-present. I will say that they have a ninety-three percent recovery rate, and since the they are returned to their mates, the Longing Sickness has been abated and birth rates have begun to climb again.
Drakkon Childhood Newborn Drakkon (Unborn - 3 years)
Where once drakkonlets were born by the dozen, now it is unusual for a female drakkon to carry more than two drakkonlets at once. The shift in our bodies affected our ability to carry multiples. Fewer babies are born each year as a result of this, and because fewer females have multiple mates, there was some concern over the lack of genetic diversity. The influx of Iolite (spontaneous) drakkon was our only salvation.
Drakkonlet infants are born completely helpless and dependent upon their parents. They are born with no memories awakened. Each ancestral memory must be triggered by an activity that triggers the memory to arise. Often parents spend the first three years of a young drakkonlet's life telling them stories, and introducing them to others who will tell them stories.
During this time, parents and family are responsible for teaching drakkonlets, but there are weekly Circles, where mothers and fathers bring drakkonling to listen to the old stories, told by the most ancient and venerated of our kind. These stories teach youngsters our history, how to find home, how to survive in wild situations, how to Push back their magical protections, and every other thing they feel young ones should know. Parents often let their children roam in home gardens, or in play areas, as interactions with animals, new events, tools, and toys can trigger memories that will help them understand their world.
Drakkonlets ( o'drakkon'ling ) (3 years - 12 years)
Young drakkon are born almost fully human. They have magical protections in place that make them physically identical to human children, and unable to transform without Pushing back those protections deliberately, usually with the help of a parent. Until Second Puberty, this protection remains in place. By the age of three, most young drakkon know how to push the protections back, but until about the age of ten it is not recommended.
At three years of age, drakkon children join human and wita'hum children in school. They are taught the basics of knowledge. Foraging is one of the first skills focused on, but they learn nearly every subject taught in human schools, and many that are not taught. School is daily, for three hours every morning, and then for another two hours after lunch and rest time.
Drakkon First Puberty (12 years - 18 years)
When a young drakkon reaches the age of first puberty, they develop the human sexual characteristics among males and females. This change often coincides with the young drakkonlet leaving home and family for the first time and entering secondary schooling, where they are guided toward the path that is best for them, and their community.
This is an important stage of time because it is when their true wishes begin to develop. While the good of the whole is important, individual needs must be met. Some drakkon do not take after the majority of their color, and set a new path for themselves. Wherever it is safe to do so, drakkonling should be encouraged to try activities already established by those of other colors, as well as any new things they imagine. Creativity should be highly encouraged during this period, and more freedom is given to youngsters to study what they choose.
Drakkon Second Puberty
Second puberty may begin as early as the sixteenth year but can start as late as twenty-five. It lasts about six years on average.
During this time, young drakkon in Nin'Kiz'Widme learn to transform, to fly, to fight, to care for young, and to find their Calling and begin community service. This process can take between two and twelve years, with the average being seven years. Each young drakkon is different, and each will struggle with a different area of learning.
For young drakkon outside Nin'Kiz'Widme, this time can be especially dangerous, as the Enclave can use the blood of any drakkon in the midst of second puberty, because they can transform, but are not yet sexually mature. During the first few months of transformations, young drakkons struggle with hiding what is happening to them, and can be caught.
Most drakkon complete school by the age of thirty, but a few have been as old as thirty-three. These drakkon are usually among the most intelligent and gifted, and often go into the sciences, or the healing services. School must be completed before a drakkon can become an adult. Each course lasts only as long as it takes the drakkon to learn.
During the last few months of schooling, young drakkon are reminded of the Oaths, and begin their period of moonlight meditation. They are required to pass a test on each of the seven necessary skills of adulthood, and they must pass tests in conjunction with their chosen Service in order to take their place. Once all of this is done, they must confess to an Elder that they feel they are ready. The elder will search their memories of studies and meditation, and if they feel the young one is prepared, they will send them to the Hatching Ground.
For most drakkon, physical growth and aging ends somewhere around the age of thirty. That is why thirty is the age of adulthood for those who do not file for it earlier. Young drakkon who have passed second puberty, but not yet reached adulthood, have many more rights and responsibilities than younger drakkonlets, it is true, but there are still some decisions they are not prepared to make.
Neo-Drakkon Humanus (Majora and Minor) seem to age at approximately the same rate. A drakkon has not died of old age since the time of the Hiding, so we cannot give you a complete picture of the life cycle. What we do know is that until about the age of eighteen, we mature as a normal human. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty, drakkon young enter second puberty, a stage that generally lasts between four and ten years. While there have been rare adults at younger ages, this is usually due to Pushing.
A drakkon cannot form a bond with their mate until they are adults. Nor can they fully protect their offspring. Worse, female drakkon can become incredibly aggressive when pregnant or nursing young and have been known to cause harm to innocents when they feel threatened. That is why it is against the law to bond or breed a female before she finishes second puberty.
Drakkon Adulthood Ceremony
A drakkon cannot become an adult until they have passed each of the seven skills tests and at least one Service test. Once they have spent their three months of moonlight meditation, passed the tests, and spoken to an elder, they are allowed to enter the Hatching Ground. Once inside, the young drakkon is guided to the testing Kiz'Widme, where they are told to disrobe and leave everything behind.
At this stage, some hesitate, and ask for more nights of contemplation. The choice to walk into the Testing Grounds is theirs, and cannot be forced upon them by any means. If they are pushed or pressured against their will, the door simply will not allow them through.
Once a willing young drakkon steps through, the Kiz'Widme opens before them, a true testing ground. It links to their own memories, and the memories of their ancestors, to find the best test for them. The test is not to prove to anyone else that they are adults, but to prove it to themselves. No drakkon can actually be injured in the Testing Grounds, and no drakkon can leave until they have passed the test, which is different for each drakkon.
The only way to leave the Testing Grounds, is by realizing one is already an adult, and that they can handle whatever comes their way. When they leave, new adults are met by every member of their family that can be found, as well as their future mate, if he or she is known, and their family, and any friends they have made. A celebration begins that lasts three days. Singing and dancing are highly appropriate, and there are drinks that make one sleepy and open to new ideas, which often spurs the new adult into Service.
After the days of celebration, the new adult is brought before the counsel, where they will take the Oaths. About ninety percent of young adults take the Oath immediately, though some ask for time in the human world before they do. If this is granted (the only other option being time spent in a particular kiz'widme where the Oaths do not apply) they will generally spend between six months and three years in their chosen place before returning to the Counsel. All but three have taken the Oath after this time of choice.
