This is my take on the Dragon Conspiracy which will form the fundament of a long story-line that will take my PCs to a lot of places.
This summary grew from a mailing discussion with Jane Williams and Joerg Baumgartner, so cudos goes to them. I recommend you take a look on Jane's discussion of the subject as well.
Stephen Martin has written stuff on the digest about this, and I quote him as well. Hopefully, some day soon he will be able to tell us all exactly how the sky looked like on that fateful night in 1625…
I take it for granted that as soon as principal leaders of Sartar (i.e. Minaryth Purple, Kallyr Starbrow, etc) learns that the Lunars are constructing some sort of grand building in the hills to the south of Sambari Vale, they start investigations and researches aimed at thwarting whatever the Lunars are doing. After a while they realize that Tatius' plan is to construct a Reaching Moon temple complex. The Ring-leaders begin their own plotting and investigations aiming to stop the Lunars from ever completing the temple and/or the ritual for spreading the Glowline. This plotting and planning, these researches, take as much time as the Lunars have to spend on their building of the temple and preparing "the Reaching Moon ritual.
The supreme leader, the mastermind behind the plotting and planning is Minaryth Purple. He is assisted first and foremost by Orlaront Dragonfriend. Who is this latter guy?
Stephen Martin once suggested (on the Digest) that Orlaront was the same person as Forang Farosh, Orlaront being the name of "the host body" which he stole after being captured for centuries.
Joerg Baumgartner pointed out that "the existence of two people knowledgeable of authentic EWF rituals that close together seems to stretch things a bit." This seems to be a variant of the law of economy of hypotheses which argues against two independent dragon experts at the same time in the same geographic locale (Dragon Pass). (Well, actually three dragon experts if you count Garstal Shavetop, the noted Sartar scholar from Elder Secrets.)
I like the suggestion put forth by the "Forang = Orlaront"-hypothesis. Elder Secrets lists famous draconic teachers in the area: Garstal and Forang are included, Orlaront not. On the other hand, KoS never mentions such a famous character as Forang. I think this is in support of the law of economy.
A bonus here is that we get an explanation for the Argrath Saga's comment on Orlaront being the son of Ingolf. I think that the EWF-spirit Forang was a son of Ingolf Dragonfriend (the EWF-orlanthi born originally in Ralios). (Yes, I know that it is more likely that this KoS statement should be taken in a metaphorical way.) But, anyway, Forang was trapped as a spirit for many centuries (maybe he is the little white mouse in the EWF-cage in Snakepipe Hollow, p 30) until the stupid Orlanthi adventurer Orlaront (of the Jerending clan according to KoS, p 235) stumbled upon him and was "soul-exchanged". He lived for many years as "Forang" in Tink, but when he left the village, urged on by Minaryth, he changed his name back to Orlaront, threw his crystalline sunglasses and EWF-garb away, and re-entered Sartarite society as Orlaront "the Dragon expert". (If he should have appeared as Forang, the Lunars no doubt would have cast suspicious eyes on his connections with Minaryth.) But, fragments of his past survived and later found its way into the Argrath saga, were he was correctly, albeit paradoxically, hailed as "the son of Ingolf", a character dead centuries before him.
Now, Forang-Orlaront had a dim memory of a dragon nobody else had heard about - the strange Brown Dragon of Jarn. (Jarn having an EWF:ish sound to it.) He was very unsure of its location or its personality. He had never met it in the EWF-days - so in a certain sort of way we can say that he didn't "know him". Minaryth decides to do some investigations. He engages his fellow cult-brother Garstal Shavetop, who is given the most unpleasant task of confirming the dragon's existence. The description in ES (p17) describes the last stages of this investigative process. Note how Garstal sobs in the last paragraph of his report (I think this is addressed to the aloof and arrogant Minaryth): "I regret the lack of data but am glad to have survived my investigation." This document is written in 1622, the same year Tatius dedicates the ground and begins working on the future temple of the Reaching Moon. It is filed in the "Special restricted section DD-2" in the Boldhome LM-temple. Smacks of conspiracy work to me! On p 16 in ES we are told that this document "offer the only current information about the rumoured fourth True Dragon of Dragon Pass".
