Dragaera

Dragons

Dennis Higbee den at monger.net
Thu Aug 29 09:22:44 PDT 2002

On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Mark A Mandel wrote:

> On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Dennis Higbee wrote:

[Dragons and their names]
 
> *If* you have a famous ancestor, you can claim him or her in your
> surname.  But what if you don't have an ancestor who is great enough to
> inspire respect from other Dragons? You're S.O.L. You don't want to be
> known as Lord/Lady Floop e'Shnorgle, descendant of Shnorgle the So-so,
> who defeated four hundred rioting Teckla; so you're just (relatively)
> plain Lord/Lady Floop. This, I submit, is a plausible explanation for
> why there might be Dragons who don't use a surname of lineage.

I'm sure that every Dragon by now has a famous ancestor.  The earlier you
go back into the Empire, using your argument, the more likely it is that 
you would have single name Dragons.  The Empire is now over 200,000 years
old.  Even if Dragaeran generations are as long as, say, 1000 years, 
that's still 200 generations.  In all that time, I would suspect that 
there enough heroes for everyone to be part of some lineage.

After all, given what we know of Dragons, it seems reasonable that the 
status of being e'SomethingOrOther would make one a more desireable mate.
The more desirable a mate, the more likely one is to reproduce and the 
more the e'Somethings reproduce, the more of them there are to mate with.
By now, 200 generations on, I'd suspect that the e'Somethings have 
competetely taken over, even if they didn't start out that way.

> #_Dragon_ has the most Dragons in it, obviously, and there is a wide enough
> #cross-section of Dragons with surnames to make me think that having one
> #isn't a deliniation of "high" nobility.  We know that Napper is e'Drien
> #and Virt is e'Terics, and Napper, at least, doesn't strike me as a nob on
> #the level of Morrolan e'Drien or Fornia e'Lanya.  I don't remember if
> #Aelburr's line is given and I'm fairly sure that Ori's wasn't, but that
> #could just as easily be because Vlad didn't know or feel like sharing
> #their lineage.
> 
> OK, that's data. The weight is fairly evenly balanced, and I'd say the
> jury is still out.

Yeah, it proves nothing, unless I missed references to the lineage of the
rest of the Dragons in the book.  (And even then...)

-Dennis