Bonding
Soul-Bonding is a permanent part of our evolution. No spell can undo what has been done, and nothing can separate the bonds that have formed. This is vital to know. You must always treat your mate well because they are a part of you, and you of them.
It is only since the Hiding that single-mate families have existed. Now it is multiple mate families that are rare. It happens more often among those born on the Island than in the human world, but still there are few enough.
Single-gender soul-bonded are also rare, though we are not certain why. Drakkon have been known for parthenogenesis, of course, where a female reproduces without the help of a mate. Male drakkon have often shared emotional bonds, especially during the Rule of the Fathers, as many males were not strong enough to fight for the females. And we have evidence that some males can become female, called protogyny, though we have no idea why. All of these things are rare, but any genetic deviation is highly prized as we have learned to our peril that a group within isolation cannot safely breed for long.
Pushing
Pushing is what happens when a young drakkonlet is in danger before they reach second-puberty. The drakkon, especially those who feel the need to protect another, can push back the magical protections that delay their ability to access the magical half of themselves and can transform. The youngest known drakkon to push in this way was Serafina Goldamber, who was only nine years old, when her little sister fell over a cliff.
It is very rare, and is more likely to happen when a parent talks the drakkonlet through the transformation. A parent can help force the magic through the system and open the pathways. Once a young drakkon Pushes however, it cannot be undone. This leaves many drakkonlets unable to hide their true form, and in rare cases it may jumpstart second puberty far too young.
This has become less of a problem since the Island was rediscovered and the Inner World created. There, drakkonlets attend drakkonlet school until they reach sixteen, and then join the colleges that teach them the dynamics of flight and the basics of fighting alongside their service courses and magic lessons.
Witches
Witches(Hereditary/Spontaneous) -
There are two types of witches. They are Hereditary and Spontaneous. Each is powerful in their own way, but there are different strengths and gifts they bring to magic, and to the world around them.
Hereditary
Hereditary witches are usually known not just by their powers, but by their family line. Though every witch's powers are slightly different, they tend to fall within groups, and the sons and daughters of those witches carry on that trait. This is why Hereditary witches are sought after especially for renewing spells, or for tasks that involve knowledge of the element, which children generally gain from their parent(s) through long years of training and education.
Spontaneous
Spontaneous witches are usually unknown until their powers appear. This can happen at any time during the life of a human, but most often happens at puberty or when the life of the soon-to-be witch or someone he or she loves is endangered. Spontaneous witches do not have the advantage of years of training, but they have something else. They are usually very quick-thinking and creative.
Pre-Witch Humans
Pre-Witch Humans are a different matter altogether. To this day drakkon and witch researchers have not discovered what began magic in the human population. We believe drakkon magic comes from invisible energy, which runs through everything in the universe, but we are not entirely certain. We have no hint of a source for magic developing in our younger friends.
Whatever the initial cause, we do know that humans go through stages similar to drakkon second puberty before they use magic for the first time. There are four things to watch out for among humans.
First, humans tend to be more hyperactive and talkative than in the past.
Second, they tend to be more aware of their surroundings. Lights, noises, smells, or just about anything else will draw their attention.
Third, if they've had a bad experience they might become slightly more territorial than is typical as well, especially males.
Fourth, they appear able to better grasp the emotional needs of others.
Drakkon-Human-Witch Hybrids
Single Drakkon-Human-Witch Hybrids
The Hydra and Cerberus come from interbreeding, but there is only one of each of these in all recorded history, and they lived in Greece, the children of the same sire Grogaru, though they had different mothers. It is also possible that other magical creatures of this sort exist, though there is no evidence to support this.
The Children of Arnoc (pearl drakkon) and Maglia (the "mother" witch) Fairies and Pixies
Descendants of twin sisters, Faia and Pixi.
While there is some rivalry between the two groups, and pixies are indeed smaller than their cousins, most of common folklore is completely mistaken. Fairies and Pixies both have been changed in the Hiding. They are at once human and fey with the ability to change form at will. Fairies have thin dragonfly-like wings, while pixies have wings that mimic butterflies and moths, but with the Hiding, they gained the ability to blend in further by taking on the shape of their wild friends.
Elves
Descendants of Miko "The Wise One,"
Elves are tall, willowy, and tend to be 'fair of skin and light of hair'. They are a long-lived race, like their cousins the pixies and fairies. In fact, to date, none has died of old age, and none have aged beyond what appears to be late puberty or early adulthood. They tend to be long thinkers and long talkers, as they believe an answer incomplete without explaining why they drew their conclusions.
The children of Uru (obsidian drakkon) and Amya (witch with cat magic)
Iliar and Setalia.
Uru was lonely. He had not found a mate among his kind, and he had learned to glamorize himself into human form, so he left his home and his people and began life among the humans, traveling from place to place as a trader. One day he came upon a village and a young woman named Amya, who had powers her people did not understand.
Unlike many peoples, who embraced the few hereditary witches or spontaneous witches among them, this tribe feared Amya and banished her. Uru, seeing her in tears, took her hand and led her away with him. She followed him in his travels for many years, and learned that there was something different about him. Love blossomed between them and they fell in love.
Uru promised Amya that he would always protect her, and he was faithful to that promise. Many times they fought to protect one another, and many times they helped other witches, delivering them to safety if their people turned on them. Eventually they developed the Hatenapmo (people who hide), and learned the magic associated with creating Kiz Widme, which they passed to their people, and to their children. Amya lived to be three-hundred, and when she died Uru lay down beside her and would not move until he died of thirst and hunger. Their children built a tomb around them, of carven stone, and stamped a large circle over it with their feet.
Later, in honor of what they had done, the witches put the first Hampihma (doorway to a kiz'widme) over their gravesite. Over the course of many years more hampipha were placed there, until one could reach many kiz'widme from the sacred site (called Stonehenge in the human world). The connections to them were broken at the beginning of the Hiding Age, when many humans turned on the witches and other magical creatures. They hunted and killed them out of fear, or for sport. The only remaining multiple connection point to the other kiz'widme is inside the Kiz'Widme on The Island.
Griffins
Descendants of Iliar.
Griffins have a lion's body, and the head of an eagle, and are incredibly loyal. They despise evil in any form, but they particularly fight against hatred. They make great guardians, and protect both Nin'Kiz'Widme and Ara'Kenfad from invasion, as well as protecting magical sites around the world. They live about three-hundred years on average, become able to mate around the age of thirty, and raise their young for about a dozen years before they leave the nest, not rising to mate again until their young can feed and protect themselves. Those young, especially females, tend to stay close to their mothers, and will often appear if she is in need. Male griffins are extremely protective of their mates, especially when she is delivering their young, and males are born more often. Generally a litter consists of one female and between two and nine males.
