Bonus Chapter: Lore on Elementals
-Of man, mages, gods, and Alka-
The magicless folk often see mages as greater beings in most cultures, due to their great powers and long lives. In worlds where no gods live, however, these mages are often worshipped as divine beings themselves.
'That girl just lifted a rock twice her size, and she hasn't aged for decades! She must be a god!' The common folk would tell themselves things like this.
However, the mages themselves have even greater beings to fear – actual gods.
Indeed, these gods are truly immortal, unlike the lesser mages. Plus, even the god-candidates possess absolute powers far beyond any mage. Whenever a genuine god is near, mages are, by default, reduced from objects of worship down to merely 'special people'.
However… you could say that there's ONE type of being that's truly greater than a god.
Some people call them Premordial spirits. Some call them the Elder Gods. Some even call them the "Kindred Gods", due to their relationships with each other.
However, these creatures themselves call themselves the "Alka". In the original tongue of the universe, "Al" means "one of few, exclusive, elite, nobility", and "Ka" means "Infinity."
They are spirits of Infinity. Unlike gods, who number in the billions or trillions, there are only 21 Alka.
It is from 2 of these Alka that the Dragons and Elementals originate from.
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-Origin of Dragons and Elementals-
Drakavar and Drakawyn are both "Drakin", though they don't look very similar at all.
In ancient times, Drakavar was called "the dragon of the skies", due to her slender body, long tail, outstretched neck, and looming wings. Drakawyn was called "the dragon of the earth", due to his short limbs, hulking, bulky frame, his short, muscular tail, and his complete lack of wings.
Even more so, Drakavar, from the beginning, always been obsessed with freedom. To her, being free means that you can do whatever you want without restriction. Perhaps it's because of her deep desire that the Creator God gave her wings.
On the other hand, the White Dragon has only been interested in digging deep into the earth and minding his own business. He has wisdom to cultivate and skills to train. Why waste time asserting himself over lesser beings? He has no use for their approval or permission to do anything.
And so, you could say that the two dragon lineages reflect this difference in temperament.
In the beginning, Mora had intended for the Dragon kind to all come from these two original dragons' descendants.
However, those two dragons ended up making their own lineages and creating their own separate, dragon races.
The black dragon of the skies went to many great warriors and gave them two drops of her blood each – one drop on the forehead, to change the body into a dragon-body, and one drop to drink, to change the soul into a dragon-soul.
These became the first dragons.
The white dragon of the earth took his own shed scales and used his claws as a chisel – carving them into perfect sculptures of little children. His skill in craftsmanship was so great that his carvings came to life. These became the first Elementals.
Of course, there are few know of the White and Black Drakin's union, though nobody knows of any children between them, or even if the lineage of "true dragons" even exists.
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-What makes an individual Elemental?-
Any body with a center of mass automatically has an Elemental. However, what dictates if an Elemental has an awakened soul is… a bit more complicated.
Basically, if something is THE center of gravity in a certain realm, then that Elemental has an awakened soul; she'll be able to think, speak, and travel places.
A rock isn't intelligent, since it's not the center of gravity for anything. Rather, it's a part of the world it rests on, rather than a thing unto itself.
A planet, however, IS intelligent, since it's big and strong enough to actually bind things down with its gravity. It's the same with moons, stars, star clusters, galaxies, galactic clusters, and galactic Superclusters.
Other than being the center of gravity to SOMETHING, there IS another way for an Elemental to wake up and gain sentience. Namely, if the Elemental gains enough Significance, it will wake up.
Basically, if a mountain is named by the locals on a planet, the Elemental there will gain a soul, though it'll be left in a perpetual dream – always lying still, and never stirring.
However, if enough important things happen to that mountain, it'll sometimes have bouts of consciousness.
Even then, however, these Elementals aren't the center of gravity to anything, so they can't quite manifest their own, living bodies; they're stuck as half-awake, barely existing things.
(It's precisely because of this that most people believe that Elementals are sleeping all the time. They also think that Elementals are merely 'Spirits of the physical world'. They don't realize that Elementals are literally a different type of dragon – a real race that can eat, sleep, and breed just like anyone else.)
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-Genealogy of Elementals-
Just like normal dragons, Elementals are distinguished by the number of horns on their heads. Each horn denotes how many generations down they are from their ultimate creator, the White Dragon.
