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These rare creatures are classified under many names- yet every known culture in Vilderan agrees that the largest of these beasts are to be respected both in times of war and peace.
Many travellers seek large true dragons for various reasons yet only the strongest or most devious will find ways of attaining any form of treasure whether it be knowledge or material.
Dragons have had a difficult relationship within the tribes of Grunnheim due to their massive requirements to sustain both their own criminalized hunger as well as their families which tend to be hunted into extinction due to societal friction and various forms of economic loss associated with dragons in most regions.
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At some unknown time- a secretive group of "empathic" people began to make trips to the lands of dragon and imparted a forbidden gift in the form of Ember Symbiosis.
With this new controversial power- dragons who survived the trials were no longer restrained as vulnerable gas breathers... they were becoming dangerous ember masters.
Unfortunately the dragons began to lose their pack mentality as the Blight within the Ember began to eat away their care for each other causing them to destroy their numbers in a pathetic display of proud death matches... any ember dragon who survived found themselves dying to a form of Ember Decay.
However some intelligent beings such as Vyrax proved to be quite resilient in finding ways to forcibly gather armies while cheating their own death which ignited their feelings that the future of history should be rewritten for dragons as they started dealing vengeance in the form of spreading Ember Blight among the tribes who were the most vicious and deceitful against dragons.
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"The Dwarves may erase our power... The Ember may erase our unity... The Varkolyn may erase our meal... but NO ONE will erase OUR EXISTENCE!!!
I vow I will find a new body after this one perishes, an endless cycle of Ember Decay I cannot escape...
Dead in a living body, living in a dead body.
-Vyrax.
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Fun fact: I actually have a bestiary entry called Dragons but due to the nature that they are conceived as extinct and a general knowledge to many that they can only be witnessed as Spectral Dragons nowadays. I decided to separate it to three entries: Living kinds, Undead kinds, and Collective of the two kinds. The generalized Dragons entry is hidden on-screen to avoid redundancy and confusion.
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I welcome potential changes as I can certainly tell you that this stuff is bordering on fan fiction since I wasn't sure just how common some of these creatures are- yet it wouldn't be too far to say that Vyrax may be a very ancient entity- in which case these events might pre date the entry of Spectral Dragons.
As it currently stands- we could say that living dragons are a different class of dragon altogether since Thiss walks on 4 legs and Vyrax walks on 2 and it may explain why Vyrax can summon fiery ember gargoyles.
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"Flow" is very important to me as I can't stand "empty filler" and I value "constant momentum" in any narrative.
"Subject Matter" is the most important since it has to somehow circle back to what actually exists in the game even if it's just a minor reference- it adds loads of credibility to the mod.
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I am more than happy to continue writing more lore... when I have time- I will seek to tackle more creatures.
Explaining Vyrax took more time than I originally thought since in hindsight the Living Dragons have had a rather large cultural impact on Grunnheim history.
I mean Torchlight dungeons with ember lanterns and windows dedicated to dragons must mean something special happened that Runic only hinted for us in the game.
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Feel free to cut, change or use any part of any of my narratives as you wish! I wrote it in self contained yet connected parts to make it easier to decide.
If the game considers them to be different by their names then yes I would say change it accordingly-
Out of curiosity- does killing any Dragon count towards any Dragon augmented weapons or does the game seperate them?
"Kill 100 Dragons to upgrade weapon"?
I don't even know if that affix exists for weapons.
Thank you for this info! It's a shame that we are missing some augmented classes yet it's understandable that Runic would only include common foes.
I decided to not change the bestiary entry "Living Dragons" into "Firedrakes" but possibly can be include in the lore that they are also known as such...although not necessary.
It is interesting to figure why Runic Games portrayed the living dragons and spectral dragons differently by their walking animation even though their body built are the same. Maybe it has something to do with their current nature, as Vyrax can be assumed to be a proud living beast and while as Thiss is more of aggressive spectre due to being an experimented prisoner when it was alive...also Thiss probably knew the fate of its kind unlike Vyrax was isolated from the rest of world.
Also, this reminds me of another reason why I didn't gave the dragons their own bestiary parent entry, reason is that in the world of torchlight, dragons were not described as intellectual beings, they are just mere beasts and that's why I categorized the living dragons as so.
I am not sure if I should mention the "Fire Drake" name as it seems understood in this passage that they could have many names.
I will include the "Fire Drake" name if you wish it so.
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I like this view!
I would like a variant of this entry mentioning Thiss and it's perspective under Spectral Dragons if possible.
I did wonder if I should rewrite Vryax to not have a form of intelligence and simply change it to the fact that it had innate magical resistance and a feral will to live beyond it's dying bodies.