Sphinx
Descendants of Setalia.
Sphinx have the head of a human and the body of a lion, and large raptor-like wings. They are known for their wisdom. They live about three-hundred years on average, but are only known to mate two or three times, bringing up only two or three offspring each time. Females outnumber males two to one.
Drakkon-Witch-Wolf Hybrids
Descendants of Ilia "The White Wolf," and Jimaru (diamond drakkon)
Ara and Oro (born 1408 B.C.)
In the beginning, both were identical, and they loved each other very much. They grew up and began families and stayed very close together. They were attacked by a group of men who hated them for being different. In 1362 B.C., Ara and his mate Tifi, Oro and his mate Calari, and dozens of their children had been killed. What remained were four. Alph, Bet, Oma, and Kupi. Alpha, Beta, and Oma became the first true werewolves. Kupi, who was the only son of Oro to survive, grieved for many years and became obsessed with protecting his cousins. He formed a close bond with Oma, who talked to him for many hours and tried to heal his pain. Bet protected him while he howled his anger, and Alph reminded him to live and gave him purpose. The traits each most exhibited in that time of grief was entwined with magic that helped them change into what we know today.
Hellhounds
Descendants of Oro.
After the death of his parents and siblings, Kupo could not bear the full weight of pain he felt in human form, and chose to remain in canine form forever. However, he learned to mimic the form of any canid, including the werewolf, and can still do so, even after the Hiding.
Hellhounds are always male, are very rare, and are incredibly territorial. They have been known to attach themselves to other magical creatures and form a bond called the Kinship. They can take on the form of any canine, including their werewolf brothers, at great need, but often choose one form and remain that way unless incredibly angered. If one they have formed Kinship with is attacked, they will defend them.
Nothing survives a hellhound. It cannot be killed by any means yet known, and will continue it's quest for vengeance until the quarry is dead. They are known to give warnings, showing themselves briefly in full form, to creatures they respect, if that creature is invading its territory. If the creature, or human, does not heed the warning, it can send out waves of energy that terrorize it, usually sending it running. It only attacks as a last resort.
When hellhounds arrived at the first Counsel, they were given the same choice as all the other magical creatures. They chose not to take human form. Instead, they asked for the ability to transform to remain a part of who they were.
At present there are thirteen hellhounds. They are formed when the hellhound becomes truly attached to another being. A hellhound still remains with the oldest living descendant of each of his cousins, and over time, each of those three has split themselves to create two at least once. When the hellhound splits himself and creates a second hellhound, their memories are identical up until the point of the split. After that, each has their own personal history that is not shared with the others.
Kupo, Kupa, and Kupe split in the exact same moment in 1304 B.C., and have identical memories up until that split. While Kupo was first, they are all three considered the same, per their own wish.
Kupo - Oma (werewolf - Born 1381 B.C.)
Loyal - Colleen (drakkon - 1488)
Kupa - Alph (werewolf - Split 1304 B.C.)
Toryil - Tiril (Unicorn - Split 789 B.C.)
Cerit - Benas (Centaur - Split 789 B.C)
Timir - Yogu (Pegasi - Split789 B.C.)
Peritas - Alexander (human - Split 345 B.C. - 309 B.C.); Nicholas (witch - 1410)
Duma - Taibiar'ea (elf - Split 205 B.C)
Tirin - Jazi (pixie - Split 207 B.C.)
Joxin - Toi (fairy - split 207 B.C.)
Kupe - Bet (werewolf - split 1304 B.C.)
Rupu - Tiroc (lower drake - Split 1210 B.C.)
Nupu - Antio (griffin - Split 804 B.C.)
Werewolves
Descendants of Ara.
Werewolves are ruled by the Mother and Father Alpha (usually the oldest living couple) who stand as the ultimate defenders of Werewolves, and are members of the Counsel. They are aided by the Brotherhood of Betas (males, usually related to the alphas, who stand as physical guardians over the pack) and the Sisterhood of Omegas (females, usually related to the alphas, who stand as emotional and magical guardians over the pack), who each have representatives on the Counsel. Werewolves have the shifting magic, as drakkon do, but they also have enhanced physical, mental, and magical capabilities to varying degrees.
In recent years werewolves have been sought after by the Coalition Enclave Scientists and Hunters. Rarely do these wolves reappear, and if they do, they wear an amulet that binds their minds away from the pack and forces them to obey the Enclave leader as they would a Ravid Alpha (an alpha who abuses his pack) by use of force.
Pack Structure
Alpha Mother and Alpha Father
Usually the Oldest Living couple among the wolves, though there are exceptions. These couples are not voted into office. Instead, pack kinship and bonding guide a wolf instinctively to the new leaders when the old couple becomes too ill or old to continue. Former Alpha Mothers and Fathers retain their status within the pack even after retirement and their counsel is sought often.
The Alliance of Alphas
This group is responsible for maintaining the law. They are called in when the law is broken, to ensure that the accused is given a fair trial, of not only their peers, but a sisterhood of Omega Truthreader to stand for them.
The Alphas are also responsible for updating laws, being active in the Counsel with the Drakkon and other magical creatures to represent their kind, and for being the last line of defense for the Alpha Mother and Alpha Father, should they come under attack.
The Brotherhood of Betas
An all-male group (as only males can be betas), each distantly related to the same ancestor. They have incredible magical abilities, and are the strongest members of any pack. When the Brotherhood of Betas feels there is a reason, they will send out a Go-Team of Betas who have trained as a military force. These groups can fight the Enclave Soldiers and they often work with the Sisterhood of Omegas, who use their magic to hide the pack.
The Sisterhood of Omegas
This all-female group holds the strongest magic available to Werewolves. They have great mental abilities, including Truthreading, telepathy, empathy, and telekinesis. They have other forms of magic they can use at will, after years of training. The Sisterhood will send out a Go-Team of Omegas, usually in conjunction with a group of Betas. While they can physically protect themselves as well as any wolf, they do not necessarily need battle training because the Brotherhood of Betas is fierce in their defense of the Sisterhood.
Pack Alphas - Alpha and Luna (female alpha) wolves
Pack Alphas can be either male, female, or (usually) a couple. Often the pack alphas are the strongest and wisest of the former alpha's children, and a mate chosen from the children of another alpha. They tend to have more children than other Werewolves, and those children are trained as Alpha throughout the course of their lifetime so that they can be prepared at any time to step into the role. Some are also trained in the role of Beta (if they are of the correct bloodline) and Omega (if they have mental magic).