In RQ-Adventures John Castellucci assumed that the Dragon of Jarn and the Brown Dragon were unconnected. This leaves us with five true dragons in Dragon Pass when the Hero Wars begins in 1625. I think this is wrong. We should stick to the four original dragons of the Dragon Pass board game. The Brown Dragon of the board game can - in DP - be contacted at a hex constituting the starting point of a straight "ley line" going through the projected temple site, Dragonewt City Four, and ending in The Dragons Eye. The Brown Dragon Hex is located in hilly, desolate country, so it matches Garstal's report in ES.
Likewise, even though ES tries to shroud the fourth dragon in mystery, it is very straightforward in its language at the same time: "The four true dragons of Dragon Pass are:...." I think the Dragon of Jarn (note that "Jarn" is an EWF-ish sounding word, as in the city "Banjarn") is the old, and by most people forgotten, name of the Brown Dragon. This is good for the law of economy, as well as ridding us of the problem where to put a fifth dragon in both DP-boardgame and KoS - sources which never mentions such a beast.
So, here is my rough timeline of the events leading up to the 1625-ritual.
In 1622, Tatius concentrates his main efforts on the future temple. He dedicates the ground and work begins. Many years earlier he had determined this place (up in the foothills which connects to the northern spur of Storm mts, very close to Sambari tribal territory) as "the most magical". Of course it was - a draconic ley line is more than likely to radiate magic energy. Unfortunately, Tatius or his magicians never realised just *what* kind of energy this was.
A true dragon lair is often positioned on a number of "ley lines" (energy carriers) in order to support the creature. As mentioned above this particular ley line can be traced on the DP boardgame map (as well as other maps of Dragon Pass). Drawing a line between Dragons Eye and the Brown Dragon hex, we can notice that Dragonewt City Four is situated exactly halfway between them. This City constitute the top of the Dragonewt Rune triangle stretching across Dragon Pass, so you could say that the Brown Dragon is a sort of "extension" of the energies radiating from the Dragons Eye (or vice-versa). It is the "point" on the arrow transcending and going higher than the Dragonewt Rune. (In fact, the hex of the Brown Dragon is the bottom point of a gigantic elongated Beast Rune eclipsing the Dragonewt Rune on the DP map. The three corners of the Beast Rune are made up of Dragonewt City 5, Dragonewt City 6, and the Brown Dragons Hex. They all have the same distance to its center: the Dragon's Eye (which, incidently, is another name of the Beast Rune). So, beside the obvious ley lines of Dragon Pass - marked by Dragonewt Plinths - there are the invisible ley lines of the Beast Rune. No doubt, still more hidden patterns can be traced on the maps of the Pass.)
Jane Williams have suggested that positioning other ceremonies further along the "supply" ley lines could affect the one at the centre (i.e. the Lunar one). This sounds reasonable. One of the things the PCs could to would be going out in the wilderness trying to trace ley lines. Remember, the good maps we as GM and Players have access to, the PCs will never have seen. A PC map of Dragon Pass might be more akin to the ones in Dorastor or the map of Quiviniland found in Enclosure I.
Among Sartarite ring-leaders such as Minaryth the Lunar dedication of the ground in 1622 doesn't pass undetected, and they start to take measures in trying to discover a way to stop this awful building project, which would give Sartar a temple of the Reaching Moon, and thereby perpetual Full Moon.
The concentration of troops, magicians, specialists, and the actual building-project (with architects, builders, artisans, sculptors etc) is very likely do draw the attention of Sartarite ring-leaders towards the area south of Sambari Vale. And this as early as 1622. Of course, the Lunar magic ceremony is secret, but the fact that there is going to be a Temple to the Reaching Moon is most likely to be spilled very early. I would say that by the end of 1622, Minaryth is faced with the combination of: "High Yelm Priest" + "a temple project aiming for a permanent Full Moon" => a very celestial phenomen. He doesn't know what ritual the Lunars use in these cases, but since a celestial change is the goal, a celestial ceremony wouldn't be a guess too wild.
Even though the details aren't known to the ring-leaders they have to take step to try and disturb a celestial ceremony. They have to prepare for that. They have to investigate the few Orlanthi myths they have involving the sky and the heaven. They also discover a potential destructive force in the form of a dragon.