(7 Horned - Drakawyn)
The White Dragon has 7 Horns. He's often called "the Origin Elemental" by some snooty scholars trying to sound smart. Most people call him the Elemental King. The 2 Creator Gods call him "Drakawyn". He calls himself "Kaeyel", which simply means "old dragon" in Draconic. Drakavar calls him "Din", for whatever reason. It means "bulky muscles."
(6 Horned – 1st generation)
The first generation of Elementals (6-Horned dragons) actually didn't live for very long. Some say that they were so powerful that they burnt themselves out immediately. As such, no one really knows what they looked like.
(5 Horned – 2nd generation)
However, from the ashes of their corpses, came a universe full of gas – all fixed in a new, stable form called "atoms". These gases eventually pulled each other together into their own bodies. These bodies of gasses became the Nebula Elementals.
Nebulas are the second generation Elementals, and they have 5 Horns. Though…, they don't last quite as long as the others of their kind.
(4 Horned – 3rd generation)
The gravity pulls on the nebula's gas, and if the gas becomes dense enough, it ignites into a newborn star – birthing another Elemental.
The Stars have 4 Horns. They're basically huge balls of gas that's been crushed so hard by gravity that the material inside was crushed into plasma, and the whole thing ignited.
(3 Horned – 4th generation)
In the hearts of these stars, heavier molecules are forged by combining hydrogen and helium. From the excess material forged from these stars, planets and all other celestial bodies are made.
Planets and moons both have 3 horns. Most of the time, moons are just little planets made from the dust around a larger planet. They just happen to be caught up in their big-sister's gravity, and they become a moon.
Every so often, though, something will hit a planet, scrape off a huge chunk of dust, and a moon will form from this. Moons formed this way are technically another generation (hence, they have 2 horns).
However, they're extremely rare – so rare that everyone just treats the moons as their planet's daughter, even though they were both forged from the same Star-mother.
(2 Horned – 5th generation)
2-Horned Elementals are individuals born from the surface of planets and moons. Continents, oceans, mountains, etc. are all of the same generation, though some of these Elementals are obviously greater than others.
(1 Horned – 6th generation)
1-Horned Elementals are all of the smallest bodies of the physical world.
For example, a sword made from iron mined in a certain continent will be that Continent's child. A river made from water that originated from the ocean is that Ocean's child.
You get the point. These are the weak, flighty elementals that Dakka, and all other dragons, are used to commanding through their magic.
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-5 Horned, Galactic Elementals-
The first way for an Elemental to be born is if they're made from a larger Elemental. Big Bang to plasma, to nebulous gasses, to Stars, to planets…
However, there's actually another way for an Elemental to come into existence. It's by many Elementals joining together into one celestial body. Stars to galaxies, to galactic superclusters…
Essentially, an Elemental can either be born from a larger body splitting up and giving some of its Drawyn (material) to its child (bigger to smaller). Or, many elementals can come together and give birth to a single, overriding will that rules over them (smaller to bigger).
What happens is this:
Countless 4-horned stars are forged in the 5-horned Nebulous Spirits. At first, all of these Stars are scattered rather evenly throughout space.
However, gravity starts to pull these stars together into little clusters – little kingdoms called "galaxies".
… and calling a galaxy a "kingdom" is an apt description. From the stars' points of view, they're all living together in an isolated space, and they're all bound together – living in the same space.
Even if they were all born from different nebulas, all these stars are orbiting the same center of gravity. That practically makes them all sisters! – though, only in a loose sense.
With all of these stars living in the same kingdom, it's only right that a Queen be crowned from among them.
Thus, the celestial body closest to the center of the galaxy (almost always a black hole) is dubbed the queen of the galaxy. She ascends into a Galactic Elemental, and she grows another horn – becoming a wingless dragon with 5 horns.
Remember, there are other elementals with 5 horns besides Galactic spirits – the Nebulous spirits.
Naturally, Galactic spirits are far more powerful than Nebulous spirits. However, they're still treated with the same level of respect.
Nebulous spirits are treated well because of their status as elders, as well as the mothers of all the stars. The Galactic spirits are hailed for their great power and authority.
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-Supercluster Elementals-
Just the same way that Star spirits come together to make Galactic spirits, Galactic spirits come together and make Supercluster Elementals…
… However, the story of how Supercluster Spirits are born is a bit more interesting, so we have to talk about it.
Space is constantly expanding out of itself. It's as if the universe is always growing.