Pack Betas
Pack Betas are always male, and they are all descended from one line of males with the ability to receive energy from their packmates through the kinship bond. They are always the strongest member of the pack physically, and have a rare type of magic, gifted to their line by intermarriage with an Obsidian Drakkon, to read both the emotions and intent of those closeby. This enables one wolf to be guard and protector of the entire pack.
Pack Omegas
Pack Omegas are those rare wolves who have mental magic, have high rates of empathy, and who have some skill in psychology. They are exclusively female (though the reason is not known), and are extremely rare. Finding an Omega within a pack early is one of the most important challenges, as they often do not gain the Truthreader ability until around the age of thirteen, which is when cubs are considered adolescents and sent to school. Only Omegas can read the ability in others.
They often go to college in the human world, though now there are professors in Kiz Widme for those who prefer not to cross the boundaries of Ara Kenfad. Omegas must be able to help their Alpha(s) and Beta in a time of crisis, to soothe pack members and stand as a magical form of protection. Apprenticeship starts at thirteen and continues until the Omega has proven themselves capable to their teacher(s), usually around the age of 21, when they will continue to study and improve their magic in a less formal setting while gradually taking on more responsibility.
Pack Go-Teams
Pack go-teams are made up of all the members in a pack. Those who work well together are typically joined in a go-team. Any member of the pack, of either gender, can be called to a team unless they or their mate is pregnant, or they have young cubs under the age of thirteen.
Go-Teams have between three and eight members, and are always put under the direction of a single wolf, with each member knowing who is next in command should the leader fall. Each person on a Go-Team must have at least three years of training (starts at 16) before they can be sent on a mission.
Pack Members
Any wolf who lives within a certain range, marked by the Alphas, answers to the same Alpha(s), Beta, and Omega. They are considered pack members from the age of thirteen, when they reach adolescence. Birth plays only a minor role, as a pack member can be from any pack, and of any lineage. The deciding factor is the location where they live, and the agreement of the Alpha that they will provide for the pack member and his or her family. Most moves are agreed upon well in advance, with the most common moves being work, school, or marriage related.
Cubs/Adolescents/Adults/Seniors
From birth until the thirteenth birthday, a wolf is considered a cub. They attend primary school (on Kiz'Widme) from the age of three, and are required to participate in Pack Classes once per month, at which time they are taught the legends of the Werewolf. Cubs are given leeway for mistakes made up until around this time.
When a cub turns thirteen, he or she is considered an adolescent. As such, the pack member is required to follow the laws and accept the consequences should they fail to do so. Adolescence continues until the age of 21, at which time a pack member becomes an adult. By pack law, no minor may leave Kiz'Widme without the accompaniment of an adult before they reach this age, and it must be agreed upon by the Mother and Father Alpha before it is allowed.
Around the age of 21 most pack members are physically capable of breeding, though they do not always choose to. There are no rules or laws saying a pack member must have children. During their breeding years, which lasts until around the age of ninety, those who choose to become parents must restrict themselves from Go-Teams if they have a child under the age of thirteen years. Around the age of ninety, breeding age ends for most females. Breeding age can continue until the age of two-hundred for some males, but declines around the time they reach one-hundred-sixty.
Males and Females are considered seniors around the age of two-hundred-fifty, but may retain their roles so long as they are physically, mentally, and emotionally capable of doing so. Some wolves retire around this age, but it is more common to retire around the age of three hundred, so the wolf can live their elder years in peace.
Family members are responsible for the care of seniors. If no family is available, the senior is given a representative from the Sisterhood of Omegas, who will help them decide where they want to go (if anywhere) and what they want to do (if anything). Seniors tend to make the best teachers for adolescent wolves, and are often asked to lecture after retirement. Their advice is sought by the council, and they never lose their citizenship or right to choice over their destiny due to age. Most wolves live about four-hundred-and-fifteen years.
Drakkon Magical Horse Hybrids
Descendants of Iyar (obsidian drakkon) and Luki (horse witch)
Unico, Pegas, and Senta became the first Unicorns, Pegasi, and Centaur.
Iyar was a lonely obsidian drakkon who could not find a mate. Luki was a horse with magic whose whole family had been hunted, leaving only her and her little brother Gar, who had no magic. When humans attacked Gar, Luki showed herself to save him. The humans turned on her, releasing Gar, who ran as fast as his four legs could carry him, to Iyar, who had played with him on the grasslands. The obsidian drakkon leapt for the sky and charged the humans, carrying Luki to safety. He brought her and Gar back to his home and kept them safe there for many years. Eventually he grew to love Luki and transformed into a horse to spend the rest of her life with her. They had three daughters.
Unicorns
Descendants of Unico.
Unicorns are born without horns, which only develop later in life, when their magic begins to grow. Horns on females are small while those on males grow to nearly a foot and are for mating displays. Females are more powerful than males with magic, theirs tending to be hiding magic. Males use their horns to express their magic in small bursts, attempting to impress a female. They do not mate for life, but have many mates within the herd. Far fewer males are born, and they will protect a herd, much like horses, though all unicorn herds are male and female both and all the males protect the herd together, with a female leader who directs it.
Unicorns only exist Kiz'Widme now, because their horns were highly prized among certain peoples. They have been hidden for their protection. They chose not to change during the hiding and have no human form. They chose not to take on the form of other horses either. They live about nine-hundred years on average. Young are not grown until they are about forty years old.
Pegasi
Descendants of Pegas.
Pegasi are horses with wings. They live about six-hundred years and generally only mate once, with no more than three foals born at a time. Foals take about thirty years to become adults. Most are white or silver in color, though there have been rare black and colored pegasi. All pegasi live Kiz'Widme for their safety. They also chose not to take human form. Pegasi bond for life.
Centaur
Descendants of Senta.
Centaur have human torsos on a horse body. They live about three-hundred years, and only exist kiz Widme, where there are three small clans and four larger ones. Their population nearly went extinct during the Hunts, and is only now regaining strength. They mate for life, and females are rare and kept protected at all times, a holdover from the Hunts. One female will take as many as three mates, usually brothers, and their bonds are close. Only one foal is born at a time, and young stay with their parents until they are about sixty years old.
Drakkon Magical Ocean Mammal Hybrids
Descendants of Ningli (Jade drakkon) and Titre (witch dolphin)
Aria, who became the first mermaid, and Teshin, who became the mother of the sea serpents.
Ningli loved the water, and spent most of her time underneath it. She played often with a school of dolphins and learned their language. Tirte, a dolphin with magical powers, wanted to mate with Ningli, but she spurned him because she had plenty of drakkon mates. She rose for mating and Tiroc, an obsidian drakkon, joined her. She was surprised to love him, and more surprised that he seemed to love her too.
