Dragons and Giants: An Elemental Problem
In my Alternate Ecologies of Dragons and Giants, previously, I've covered some of the aspects of how these massive creatures fit into the world around them. But there are many other facets, things they have in common, that suggest a similar origin.
In the article on Dragons, we glossed over origins. In the article on Giants, we focused on it. I plan to cover possible draconic origins in this one, and the ties between the two, as well as implications for setting where they exist.
In the Beginning, in almost every mythology, there was only Khaos. Primordial, unformed. Not empty, precisely, not uninhabited...but undifferentiated. I covered some of this in the Alternate Cosmology of the Far Realm and the Alternate Ecologies of Aboleths and Illithids. Like aboleths and other such creatures, a multitude of 'things' mostly ill-defined, moved through the lightless (or misty, or otherwise obscured) depths, until gods came to create, to separate, to define. To impose rules on things that until that time had none. Now, aberrations seem to be remnants of what was before, and aim to return it to what it was.
In Rega, dragons were made, consciously, by the three dark gods who were spawned from the corpse of the primordial dragon goddess Invidia. So they come from Khaos, and serve it, and are innately force of destruction. But that's just one expression of a larger theme.
Interestingly, in Norse myth, most of the creatures we'd consider dragons are either actually Jotuns (Jormungandr, the world serpent), completely unexplained pre-existent creatures (Nidhoggr) , or former dwarves. And the dwarves themselves? Spawned from the corpse of the dead Jotun Ymir, from whom Midgard was made, children of the earth itself...who can become dragons if they are greedy and envious enough. (Fafnir is an example.)
In a setting where the aberrations represent pure Khaos, what is the place of creatures like dragons, and giant, if they are not the same? Well...time and space. There's a sweet spot there, where the gods have begun to create, Khaos is already differentiated, but the world is not yet complete, and lower case chaos still exists. There is power everywhere, not yet trapped by the rules of the world. This power, fundamentally, is elemental. The differentiated power of Fire, Cold, Lightning, Thunder, Water, Earth...not yet tamed. And chaos is still as likely to produce as Khaos is, just more constrained in its possibilities. So there's where you get Norse style cosmologies, after Khaos is gone, with Ginnungagap 'forming' the frost giant Ymir, Niflheim the source of cold, Muspelheim the source of heat, Surtr being the primal manifestation of fire...
So in the very beginning, after things have begun to be made or separated, but before the process is complete, Elemental Chaos produces creatures that embody it, that have their own aims and drives, and are outside the purview of the gods, uncreated. Giants and dragons, and possibly other elemental creatures fall into this category...but not quite things like djinn, who though elemental are explicitly created, and after the elements are divided from one another.
Dragons and giants then live in the places between the ones the gods made, in lands they made for themselves, unconsciously perhaps, or that were made by the eldest of their kind, their 'gods' who are more often like ancestors. And in these places the rules suit them. They are scaled to the the world arpund them and vice versa. The impossibility of flight for a thing so large is simply not impossible in their home...and they bring the rules of their home with them when they enter the realms made by the Gods. Basically, dragons and giants are the spawn and lesser offspring of Titans...things with the power of gods but no need for, or interest in, worship, and mostly they follow the desires of their forbears. Mostly. Each of them is an expression of an elemental force, a thing that just happens, things that don't care about people one way or the other. A giant or a dragon is as much a natural disaster embodied, as it is a monster. But they become monsters, perhaps...when Creation begins to push on the edges of their preserves, when Reality starts to try to enforce its rules, when enormous appetites must somehow be satisfied with the meager provisions available in a world limited by even slightly rational principles.
From such a perspective, by the way, metallic dragons will almost always be the second born group, dragons that have been molded by divine will or accepted divine rules and become something else. From a cosmological perspective on ecology, by the way....dragons, giants, and the like, might be a sort of interstitial tissue, a thin barrier, a sort of immune system...that protects Creation from Khaos, all unknowing, and possibly vice versa. That might lead to particularly self aware dragons and giants embracing that purpose, and a deep hatred between them and aberrations, in worlds where all my alternate ecologies apply. Which leads us back into a circle where the dwarves, who were born of giant flesh and can become dragons also hate aberrations, as they seem to in many settings...Honestly, dwarves are a humanoid expression of the elemental principles that fully embraced the rules, so an inherent animosity toward things that exist in spite of (or to destroy) such rules makes tons of sense...from dragons, to giants, to aberrations.
A bit of a throw away idea: In first edition AD&D, all the monster races of humanoids, from small kobolds and goblins to ogres to trolls to full fledged giant, were all called 'giant class creatures'. And in some worlds, maybe they are. All born of that same elemental chaos, none are creatures of the gods, which explains that ancient enmity between godly (not goodly, that's linguistic drift) and 'giant' races: Why elves, men, halfllings and especially dwarves seem to dislike goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, and ogres so much...and vice versa. None of it is really about good and evil...
As a last note, there does seem to be a deep animosity between dragons and giants as well...but that's simply rivalry. Two great and powerful groups of creatures competing for the same resources. Simple as that.
Or is it?