Elementals relatively close to each other don't notice the universe expanding around them, since their gravity keeps them tethered to their neighbors. With that strong Force between them, nothing seems to change around them, and they remain oblivious.
However, when you get to the galactic scale, the universe's expansion becomes blaringly obvious.
With galaxies being so far away from each other, their gravity is often too weak to keep them tethered together with the other galaxies. No matter how hard they try to pull on each other, they slowly drift apart and are lost forever from each other.
However, there are large swaths of space where huge groups of galaxies don't drift away from each other. Rather, they're all slowly drifting towards each other.
[A/N: Image of a Galactic Supercluster in comment]
What happens is that the aggregate gravity slowly pulls the galaxies apart into huge groups called "superclusters". They're bound together into one celestial body with a single center of gravity.
Just like how Stars form a kingdom and elect a Queen, Galaxies form together and elect an Empress.
The Galaxy nearest to the Supercluster's center of gravity is transformed into a Supercluster Spirit, and she's promoted into a 6-Horned wingless dragon. She becomes an empress.
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-Monarch Elementals-
Galactic and Supercluster Elementals are monarchs, since they're born from many elementals forming a community.
Something really has to be said about these monarch spirits.
TO BE CLEAR, a monarch elemental is as strong as the combined might of her subjects. Yet, her power is pulled directly from the Realm of Arwyn (Existence), so all of their might belongs completely to them.
A Star has a finite amount of fuel, and every action she takes shortens her own lifespan. However, a Galaxy only shortens her own lifespan when she does something; she doesn't weaken her subjects, since her power is completely her own.
Let's say a galaxy has 1 billion stars in it. This means that the galaxy has the power and expendable fuel of 1 billion stars.
If this Galactic spirit gets into a lot of fights and exhausts her lifespan, she WILL die, but all of her stars won't die with her. After all, her power is her own; she's not pulling from the power of her stars directly. Rather, her powers mirror her stars.
In a real sense, a Galactic spirit dying won't kill her stars, but the stars dying will kill the galaxy.
In the event that a monarch Elemental is slain, or if she exhausts herself, then the Elemental next closest to the center of gravity will be crowned Queen, and a new Galactic Spirit will be born.
The same rules apply to Supercluster Spirits.
[A/N: Image of hierarchy of Elementals in comment]
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-Black holes are NOT elementals-
A black hole is what happens when Dravar (force/energy) becomes overwhelmingly stronger than Drawyn (matter/material). The Drawyn is crushed by overwhelming force into a singularity.
This singularity has no physical dimensions and no physical properties. The only thing measurable about these things is the strength of their Force, how much energy is trapped inside, the direction and strength of their spin, and their electrical charge.
In other words, a black hole ceases to be Drawyn (an Elemental). The only thing it has is Dravar (force/energy)
Plus, the force of a black hole is so strong that the laws of physics stop making sense. In a very real way, the force of gravity inside of an event horizon is infinite energy…
… and Drakavar – the Goddess of Power – is the only being capable of manifesting "infinite energy".
In other words, the only thing that a black hole could possibly be tied to is Drakavar herself.
Since Drakavar isn't the spirit of EVERY black hole, many are left to speculate… what do these black, celestial monsters have to do with Drakavar?
Many speculate that black holes are portals into Drakavar's Realm, though no one has any way of guessing.
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-Are dragons as strong as Elementals?-
The short answer? No. Dragons are much weaker than Elementals of equal horns. A 6-horned Elemental is a behemoth on the intergalactic scale. A 6-horned dragon can, at most, deface the surface of a planet.
However, it wasn't always like this. Long ago, when the dragons were first created, they were just as strong as their Elemental counterparts. 6-Horned dragons were once capable of ripping galaxies apart like tissue paper, just like the 6-Horned elementals.
Nobody is really sure why the dragons became so weak compared to before. Some say that it was some trick of the gods, who no doubt wanted to weaken their greatest threat. Some say that the dragons fell out of favor with Drakavar herself, which is why she may have withdrawn most of her power from them.
Some even say that it's the nature of force to blunt itself with time and that the dragons' decline is only natural. Their reasoning is that natural Forces will constantly seek a state of higher entropy. In other words, if the dragons are a force of high energy, then time will take their power away over time and disperse their strength more evenly throughout the universe.
In the end, nobody really knows the correct answer to this... Well, that's not quite true. There's a few people who know...