But Tirte did not abandon hope. He loved Ningli and went to her whenever she came to the water. Many years passed, and Tirte did not speak, but finally, on the night of a full moon, he rose to see Ningli flying overhead with her mate. He called her. She went to him and swam in the waves. He told her of his love, but she wept, saying she loved another, and though she loved him, she could not part with her mate or their children.
Every night for a year, Tirte came to the surface of the ocean and sang for Ningli. She grew to love him more and more, but could not give up the skies, for she had many drakkon children and she truly loved her mate. She knew the magic glamor to become a dolphin, and had she not loved Tiroc, she would have taken that form, but she could not leave her young ones or her mate.
Tirte had magic of his own, and when the moon was full and the sky went dark, he sang his song louder and louder until many other dolphin came to him and joined their voices with his. Ningli flew over the surface of the ocean, and she wept, for her children numbered many and some were too young to be left alone.
Ningli's mate and their children joined her as she cried, flying in circles around Tirte, begging him to join them. A single tear fell from Ningli's cheek and landed on the surface of Tirte's skin and the light of the moon reappeared. In the glimmer of the light on the ocean's suddenly still surface, Tirte turned into a drakkon and flew up to meet his love. She rejoiced happily and brought him home with her. He became close friends with Tiroc, who was Ningli's first mate, and they all lived happily together for as long as he lived.
Mermaids
Descendants of Aria.
They are able to transform between human and fish (since the hiding there is no limit to their time on land, but before then, they had to touch the sea at least once every lunar cycle). In the water they have tails with human arms, torsos and heads, but they can transform into a dolphin at will in the water. Mermaids love to sing, and they are collectors of all things shiny.
Sea-Serpents
Descendants of Teshin.
Sea-serpents come in a variety of forms with different patterns and colorations as well as size and food source. They do not transform into a human, but can take on the form of many different sea creatures at will. They are known for terrifying sailors, which they think is hilarious.
Drakkon Magical Mammut Hybrids
Descendents of Duru (obsidian drakkon) and Kali "Mother" (the mammut witch)
Siria and Serus.
Duru was a lonely male who had long watched and waited for a chance to mate. When he decided that it was hopeless he went out onto the plains to lay in sorrow. There he met Kali, the end result of a magical branch of the mastodon genus. As she was watching her kind go extinct, she too was full of sorrow. Duru, watching her wander alone, searching for any of her kind, he fell in love with her. He approached her and learned her language, then begged her to take him as her mate. She said she could not mate with him, because his claws would tear her. He lay silently, watching her, and fervently wished he could look like her kind. His control of magic was great, and he turned his mind toward it, so he became a mastodon in form. He stayed with her until she died, and then raised their children and grandchildren. He later met another mate, this one drakkon, and their decendents currently reside Kiz Widme
Lesser Drake
Found only in Kiz Widme now, the lesser drake is a wingless drakkon, which looks in form much like the greater drake. They have the ability to swim, climb, and run, but they cannot fly. Lesser drakes tend to be much more territorial and protective. They live in family groups with two parents and their unmated children. They prefer ocean cliffs and rocky ledges for perching and carved caves for homes.
Drakkon-witch-Raven Hybrids
Descendants of Abu (obsidian drakkon) and Ria "Singing Bird" (witch/shaman)
Ria was turned into a Raven. Abu couldn't bear to lose her and changed his form to be at her side. Their children became the thunderbirds, who roamed the skies of North and South America for centuries. They now reside only in Kiz Widme, where they flew their people to safety.
Thunderbird
Thunderbirds chose not to change their form in any way so that they could hide. They are massive, winged birds with otherworldly properties. They can fly and swim, and have the ability to harness the weather. They are closely related to two small tribes of Algonquin people from the state of Maine, who they rescued from the Hunters soon after they left their nest.
PART FOUR
Magic
Types of MagicMental Energy and Will
Psychic Witches - many neo-pagan witches and wicca fall into this category. Telepathy, telekinesis, dream manipulation, astral projection. Enhanced by deep meditation and exposure.
Emotional/Spiritual Healing
Dreamweavers, Truth Readers
Elemental Energy and Will
True Alchemists use metal and other natural materials to produce elemental energy.
Channelers are able to use the energy of the elements by channeling it through themselves.
Witches are able to harness the energy of elements, and the aspects of those elements.
Physical Healing
Sleepweavers, Body healers,
Wish Energy and Will
Sometimes there is no real explanation for magical events. When events like these occur, they are classified as wish magic. Most often attributed to silver and obsidian drakkon and their decendants, as well as young human witches and unicorns.
Magical Healing
Wishweavers, Channelers
Written/Drawn Energy and Will
Witches often use written letters, words, phrases, or images to add power to their mental energy.
Inherited Magical Protection
All forms of magical creatures have innate protections provided from birth. These usually fade or change around the age of adulthood.
PART FIVE
Language & Numbers
Note on this document: This document was written in American English and given drakkan translations. Any drakkon translations are based on the American English format, and may lose some meaning for those who do not know drakkon through study.
Drakkon Grammar, and Punctuation
Because the written word did not develop until the Sapphire Age, and because most of our language is comprised of nouns, several rules were developed when writing in drakkan (the drakkon language). Early witches who inter-bonded with our kind learned the language, and passed it onto their young, and so it has become the language of power, intertwined with the magical world and used by all magical creatures, as well as the humans who live Within, and those who offer themselves as hosts, protectors, and friends Without.
Punctuation
Because written language came much later than verbal language, there is little in the way of punctuation. Whenever possible, a word is kept together, as are sentences if there is enough space. When translating into and out of any language, the goal is to change drakkon sentence structure to meet the structure of that language, and at those times the punctuation, or lack thereof, in the given language is adopted.
Periods
Used to open a sentence, provide a gap between words, and close the sentence.
(opening). word .(gap) word .(gap) word .(closing)
Apostrophes
Used to combine two words to create new meaning
Double Semicolon
Used to show words thought telepathically
Quotations
Used to show words spoken aloud.
Question Marks
Used to indicate it is a question, rather than a statement.
Word Structure:
Note that the Drakkon language is ancient, and was begun with a few initial trills and sounds made by our ancient ancestors in the dark years after the Sky Fire. Alongside the words, our kind developed a stronger emotional empathy with each other, thus negating the need for description words. Nouns were the primary words until the time of the Oath when males and females struggled to communicate with one another empathically.