The conspirators planning, investigations trying to find a way to disrupt the lunar ceremony takes years of preparations - about as much time as the Lunar's - and I'm of the opinion that this leaves out "the Argrath's". Garrath couldn't possibly enter a project and learn his parts in just one seasons time (Fire 1625). I mean, he isn't even interested in going to Dragon Pass after the Pennel battle in 1624. Instead, he goes to Prax, meets the White Bull, and takes Corflu. I agree with Jane Williams here (cited from her webpage):
"The most telling point to my mind is that CHDP does not mention him. Given the slightest chance, Denseros would have described his deeds there in glowing terms, no matter how minor they may have been. The lack of mention may indicate that he was not there at all, or that his actions were such that mentioning them would have been embarrassing. Personally I can't imagine what he could have done that would have made his actions too embarrassing to mention. Merely being present but not the principal would not have been enough: Denseros happily re-wrote the relighting of the Flame to make it seem as if Argrath did it. Descriptions of Argrath's actions around this period make it seem more likely that he was in Pavis while the Dragon episode was going on."
White Bull is too involved in Praxian things to be of much use to the conspirators in Dragon Pass. Pavis-Argrath, most likely, is holed up in Pavis during these years, being smitten by disease, being a coward, being a nerd, whatever.
Starbrow? Now, that's a different story. As both Jane Williams and Joerg Baumgartner have pointed out to me her Polaris link seems important to the ritual. I think that she has contacts with the Sartarite ring-leaders as early as 1622, but chooses to return to Broyan, being present at the battles in Kethaela in 1623 and 1624. (the ground in Sartar being too hot for her to stay there for very long periods of time.) But in 1624 she returns, and enters the conspiracy/ceremony in the fullest, taking the part of "the intercepting Pole Star", just as Jandetin the Avenger takes the part of "the intercepting sun". Kallyr's connections with Polaris is what permits the Orlanth's Ring to reappear so shortly after vanishing into the Pole Star. Maybe it is also Kallyr who is causing the Pole Star representatives among the Lunars to behave as almost mesmerised. Stephen Martin once told me that he thought "that Kallyr pulled a fast one on them, and brought Orlanth's Ring out a week early -- it makes sense /…/ that the Lunars would time the ceremony so that it occurred when Orlanth's Ring was out of the sky, so that Rebellus Terminus could not disrupt things. But, Kallyr pulled a star HQ, and was able to make it reappear the same night it disappeared. Hence the Lunar surprise at its appearance."
In 1623 Tatius engages a large part of his forces to build the temple. This is financed by extra taxes levied on the poor Sartarite people. Therefore Minaryth Blue writes in his diary: "Lunars take my oxen and pony" (KoS, p 212). On the Sartar side the ring-leaders take steps as well. Connections are made, people contacted and instructed. Annstad from Tarsh, Jandetin the Grazer, and "With bitter heart" (a feathered horse queen) are involved.
In 1624 Tatius continues his work, but is faced with a serious drawback when one tenth of his sun priests dies in fire at the same moment as the battle of Pennel down in Esrolia. On the Sartar side Asborn Thriceborn (an old Colymar rebel, earlier connected with the temple of the wooden sword, and participant in the failed 1613-rebellion) visits chosen steads and town among the Colymar and tells them to be ready for "something big likely to happen next year. Keep your swords sharpened and watch out for me returning." (My extrapolation of KoS p 212: "Asborn Thriceborn in town.") Sometime between 1624 and -25, Asborn is killed and resurrected, because when he reappears in 1625 he is named Asborn Four-born. (Compare "Events of my life".) In 1625, after the Dragon disaster (where the Colymar king Blackmoor among thousand others are eaten by the Dragon), the whole of Sartar is thrown into disorder. Asborn leads a contingent of Colymar tribesmen in an attack on the Lunar slave farm in Nymie valley. ("We burn the plantation.")
The year 1625. Tatius spends the Sacred Time of 1624 in ritual preparations with his closest advisors and magicians. Everyone has a second shadow when returning to the world. He concentrates his troops and priests at the half-built temple. This is a sign as good as any to the Sartarite ring-leaders. It's gonna happen this year! Kallyr is fully involved by now.
(Note that CHDP for this year tells us about the fighting between Lunars and Grazers: "They never saw the Feathered Horse Queen in these battles". No doubt she is preparing for her own part in the counter-ritual.)
I think the strange second shadow and second, invisible sun is the "chronometer" which tells Tatius when the correct date for starting the ritual is. The invisible, magic, sun need not behave in the same (and very regular) way as Yelm. Maybe the time is right when the two shadows perfectly connect to each other. An outsider observing or spying on Tatius and/or his closest magicians could note this and thereby also try to calculate the date for the ritual. (Maybe the Sartarite conspirators did this.)