I'll let you decide.
Runic did make some interesting decisions which will inevitably affect our view of the available lore leading towards some open narratives on all the unwritten creatures.
Their intellect can be differentiated. They can be intelligent but not in a way that to have their own language like the Goblins have. So no need to rewrite. Let's just agree that they are like dolphins, probably smarter than humans but not in a way to have a language that can be understood by other speaking creatures.
But still, its better to not give them their own category yet...spectral dragons as being undead seems more practical for me.
Rest in pieces @ "Firedrakes": ^_^
I also really like this agreeable explanation of dolphin intelligence...
Although I have to ask- does this mean that Vyrax used to be a friendly social dragon before becoming a victim of societal violence?
That explains why some mod classes can friend a "Vyrax"...
^_^
Ah yes- I was actually thinking more about Thiss being explored under the Spectal Dragons under the Undead categories.
It would be curious if it knew that dragons were doomed as a dominant species especially if it had "dolphin" social intelligence or "elephant" social memory.
Maybe Thiss represents the last of the accessible dragons while Vyrax symbolizes those who live in isolated power as mentioned by your previous reference.
Thiss being an abused Undead would also give it a beast's grudge against magical Estherians (if I remember the lore correctly) and that would further explain why most other Undead seem to be more aggressive against Estherians over any other tribal people in Torchlight that we see in game.
If most Undead have a grudge against Estherians then we might have possibly uncovered another little known design that Runic intended all along...
That some Estherans abused the power of Undead Ember Magic and now the world of their victims are turning on their former torturers unfortunately causing harm to innocent Estherans in the process.
Consider Act 3 where we have an Undead side quest with- you guessed it: Estherans!
What a coincidence from Act 1 or maybe not?
Act 3 also contains much more powerful Undead armies (not only in game but also in story) possibly influenced by the Sundered Battlefield not far from Thiss and that story which may connect the entire region with the Witches (trained by Estherans?) and possibly Grom's Arena (mass grave for failed experiments?)
Finally it's worth noting that both Spectral and Living Dragons (Thiss and Vyrax) both have dungeons with the bones of many dead dragons which surprisingly fits with both narratives of prisoners and dominators (again Thiss and Vyrax's possible separate histories).
^_^
Same goes to Vyrax, who in the game's plot of the story, shows us that there are still ancient dragons living amongst us, hidden throughout history and official lores. If not in the bravery of the TL2 heroes, exploring the depths of Dragon Tower, Vyrax' existence would never have been known at all. There's no hints to tell us that Vyrax was a victim or was affected by the dwarves' acts.
Now, this makes me confuse. If dragons are not depicted as speaking beings then why do they have renowned names? If they are directly referred as "beasts" this only left me to conclude that their names are given to them by other creatures due to the fact they are too powerful and probably some cults titled these dragons based on their territory and appearance, so their name could be just a foreign language title. By that we can also assume that dragons may not be social creatures at all, they prefer to be alone, avoids each other, and rule the lands separately from each other. If they are truly just beasts then they can befriended.
It is interesting to explore the myths of the creatures with the use of the Lores and hints from the official website. Dragons are ancient, we can assume that they are one of the most powerful and earliest creatures. They got extinct due to the dwarves' lust for power and an Estherian Cult's lunacy. Dwarves are ancient too but only seem to be described as endangered species. Age of Dragons is over during the end of the Dwarves domination. So we are in the time when Age of Dwarves too is over and Ember Technology is becoming the norm.
This made me wonder that if there will be a sequel to Torchlight II, I want them to explore the idea where the consequences of abusing the use of embers is now at hand and artificially produced embers is already a global conspiracy. What if the main antagonist is an extreme environmentalist that will use the energy-siphoning tech by the ancient dwarves and modified it to be used on all living creatures, for the purpose of bringing back Vilderan to its natural roots?
P.S. Dwarves have their own lore. I forgot to put asterisk in the list. I already updated the list, please edit yours too.
I would actually like multiple villainous schemes going for TL3 since anyone could abuse the world's power in various ways by copying the Undead experiments of the Estherians (will the entire known world become as desolate as Grunnheim?) or feeding the selfish ember empire of Mondon, or aiding the Netherim in new dimension destructive tactics, or stealing the life force of all societies and resetting the world by terraforming it into a new dark age as stated by your comment.
Whether it all adds up into a super weapon war to mass produce embers or control the world or erase life itself or resetting existence back to the ancient days- I would be more than happy to see these paths explored!
^_^
Asterisk has been added to the Dwarves! ^_^