Verbs and Adjectives have changed over time, but they often ebb and flow with human contact. Our languages have intermingled so that a few drakkon words seem to appear within multiple languages, while many of their words, particularly among the former coast of Atlantis, have entered into our own speech.
Chief among these was early Latin, which has caused some confusion, as that language also appears to have flowed into multiple languages around the world, and some of our older words have a similar sound, though not spelling or usage, beginning the argument of whether the Roman empire was started by a drakkon after all.
In most cases a word starts with a noun, sometimes two nouns give the word new meaning, prefixes and suffixes can be added. Words are broken into one-to-three parts. Each word Always has a Root word, or noun, but sometimes a descriptor is added before, and an action is added after.
Prefixes (Before root word(s))
ADJECTIVES (description words)
How Many or Who Statements
Usually first if more than one prefix is used.
Example: . u' (male / males) ; ver' (very) .
When Statements
Usually last if more than one prefix is used
Example: . verfah' (distant past, or very old) .
ADVERBS (Nouns) (modifies or qualifies an adjective, or verb)
Where Statements
Example: . kiz' . (within, inside)
Infixes (Root or Compound Root Words)
NOUNS (identifying words)
Proper Nouns - Who / Where / What (specific)
Usually first if compound word
Example: . Eethal' (Brown Drakkon) .
Nouns - Who / Where / What (general)
Usually middle if compound word
Example: . o'drakkon (a drakkon or the drakkons - gender neutral) .
Suffixes (After root word(s))
VERBS (action words)
How Statements
Usually first if more than one suffix
Example: . 'io (emotions that can be felt by others) .
Feeling or Action Statements
Usually last if more than one suffix
Example: . ach (empathy, noun) plus: 'an (feel an emotion) becomes ach'an , which translates to: Empathize .
Compound Words
Example of a COMPLEX compound Noun
. verfah'u'Eethal'o'drakkon'eu'ach'an .
. verfah 'u' Eethal ' o ' drakkon ' eu ' ach ' an .
Old, male, Brown, a, Drakkon, shows, empathy, with emotive action
Translation : the old male brown drakkon who shows empathy
Example of a SIMPLIFIED compound Noun
. eethal'drakkon'eu'ach'an .
. Eethal ' drakkon ' eu ' ach ' an .
Brown, drakkon, shows, empathy, with emotive action
Translation : empathetic brown drakkon
Example of a Verb (No tense)
. enai .
Translation: learn, study
Example of a compound Verb (Current Tense)
.enai'ei .
. enai ' ei .
learn, with physical action
Translation : Learning, Studying, Learns, Studies
Example of a compound Verb (Past Tense)
. fa'enai'ei .
. fa' enai ' ei .
Past, Learn, with physical action
Translation: Learned, Studied
Example of a compound Verb (Future Tense)
. mor'enai'ei .
. mor ' enai ' ei .
Future, learn, with physical action
Translation: Will learn, will study
Example of a COMPLEX compound Adjective
. te'alofe'efa'luma .
. te ' alofe ' efa ' luma
Up, fly, feel physically, wind
Translation: Fly, Soar
Example of SIMPLIFIED compound Adjective
. te'alofe .
. te'alofe .
depending on the word tense flew, flying, or will-fly.
. fa'alofe'ei - Past (-ed)
. te'alofe'ei . - Current (-ing ; -s)
. mor'alofe'ei - Future (will do … )
Sentence Structure
Most sentences have at least three words, each a complex set of meanings, that are strung together in a way that gives the person/place/thing, the action. Only proper nouns are capitalized.
The order of words is usually identifier first, so a Complex or Simplified Noun would be the first word in any sentence. The second word is usually an action word, so a compound verb with past, present, or future tense. Finally the descriptor, or the adjective.
Example Complex Sentence
. verfah'u'Eethal'o'drakkon'eu'ach'an . 'enai'ei . te'alofe'efa'luma .
. verfah'u'Eethal'o'drakkon'eu'ach'an .
.old, brown, drakkon, shows empathy, with emotive action .
. 'enai'ei .
studies .
. te'alofe'efa'luma .
Current, fly, physically feel, wind
Translation: The empathetic Brown drakkon is studying flying through the wind.
Example Simplified Sentence
. eethal'o'drakkon'eu'ach'an . 'enai'ei . te'alofe .
. eethal'o'drakkon'eu'ach'an .
brown, drakkon, shows, empathy, with emotive action
. 'enai'ei .
Study
. te'alofe .
Flying
Translation: The drakkon is studying flying.
List of Prefixes
How Many (adjective) Prefixes
(actual counted number)
nuni' (none)
fewa' (few, some)
sumi' (many, most)
ahl' (all, whole group)
Who (adjective) Prefixes
u' = male
i' = female
o' = gender neutral
a' = animate (has life force)
e' = inanimate (no life force)
When (adjective) Tense Prefixes
verfa' = distant past
fah' = past
eveni' = present
mor' = future
vermo' = distant future
Where (adverb) Prefixes
wi'
ni' (on)
kiz' (in, inside, within)
truz' (out, outside, without)
List of Infixes (secondary root words)
Objective / Subjective Statements
'reit' (I/S/He/Us- Am/Is/Are - We/They Are)
'etud' (I/S/He/Us - Am/Is/Are not - We/They Are Not)
'ete' (to be)
Possessive Pronouns
'imul' = Mine, ours, (mine)
'umre' = Yours, theirs, his, hers (not mine)
Root Words (see list)
List of Suffixes
How Statements (adjectives)
'tei = Fast
'tai = Slow
'ino = At
'onil = On
'tipa = High
'belo = Low
'gud = Just, good, moral
'sic = Wrong, bad, immoral
'tal = Soft
'dra = Hard
'alu = Big
'medi = Medium, average, middle
'ili = Small
'drik = Tall
'alia = Short
'kiz = With (thing/person/action)
'truz = Without (thing/person/action)
Feeling / Action Statements (verbs)
'an = feel (emotion)
're = think
'tri = do (action)
'esoi = speak, verbalize, say, express
'aloi = hear
'alofe = fly
'triei = repeat, redo
'reta = change, transform
'efa = feel, touch
'eu = (physical action done to you. Something that affects you)
'io = (emotional action felt from another, shared with you)
'anu = (magical action done to you, shared with you)
'oca = (magical action you do)
Gender (noun)
'ue = male
'ia = female
'oo = neutral
'ae = animate
'ea = inanimate
List of Root Words
People(s)
Titles
Tetali'ani = beloved female leader
Tedrak'ani = beloved male leader
Drakkon = one who is a drakkon.
