Lore - an ongoing post
Mar. 22nd, 2026 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xicaBiology
•It takes a minimum of three dragons to create and hatch an egg. The two who provide sperm and egg, and the one that provides a "spark" of power to make the baby viable. Multiple dragons may provide a spark.
•Dragons don't bother mating for eggs unless they have enough other dragons interested in being a parent to make a clutch viable. I.e: three minimum other dragons want to raise babies. It's pretty rare for the mating pair to raise more than one or two themselves. Clutches of eggs range from three to damn, that's a lot of eggs. Sometimes you get more prospective parents than eggs, sometimes more eggs than parents. If there are too many eggs, some just aren't rendered viable. It happens.
•The mating pair is simply not considered when talking about parents, unless they are raising a baby. In Xica's case, their mother is a single mother. If Xica mentions "mother" there is no confusion about bio vs. adopted: Xica's mother is the one that provided the spark and the raising. Period. If mother died, Xica would go to their mother's father, not the mating pair.
•Eggs hatch into fuzzy fish. Like a rhino, this fuzz will eventually harden into scales. The growing of the traditional "hard" dragon scales is a lifetime evolution. The fish stage lasts two years or so; about when a human learns to walk the fish-baby turns into a bipedal juvenile. They are chubby and adorable, and most of their fuzz has turned to fine scales at this point.
•Juvenile stage in dragons is about four hundred years, however they mature mentally and emotionally at the rate of a human. A juvenile is considered an adult at around twenty five. This doesn't change much in their lives, as many dragons continue to live with their parents until the parent becomes an elder dragon. A twenty five year old dragon is considered emotionally capable of raising a baby if they want to. Some do, some don't.
•The 'hair' on a juvenile dragon will, in time, start twisting and hardening together into their horns. This is a natural process that takes a hundred years or more. There isn't a damn thing a dragon can do to make their horns look one way or another, what will be...will be.
•Elder stage in dragons are the traditional dragon shapes: any type of dragon is a dragon. Wyverns, the four-legged western Dragons, the Eastern Dragons, Wyrms, it's all just Dragon to Xica's people. As far as anyone can tell, it's a combination of the three (or more) parent's energies that decide with more weight to the spark giving parent. Xica hopes for wings, but will be happy with living that long.
•As is probably not unexpected in a species that changes form several times over it's lifetime, sex and gender are very mutable and not linked. A dragon gets to choose both, being born with the potential for either sex. Some choose to lay eggs, some choose to fertilize those eggs, some choose abstain from either on a biological level. Gender is a construct, so the choice of gender has nothing to do with biology. Unfortunately for the gender fluid, once one of the two biological roles is chosen it rearranges the system to make that the body's default. Those who abstain basically hold the whole choice in abeyance. There are no gender-based roles in dragon society. Hard to patronize someone who can swallow a cow whole, regardless of gender. Xica has yet to make any choice. They are fourteen.
Social
•Xica's world is dangerous. Nothing sentient will go after a juvenile dragon because that is suicide for your whole damn village/city, but there are massive numbers of Very Dangerous Things that will target anything moving and smaller than they are, or bigger but slower, or asleep, or, or, or. There are also magical backlashes from poorly made spells that can cause things such as "now this valley is a cliff", and so on. Even dragons have to be very careful, because morality rate is high. Basically: You can live forever...if you live that long.
•Dragons have a high protective drive. Those people from Earth have probably been adopted. "Sure, they're adults, but they're also just babies in this world". Most of them will have been adopted by Elder dragons and juveniles on the edge of shifting to elder.
•Due to the dangers of the world, most people don't clump up much more than "large village/small city". It's too devastating when something happens that destroys, y'know, the whole damn landscape. Xica's village is about two hundred families, of which seventy-five are dragon and the rest are people who wandered in, got adopted by dragons, and rolled with it. Many of them have been around for generations.
•Dragons add syllables to their names as they do Very Important Things or Very Impressive Things. A parent will give their baby a one-syllable name, growing legs gets a second syllable, and so on. Xica was Xi as a baby, and got ca when they became a toddler. They are trying to decide if ending up in another world is enough to get a third syllable. They're leaning towards only if I get home alive.
•Dragons are hoarders, however what they hoard is variable. Xica's mother hoards books. Any books. Especially history books, but in her words "It's all history if you wait long enough". This isn't something they necessarily know from the beginning, it just kind of...develops. Xica's mother hopes that they will get over their current pet obsession. (Note: All Xica's pets are well taken care of. It's not what humans think of as an animal hoarding situation.)
Magic
•Xica's village has been pretty stable, all things considered, because they are very careful about teaching the dangers of magic. Specifically: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you don't channel your energy right, you're going to get an explosion. It may not be the traditional "BOOM", but it will be Bad.
•Magic is very ritual based. What are generally called 'circles' are deeply important. Circles is in quotes because magic is more powerful the more sides you put on the circle - wrapping back around from "A circle has one side" to "a circle is infinite sides" as a magic user gets better. There is a lot of math, and art, and general step-by-step processing to keep the magic going where you want it.
•Yes, a really, really good magic user can effectively cast two spells at once by channeling the backlash into something also useful. Often used when plowing irrigation ditches to move the earth and fill it with water at the same time.
Xica's Village
•The village is, as noted, pretty stable.
•It's set around a deep valley with a lake in it, mostly dug out of cliffs; not unlike those of the Guyaju Caves or those of the Pueblo people. They are, however, less primitive. Except for the really, really old dragons' homes, which could be a thousand or more years old. Some of these have been updated, but some people just like familiarity.
•The lake is freshwater and very, very cold. Only the elder dragons and the true exomorphs swim in it. Juvenile dragons don't stay warm enough on their own to do so.
