Nefol Lore: Dragon Soothers (Drei’distau)
As I worked through some ideas about AsaHi in the Dreigiau story, I spent a bit of time brainstorming about the Dragon Soothers (Drei’distau). What exactly can she do, and what are the origins of those abilities?
Just like with many questions I can’t fully answer in my universe, Dragon Soothers can trace back to the hazy reaches of the Time Before. I actually like having a rather nebulous bit of history in my world, because that means that I can leave a lot of things unanswered, and develop them later when they become more clear in my mind. Yeah, a cheap writing trick, but it helps me feel as if my world has flexibility to develop in different ways and a canon reason why it is so flexible.
I don’t know the whole story, but I do know that the Nefolian world was an important location in the Time Before. This explains why you find creatures such as Aur and the now-vanished last clan of dragon-kin involved in the history of the planet. It also explains the connection through the Vision Stone to other worlds, such as Runne.
But I’m jumping ahead of myself. Back to Dragons.
Chaos, Arweinydd and Dragons
We’ve established in Wayrift stories that originally, Arweinydd were considered merely a source of energy to more advanced races, such as the Dragon-kin. It was unknown to them that Arweinydd had the potential for development into sentience, and the dragons saw their properties to not just contain energy, but conduct it, as a way to power their society and empower themselves.
Arweinydd were used in everyday life for dragons — everything from acting as a power generator to keep the lights on, to a light afternoon snack. Consider them like our energy bars. I don’t know if they came in different flavors, but many dragons seemed to think they were tasty.
Anyhow, now days we know that Arweinydd do, in fact, conduct outside energies. Stronger Arweinydd can draw more dangerous power, such as raw Chaos and Creation energies. The dragons discovered this, too, which is where the trouble started.
Just as with any race, there were Dragon-kin who sought power. Chaos can sense this desire, and it knows a good host when it sees one. Though the Arweinydd themselves were too undeveloped to manifest Chaos at that point, dragons discovered they could empower themselves by consuming Chaos-saturated Arweinydd.
This turned out just as bad as it sounds. Eventually, the Chaos consumed those dragons instead, creating what the dragons called Chaos-Ferals. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what all this means, but the destruction it brought about was vast enough for other dragons and races to search for a counter against it.
Dragon Soothers
I’ve come to determine that Dragon Soothing is a power that was created/developed, and not something fully natural. When faced with something born of Chaos, the frightened educated only knew how to reach for the low-hanging fruit. They sought to weave the energies of order and Creation into something, or in this case, someones, hoping the opposite power could do something to stop (soothe) the Chaos.
I don’t know yet if this process was voluntary or if those involved were experiments. I have a sense that many different races (and there used to be many more that I’ve never written about) were involved, and that this ability seemed to stick more innately with certain people.
I’m sure there were more Dragon Soothers than just Nefolians in the Time Before I don’t know if it’s passed through family lines, but I do get the feeling that this ability is something rare and gifted to very particular individuals, based on a lot of criteria.
So while I won’t say it’s “fate” that AsaHi is what she is, I will say it’s by no accident that she felt compelled to seek out the truth of the Host Gate. And it’s no accident that she was able to put into motion the events that opened the way for Arweinydd to walk among the Earthians freely for the first time in a very long time.
I’ve also decided that the history of this power has long since been forgotten, like many things in the Time Before.