Subgroups by color (species) - (proper nouns)
Tanal' = Ruby
Tenal' = Pink
Budrakal' = Burgundy
Tifal' = Orange Citrine
Tifdrakal' = Sunset/Amber
Aial' = Gold
Hedrakal' = Bronze
Turkal' = Turquoise
Sinal' = Topaz
Eethal' = Brown
Milal' = Jade
Mylal' = Mint
Miamonal' = Emerald
Jedrakal' = Jet
Salal' = Sapphire
Salalee' = Aqua
Melal' = Amethyst
Indrakal' = Indigo
Meamonal' = Iolite
Binal' = Diamond
Bindrakal' = Pearl
Talal' = Silver
Gadrakal' = Moonstone/Grey
Drakal' = Obsidian
Tadrakal' = Opalescent
Subgroups by shape (genus) -
Magical Creatures/Beings with Intelligence
Drakkon
Subgroups by color - (proper nouns)
Tanal' = Ruby
Tenal' = Pink
Budrakal' = Burgundy
Tifal' = Orange Citrine
Tifdrakal' = Amber
Aial' = Gold
Hedrakal' = Bronze
Turkal' = Turquoise
Sinal' = Topaz
Eethal' = Brown
Milal' = Jade
Mylal' = Mint
Miamonal' = Emerald
Jedrakal' = Jet
Salal' = Sapphire
Salalee' = Aqua
Melal' = Amethyst
Indrakal' = Indigo
Meamonal' = Iolite
Binal' = Diamond
Bindrakal' = Pearl
Talal' = Silver
Gadrakal' = Gray
Drakal' = Obsidian
Tadrakal' = Opalescent
Subgroups by shape -
Wyvern -
Drake -
Wyrm -
echi'draka = (small, wingless drakkon)
(ancestors: Obsidian Drakkon, Mammut)
wita' = witch
senta' = centaur
suix' = sphinx
fee' = fairy
faa' = pixie
fae' = elf
grifa' = griffin
pegas' = pegasus
unico' = unicorn
aria' = mermaidens/mermen
teshin' = sea-serpent
reta'vulfa = werewolf
oro'heloun = hellhound
rumbl'aki = thunderbird
Non-Magical Creatures/Beings with Intelligence
All animals, insects, birds, reptiles, etc.
At this time it still is not known if germs, viruses, bacteria, microbes, etc. have intelligence.
o'mameli'' = Mammals (all land mammals)
hum' = Human
Apo' = different species of apes and monkeys
Further classified with their latin names
elafanti' = elephant
Further classified with their latin names
felidi' = felines
Further classified with their latin names
canidi' = canines
Further classified with their latin names
o'vea'mami = Sea Mammals
delpini' = dolphins and porpoises, including orca
Further classified with their latin names
balaeni' = whale
Further classified with their latin names
o'pinnpedi' = Land/Sea Mammals
walrus, eared seals, earless seals
Further classified with their latin names
o'lutrini' = semi=aquatic
Otters
Further classified with their latin names
o'vea'wini = Sea creatures
rahba'ran' = cephalopods
Further classified with their latin names
o'noz' = insects
formicida' = ants
Further classified with their latin names
aracni' = spiders
Further classified with their latin names
o'laki' = birds
corvi' - Corvid birds
Further classified with their latin names
chortati' = pigeons
Further classified with their latin names
raptori' = (vultures, raptors, birds of prey) falcons, eagles, owls
Further classified with their latin names
al'mora = parrots, kea, cockatoo
Further classified with their latin names
Place(s)
Planets/Celestial Bodies
Drakkon Cities/Towns
Places (general)
Thing(s)
Drakkan = Language of the Drakkon peoples
Numbers (nouns or adjectives)
mep = zero, 0
lad = one
pat = two
= three
= four
= five
= six
= seven
= eight
= nine
= ten
= eleven
= twelve
= thirteen
= fourteen
= fifteen
= sixteen
= seventeen
= eighteen
= nineteen
= twenty
Time/Dates/Seasons (nouns, adverbs)
Colors (nouns, pronouns, or adjectives)
(al' = color ; ali = color group ; li = shade)
tanal' = ruby
tenal' = pink
budrakal' = burgundy
tifal' = orange citrine
tifdrakal' = amber
aial' = gold
hedrakal' = bronze
turkal' = turquoise
sinal' = topaz
eethal' = brown
milal' = jade
mylal' = mint
miamonal' = emerald
jedrakal' = jet
salal' = sapphire
salalee' = aqua
melal' = amethyst
indrakal' = indigo
meamonal' = iolite
binal' = diamond
bindrakal' = pearl
talal' = silver
gadrakal' = gray
drakal' = obsidian
tadrakal' = opalescent
tanali = red
tifali = orange
sinali = yellow
miali = green
saali = blue
memlali = purple
amonal = white
drakli = black
eethali = brown
binali = clear
Feelings
ar'an = compassion
ae'an = antipathy
tru'an = good will
fal'an = evil will
shivat'an = disrespect
rhuvat'an = admiration
cli'an = closed mindedness
pli'an = open mindedness
alo'an = loneliness
opah'an = fully open, fulfilled
yoi'an = joy, happiness
dou'an = sadness
karn'an = anger
ura'an = gratitude
ahee'an = hope
Tero'an = fear
kufar'an = hate
Kufar'antri = hatred
Ulav'an = love
Ulav'antri = desire
Kufar'antri = disgust
Ulav'opah'antri = passion
PART SIX
The Drakkonian CalendarDrakkonian Dates
Each Age has it's own Calendar, starting on the Shortest Day of the year following the Falling Drakkon. Years are marked on Shortest Day, and have varied in length over time. There were no months, as in the roman calendar, but instead there were eight seasons, each marked carefully by sun, moon, and stars.
A note on Drakkon Ages: More information is provided in the History Section of this text.
The First Four Ages
The first four ages are based on guesswork from drakkon, wita;hum, and human researchers, who hve studied the changes in earth's structure and landmasses over time. At this point in our history, there was no calendar, and we knew little more about time than that there were seasons, moons, and certain objects that seemed to follow our globe in patterns we could not understand.
The First Age: Age of the Mothers
66 -55.8 MYA
The Second Age: Age of the Kings
55.8 - 33.7 MYA
The Third Age: Age of Plagues
33.7 - 23 MYA
The Fourth Age: Age of Desolation
23 -20.7 MYA
The Fifth Age: Drakkonian Silver Age
20,505,330 BCE - 17,326,404 BCE
Beginning at the Falling Drakkon Wish, when the drakkon were reborn, this age lasted 3,178,925 years, and marked a time of peace, learning, and love. It was named the Silver Age because of Sinah and Renah, and their Wishes, which helped to save Drakkonkind. The age came to an end at the Oath Breakers betrayal, when they took eggs from the hatching grounds at Atlan'ni'tioca, Ryu'Kyu, and Ama'ru, and killed several mothers and dozens of fathers in the process.