•It takes a minimum of three dragons to create and hatch an egg. The two who provide sperm and egg, and the one that provides a "spark" of power to make the baby viable. Multiple dragons may provide a spark.
•Dragons don't bother mating for eggs unless they have enough other dragons interested in being a parent to make a clutch viable. I.e: three minimum other dragons want to raise babies. It's pretty rare for the mating pair to raise more than one or two themselves. Clutches of eggs range from three to damn, that's a lot of eggs. Sometimes you get more prospective parents than eggs, sometimes more eggs than parents. If there are too many eggs, some just aren't rendered viable. It happens.
•The mating pair is simply not considered when talking about parents, unless they are raising a baby. In Xica's case, their mother is a single mother. If Xica mentions "mother" there is no confusion about bio vs. adopted: Xica's mother is the one that provided the spark and the raising. Period. If mother died, Xica would go to their mother's father, not the mating pair.
•Eggs hatch into fuzzy fish. Like a rhino, this fuzz will eventually harden into scales. The growing of the traditional "hard" dragon scales is a lifetime evolution. The fish stage lasts two years or so; about when a human learns to walk the fish-baby turns into a bipedal juvenile. They are chubby and adorable, and most of their fuzz has turned to fine scales at this point.
•Juvenile stage in dragons is about four hundred years, however they mature mentally and emotionally at the rate of a human. A juvenile is considered an adult at around twenty five. This doesn't change much in their lives, as many dragons continue to live with their parents until the parent becomes an elder dragon. A twenty five year old dragon is considered emotionally capable of raising a baby if they want to. Some do, some don't.
•The 'hair' on a juvenile dragon will, in time, start twisting and hardening together into their horns. This is a natural process that takes a hundred years or more. There isn't a damn thing a dragon can do to make their horns look one way or another, what will be...will be.
•Elder stage in dragons are the traditional dragon shapes: any type of dragon is a dragon. Wyverns, the four-legged western Dragons, the Eastern Dragons, Wyrms, it's all just Dragon to Xica's people. As far as anyone can tell, it's a combination of the three (or more) parent's energies that decide with more weight to the spark giving parent. Xica hopes for wings, but will be happy with living that long.
•As is probably not unexpected in a species that changes form several times over it's lifetime, sex and gender are very mutable and not linked. A dragon gets to choose both, being born with the potential for either sex. Some choose to lay eggs, some choose to fertilize those eggs, some choose abstain from either on a biological level. Gender is a construct, so the choice of gender has nothing to do with biology. Unfortunately for the gender fluid, once one of the two biological roles is chosen it rearranges the system to make that the body's default. Those who abstain basically hold the whole choice in abeyance. There are no gender-based roles in dragon society. Hard to patronize someone who can swallow a cow whole, regardless of gender. Xica has yet to make any choice. They are fourteen.
Social
•Xica's world is dangerous. Nothing sentient will go after a juvenile dragon because that is suicide for your whole damn village/city, but there are massive numbers of Very Dangerous Things that will target anything moving and smaller than they are, or bigger but slower, or asleep, or, or, or. There are also magical backlashes from poorly made spells that can cause things such as "now this valley is a cliff", and so on. Even dragons have to be very careful, because morality rate is high. Basically: You can live forever...if you live that long.
•Dragons have a high protective drive. Those people from Earth have probably been adopted. "Sure, they're adults, but they're also just babies in this world". Most of them will have been adopted by Elder dragons and juveniles on the edge of shifting to elder.
•Due to the dangers of the world, most people don't clump up much more than "large village/small city". It's too devastating when something happens that destroys, y'know, the whole damn landscape. Xica's village is about two hundred families, of which seventy-five are dragon and the rest are people who wandered in, got adopted by dragons, and rolled with it. Many of them have been around for generations.
•Dragons add syllables to their names as they do Very Important Things or Very Impressive Things. A parent will give their baby a one-syllable name, growing legs gets a second syllable, and so on. Xica was Xi as a baby, and got ca when they became a toddler. They are trying to decide if ending up in another world is enough to get a third syllable. They're leaning towards only if I get home alive.
•Dragons are hoarders, however what they hoard is variable. Xica's mother hoards books. Any books. Especially history books, but in her words "It's all history if you wait long enough". This isn't something they necessarily know from the beginning, it just kind of...develops. Xica's mother hopes that they will get over their current pet obsession. (Note: All Xica's pets are well taken care of. It's not what humans think of as an animal hoarding situation.)
Magic
•Xica's village has been pretty stable, all things considered, because they are very careful about teaching the dangers of magic. Specifically: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you don't channel your energy right, you're going to get an explosion. It may not be the traditional "BOOM", but it will be Bad.
•Magic is very ritual based. What are generally called 'circles' are deeply important. Circles is in quotes because magic is more powerful the more sides you put on the circle - wrapping back around from "A circle has one side" to "a circle is infinite sides" as a magic user gets better. There is a lot of math, and art, and general step-by-step processing to keep the magic going where you want it.
•Yes, a really, really good magic user can effectively cast two spells at once by channeling the backlash into something also useful. Often used when plowing irrigation ditches to move the earth and fill it with water at the same time.
Xica's Village
•The village is, as noted, pretty stable.
•It's set around a deep valley with a lake in it, mostly dug out of cliffs; not unlike those of the Guyaju Caves or those of the Pueblo people. They are, however, less primitive. Except for the really, really old dragons' homes, which could be a thousand or more years old. Some of these have been updated, but some people just like familiarity.
•The lake is freshwater and very, very cold. Only the elder dragons and the true exomorphs swim in it. Juvenile dragons don't stay warm enough on their own to do so.
