Musings on Monstrousness

True Dragons  are horrid things, at once evoking a hint of the hirsute beast while still thoroughly bound to their scaled, primordial features. There is, some think, a time when such creatures ruled, when an even crueler and more inhuman set of Pagan Gods held sway. But that was a long time ago, and they are not the ones man knew. We can only infer their existence from the things that are left behind. The dregs of scale and fang and wing which do not belong to the order of life which is kin with man. Each and every one represents an "other", a road of life traveled once, but not again. Small wonder that their forms so often evoke fear in us. Perhaps some primordial memory of the days when we germinated from the earth as pale, wriggling animalcules, and then vermin huddling in trees or burrows, while those terrible monstrosities claimed dominion over the earth.  Serpents A common name for innumerable crawling things which slither, fly, skitter, or swim. Some have two, four...

The True Faiths are spiritual philosophies taken from a concept called Heaven and filtered through a human Prophet into a fragment of its totality; a Gospel. This Gospel enforces behaviors upon its adherents, from lightly touching the attendant masses to wholly possessing the highest echelons. In a land of Un-Worldly subversion both within and without, the Gospels are some of mankind's most stalwart protectors. But not without cost. Not without change. For most, the weekly attendants and quiet believers, the boon is simple; the urge of Primeval Sin is suppressed, and men may live as they would have had their ancestors not so deeply sinned. By no means are they perfect, but a particular burden has lifted from their hearts. They are cleansed of their wrongness and may, perhaps, seek something better. Heaven did not originate from the minds of men. Its Gospels erupted from them as their minds sought to grasp the profundity of what they encountered. It is this lack of human taint...

  The Adversary. The Dire Serpent. The Old Horror. Dragon. These are the words by which a certain family of beast is known. The creatures of the World are innumerable in their deviations. Even among kinds thought docile, monstrous individuals may arise, and in lands thought peaceful may spring a new form of unwholesome life. The draconic brood stands above them all as the direst of predators.    They bear a passing resemblances to serpents, though not wholly so. Though both may have claws and wings and fangs, the draconine are closer to the hirsute beasts of the Known World in the configuration of their bones than they are to the scaled folk. Tucked under are their legs and strong their jaws, though it is there where the resemblance ends, for as the reptile they are scaled, even if they may sometimes sport fur or leathery skin in patches or along their underbelly. In truth, they resemble nothing more than some primordial version of Chthon's daimons, those hateful things f...