The Sixth Age: Drakkonian Ruby Age
17,326,404 BCE - 15,026,240 BCE
Beginning in the year following the Betrayal, the Ruby Age marks the rise of the Battle Leaders from among the Ruby Drakkon, who became the wisest, and the bravest, of the warriors in the Oath Breakers War. Their courage and wisdom changed the tide of the war, and their abilty to teach others their skills became legendary. This age lasted 2,300,163 years, and ended at the time of the Treaty, when the war ended and the Oaths were bound into the magic of every adult drakkon, using Wish wita, a gift from a dying Silver Drakon.
The Seventh Age: Drakkonian Sapphire Age
15,026,240 BCE - 1,425,330 BCE
The longest of the new ages, the Sapphire Age lasted 13,600,909 years. It was begun in the year following the Wita-bound Oath. Originally called simply the peaceful Age, it was later named the Sapphire Age after the teachers and scientists who created the utopia Atlan'ni'ti'oca became. The age ended when Drakkon decided it was time to hide their existence from early humans.
The Eighth Age: Drakkonian Obsidian Age
1,425,330 BCE - 5,778 BCE
Lasting 1,419,551 years, the Obsidian Age marks the time when old barriers truly began to break. Before this, even among the drakkons of Atlan'ni'ti'oca, mating generally stayed within the same color groups. During the course of the Obsidian Age, the obsidian drakkon greatly altered our perception of the world, and our place within it. Able to transform themselves into many of the creatures they knew, they often found mates outside the species, or crossed barriers between genus and color that protected our kind from stagnation and extinction. It ended less than 8 thousand years ago, ushering in the Jade age.
The Ninth Age: Drakkonian Jade Age
5,778 BCE - 6-8-1456
Lasting only 7,235 years, the Jade Age is the shortest timespan of any completed Age. It is noted because while other Drakkon tried to fade from memory of non-wita humans, the drakkon in parts of Asia and the Pacific Islands continued to live among and protect their people, who revered and respected them. The Age ended with the hiding.
The Tenth Age: Drakkonian Golden Age
6-8-1456 - CURRENT
Noted for the Hiding, which began on the Falling Drakkon of that year. It marks the change in drakkon kind, and the beginning of our separation from the world non-wita humans inhabit. It has only been about 550 years since the Golden Age began, and it is not known how long the age will last. It was named the Golden Age because it was the Golden Drakkon of North America who welcomed the European Drakkon fleeing the Hunters.
Drakkonian Seasons Aii - Shortest Day
Aii begins on Shortest Day, which marks the first day of True Winter, the time of Biting Cold. Shortest day is celebrated by lighting the Winter Hearth, and is spent telling stories of drakkons surviving the worst winter winds, snows, and other disasters.
After shortest day, in the times before the Hiding, most drakkon hibernated in the coldest months, and only woke on Restless Day, the start of late winter. Drakkon would emerge hungry and would usually go to the closest water source to fish, even in the bitter cold.
Kee - Restless Day
Kee begins on Restless Day, when many drakkons emerged from hibernation in times past, hungry. It was often spent fishing at the closest water source, and reconnecting with friends and family after a long period of Dreaming. Wita was often at it's strongest right after waking on Restless Day. Then young drakkons would take to the skies, in search of their mates.
Saa - Breaking Winter
Saa begins on Breaking Winter, the point at which the snow and ice begins to melt. Drakkon can often be caught unawares by sudden thaws or sudden severe weather. Near this time certain foods are planted, which produce quick crops that feed many and provide nutrients not available during the long winter months.
Hoo - Rising Day
Hoo began on Rising Day and marked True Spring. Among females, life-fire sacs would often begin to glow as they prepared for Rising. Some festivals involved spitting Life-Fire into the sources of eternal flame, so that those who lived nearby would feel the heat and rise themselves. This marks late spring, and the time of fishing and gathering.
Buu - Longest Day
Buu started on Longest day and marked the time of summer heat, the beginning of the hot months, and a time when many drakkon rested on the hot sands of beaches to warm themselves.
Lii - First Harvest
This day was celebrated by the first mass harvest, drakkon berries, which would become ripe in the week leading up to First Harvest. All drakkon would go out together on this day, and as one they would collect the ripened berries, cultivate new patches, and begin processing the collected berries to make different foods and drinks. It is marked by a full-night festival, with music and dancing.
Gee - Laying Day
Laying Day began the autumn nesting, when darkkon would find the warmest places they could and prepare their nests. Females would lay the eggs, usually with at least one mate in attendance. The female would not leave the nest, especially if there was a female egg, for the entire length of winter. Males would be responsible for hunting, to replenish what she lost in carrying the eggs and laying them after half a year. They would continue to grow and develop, safe in their eggs, for the length of time until Shortest Day.
Raa - Fishing Day
In late fall, male drakkon, and females who were not brooding over eggs, would take to the rivers for the fish that swam upstream. They would take these back to brooding females, who would eat the fattest of the fish to prepare their life-fire sacs to Breath Life into their young.
The Thirteen Drakkonian/Celtic Moons
Ah - (Birch) First Moon of the new year
Bu - (Rowan) Second Moon
Ca - (Ash) Third Moon
Ge - (Alder) Fourth Moon
Sa - (Willow) Fifth Moon
Re - (Hawthorn) Sixth Moon
Al - (Oak) Seventh Moon
Ma - (Holly) Eighth Moon
Ko - (Hazel) Ninth Moon
Te - (Mistletoe) Tenth Moon
Ni - (Ivy) Eleventh Moon
An - (Reed) Twelfth Moon
Ta - (Elder) Thirteenth Moon
Celestial Bodies Affecting the Drakkon Calendar
Aia Sun The Star of our solar system
Tala Moon
Bina Mercury
Tifu Venus
Tania Mars
Mila Jupiter
Melo Saturn
Sinu Uranus
Sala Neptune
Amonu Ceres Sometimes Called Kaa Tee, or the Hatchling Star
Drake Pluto Named after Drake, for it's dark hue.
Falling Drakkon Halley's Comet
Wita'wela Newton's/Kirch's Comet Roughly 99,999 years between sightings
Drakkon Calendars include information about many other celestial objects, and have grown to include important dates from nations and peoples all over the world. Asian, ancient South and North American, and Roman calendar months/years have since been added, though they do not entirely mark months and weeks in our calendar, simply show what the date is among most humans.