Stephen Martin is right when he said that "every recognizeable celestial feature is present - they have to be, for the sky to be properly recreated." I think that each stage-participant, besides being dressed up to represent the correct celestial feature, is also accompanied by a sort of huge, magic, field of energy which is a part of the divinity they represent. This explains the phrase in CHDP "Some of the magicians moved to stop this, dragging their stellar powers after them" (emphasis mine). This representation thing explains why Tatius collapses as night falls. He is the Sun - Yelm - and disappears when night falls. But maybe the collapse is made much stronger by the fact that Jandetin the Avenger many miles away in part eclipses and disturbs Tatius interpretation of the Sun. I think so. Otherwise he would have awakened much earlier than shortly after the dragon appears, which is now the case.
Now I'm going to comment on phrase-by-phrase basis. (Compare KoS pp 153 and 154.)
"Among the participants a star fell, and in heaven it flared but a moment as it went behind a small, thin cloud"
I think this describes how the participant taking the role of Stormgate suddenly falls down, almost unconscious. At the same time something happens with the magic energy-counterpart of the participant. It transforms into a cloud like a star. The small, thin cloud in the cited sentence is an Orlanthi magic effect aimed at hiding the Stormgate from view as magic is channelled out through the Stormgate, and Orlanth's Ring suddenly reappears. That the cloud is small and thin is a testimony to how weak Orlanth as a deity is during these years and at this moment. But you should never count him out. Because...
"The star which had fallen rose again, but now it was a cloud like a star."
I think this is a sentence trying to describe in one statement what is actually happening to two entities. The participant, "star", gets up to his/her feet but notices that something strange has happened to the power he/she controls. His/her stellar magic energy-bulb is looking like a cloud, not a star! Something fishy going on here! And the "cloud" is hiding something…
"This phenomen was unknown, and when the Light of Truth was directed upon it everyone saw not a cloud, but seven stars, all orange, spiraling inward through the ceremony."
What is the word "stars" referring to now? I don't suppose it is the actual, *real* stars of Orlanth's Ring which suddenly has appeared on the face of earth. No, the Orlanthis are only doing what the Lunars are doing, and what most Gloranthans are doing in their holy day ceremonies, they incarnate their divine powers. Either the interrupters are flickering back and forth between divine, stellar, form and normal human form; or otherwise the corporeal Orlanthis are accompanied by their "stellar power" exactly like the Lunar ceremony they are emulating and giving a variant of.
As Stephen Martin points out, the Ringleaders have been able to somehow move up the schedule of Orlanth's Ring and caused it to come out after only a couple of hours, rather than being gone for a full week. Just as Orlanth's Ring has been "teleported" instantly between the Pole Star and Stormgate, so has the Orlanthi conspirators been "teleported" right into the middle of the Lunar ceremony. Or maybe Starbrow has taken them on magic roads up on the Pole Star, on fast magic roads on the back side of the sky dome, through the Stormgate, and, smack, down to Dragon Pass. What a HeroQuest path!
Now, I am of the opinion that there are more than just seven human participants representing Orlanth's Ring right in the middle of the lunar ceremony! Why? There is no reason why not more than one people could represent a single star. Assistants and bodyguards would be needed since the main participants would be concentrating on their chants and spellcasting.
The text actually supports this: "But although people died, the invasive interruption continued, and the seven cut their spiral design across the dance." The people described dying here are both on the Lunar and Sartarite side. If just one of a singular Orlanthi party died they would not be seven stars anymore. "The seven" here does not describe seven individuals, it describes a magic *star* represented/made up by more than one individual.
This becomes clearer when we look at the next sentence: "Some of them prayed, some of them concentrated, and some of them killed." If there are only seven humans participating here the word "some" is a very strange word to have describing two people praying, two people concentrating and three people fighting. And they can't afford ONE casualty.
"At last, amid much carnage and death, they reached the center of the ceremony. [I can't imagine that the words 'carnage' and 'death' only describes what is happening to the Lunars here. I mean, the Lunars had body-guards and soldiers on guard as well. Minaryth Purple, for one, is described as having been killed only a few paragraphs later.] Pole Star, the ceremonial choreographer stood there, utterly lost in prayer and concentration, and the folks [a strange noun to use for only seven people] of Orlanth's Ring did not disturb him with their own prayers until they could not help it."
This last sentence is strange indeed, and I think Jane Williams is right about it: The conspirators "were using not only the power [from the Lunars], but the Polaris presence. For what purpose? Back in the section of KoS on Orlanthi myth, we have a story of how, at the start of the Greater Darkness, Orlanth's stead was attacked by Chaos. He lost the fight, and his tribe escaped. 'A dragon was there. Pole Star helped.' This isn't exactly detailed. But the Orlanthi in 1625 certainly believed the Lunars to be associated with Chaos. If they wanted a dragon to aid them in their fight, this would be an obvious myth to call on. 'Pole Star helped'".
Next, the conspirators are calling for Orlanth and they rise up into the air "bearing their bleeding corpses among them." Again, this is much more likely to describe a party of 14-21 participants. I just can't see this as a scene with two corpses, four persons carrying them, and one left with his arms free, and then the five of them calling "for the ring to be closed, and for the green star to come to them" - a magic summoning so great that it would require almost absurd concentration.
What happens next is best left to Stephen Martin: "Note that the Green Star was NOT part of the constellation/invaders initially - the /.../ people representing the seven orange stars did their spiral at very greatly accelerated speed. When they called the Green Star to them near the end, it left the Stormgate at that time, and rushed to join the seven before they reached the center. As it crossed the point in the sky where the constellation of the headless dragon is, it completed the dragon for just a brief moment, and that is when the green beam appeared." And when the green beam strikes the circle the Brown Dragon (as the mundane representation of the celestial dragon) appears.
Now, all this seems to point towards a very planned action, where the appearance of the dragon was intentional. I think that the conspirators were hoping for some sort of great magic effect, maybe even the appearance of a dragon, but I don't think that they really knew what would happen. No one had done this magic before, it was a magic ritual close to the Lunars own one, and they were exploring a myth which hadn't been used in exactly this way before.
Maybe, they were hoping for the dragon to appear. But since nobody knew him, (not even Forang-Orlaront) they couldn't foresee the exact consequences of their actions. The Brown Dragon of Jarn was sleeping many miles and valleys away, albeit on the same ley line connecting to the temple grounds. "With Bitter Heart's" (the Grazer Feathered Horse Queen) task was to symbolically direct the dragon to the place of the ritual. This she did by her earth magic connections. She paralleled her own womb with the temple grounds, and when the Dragon rose from below, her womb burst open ("Alien-effect" here) and she was slain. Or, as Jane Williams puts it: "I believe they intended to summon a dragon, using the Lunar power, but did not have any control over which dragon would appear. That was down to the Feathered Horse Queen, supporting them from elsewhere. As an Earth priestess, a Brown Dragon, connected with the element of Earth, would be the obvious result, and the date clay/harmony/earth reinforces the Earth link."
Aside from the Earth link we have the dream connection. A way to "disturb"
the dragon, to lure him, to wake him, could be by entering into his dreams. I wouldn't
like to dream into a true dragons dreams, but maybe Jandetin the Avenger had a special
talent for this. Or, maybe the phrase "the dream part of the cermeony" hints at
a ceremony in which chosen conspirators invade the dreams of the Brown Dragon of Jarn and
symbolically enacts a scene in which the dragons of the world attacks the Lunars. The
dragon stirs and makes a reality of this symbolic dream. This could have been
So, the counter-ritual of the conspirators include:
All this had to be done without a manual. It was a desperate ritual in a desperate time, but at the same time having required years of careful planning, investigation and preparation, in secrecy lest the Empire should hear about it. A perfect way to involve the PCs in secret dealings and information-gathering across the Pass, and maybe even into the Lunar Empire itself. And, if accepting my conclusions that the interrupting party must have consisted of more than seven persons, the PCs can even take part in the actual ritual, and die heroically!
I am going to let the invasive party consist of 21 participants, or maybe 22 if Orlaront serves as focus for the green star, one each for praying, concentrating, and killing, for each star in the Ring of Orlanth. But the complete ceremony is going to involve 49 participants. This creates the sacred ritual number seven*seven participants, split between the invasive group and the supporters: three*seven invading, leaving four*seven at the base. And four, as we all know, is the Earth number.
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