[dawnkiller]

Since we're twiddling our thumbs until DoD and a lot of people are doing rereads I thought it might be a good idea to collect what we know of the eleint so far, if only so we can save ourselves some time quote-digging later. I may or may not have realized this after re-reading the scene with Cotillion and the three dragons in tBH for the fiftieth time for quotes. Currently I'm on The Bonehunters after having just re-read Reaper's Gale, so I have some considerable gaps in my memory -- please feel free to jump in. I think the more facts we have in one place the easier it'll be to find patterns, especially if DoD reveals more.

(Note: Please cite sources when possible -- a lot of the stuff in the books themselves is already conflicting, so we may want to mark when something's speculation to keep heads from exploding. )


Known Dragons:

The Three Chained in Shadow - tBH p. 48-54: Eloth, Mistress of Illusions (Meanas, Mockra and Thyr); Ampelas (Kurald Emurlahn); Kalse (aspect ungiven). Contested for the throne in order to heal Emurlahn, chained and "very nearly killed" by Rake and the Andii.

Silanah - Aspect Thyr, seduced by Rake and persuaded by Olar Ethil to bring fire to the world of the Imass.

Curdle and Telorast - "Thieves," possibly attempted usurpers. Found hovering over two chained Andii bodies in Shadow.

Otataral Dragon - HoC p.564-566ish: Aspect Otataral, found in Imperial Warren in HoC on a wooden, x-shaped cross with hind legs impaled and chains wrapped around neck to make head face the sky. Still alive and sealing a gate -- "not really" in the Imperial Warren, but in a warren unto itself, sealing the enteranceway. Bound by other dragons. Appears to be female.

Sorrit - Aspect Serc; known to Icarium. tBH p.193-194: Her death means that should Osserc fall, Serc will be without a ruler. Crucified on Blackwood, spiked on otataral through the neck and chest. Sorrit was found in a short-tail KCCM refuge underground, one that had been frozen by a Jaghut in her attempts to route them during their civil war, though Icarium believes her to have been killed in Shadow.


Vision Stuff:

Dragon seen in the Dust of Dreams Prologue
The strange two-legged lizard, all clad in black gleaming armour, its tail nothing more than a stub, standing on a stone landing of some sort, whilst rivers of blood flowed down gutters to each side. Its unhuman eyes fixed unblinking on the source of all that blood – a dragon, nailed to a latticework of enormous wooden beams, the spikes rust-hued and dripping with condensation. Suffering roiled down from this creature, a death denied, a life transformed into an eternity of pain. And from the standing lizard, cold satisfaction rose in a cruel penumbra.

Casting of the Dragon Hold
"The Hold of the Dragon. Eleint Tiam purake setoram n'brael buras ("Children of the mother Tiam lost in all that they surrendered") . . . The Eleint would destroy all in their paths to achieve vengeance. As we all shall see in the long night to come. The Queen lies dead and may never again rise. The Consort writhes upon a tree and whispers with madness of the time of his release. The Liege is lost, dragging chains in a world where to walk is to endure, where to halt is to be devoured. The Knight strides his own doomed path, soon to cross blades with his own vengeance. Gate rages with wild fire. Wyval -- Locqui Wyval waits. The Lady and the Sister dance round each other, each on her own side of the world. Blood-drinker waits as well, waits to be found. Path-Shaper knows fever in his blood and staggers on the edge of the precipice." --Midnight Tides, p.207-208


Random Lists:

Ye Old Pureblood List
T'iam, Kalse, Silannah, Ampelas, Okaros, Karosis, Sorrit, Atrahal, Eloth, Anthras, Kessobahn, Alkend, Karatallid, Korbas, Olar

Known First-Generation Soletaken/Mixed Blood
Osserc, Scabandari, Anomandaris, Olar Ethil, Draconus, Silchas Ruin, K'rul

Inherited/Uncertain Provenance Draconic Soletaken (corrections and additions welcome)
Sheltatha Lore, Sukul Ankhadu, Menandore, Spite and Envy, Tulas Shorn, Rud Elalle, Korlat, Orfantal, Nimander (?)

Sealers of Starvald Demlain
Draconus, K’rul, Anomandaris, Osserc, Silchas Ruin, Scabandari, Sheltatha Lore, Sukul Ankhadu, and Menandore


Choice quotes regarding Sorrit, taken from tBH p.193-194:

"She was bound by otataral. Yet, she was Elder -- she should have been able to defeat that eager entropy. . . ."
"Old and new." -- Mappo and Icarium

"Who first dipped their hands into this fell stream? Who drank deep and so was transformed, and what effect did that otataral spike have upon that transformation?" -- Mappo

"The K'Chain Che'Malle did not kill Sorrit. They knew nothing of it. . . . I am certain of it. . . . The crucifix, it is Blackwood. From the realm of the Tiste Edur. From the Shadow Realm, Mappo. In that realm, as you know, things can be in two places at once, or begin in one yet find itself eventually manifesting in another. Shadow wanders, and respects no borders."
"Ah, then...this...was trapped here, drawn from Shadow --"
"Snared by the Jaghut's ice magic -- yet the spilled blood, and perhaps otataral, proved to fierce for Omtose Phellack, thus shattering the Jaghut's enchantment."
"Sorrit was murdered in the Shadow Realm." -- Icarium and Mappo


I Can't Think of Any More Categories:

- There was a Shadow Forest predating the First Empire; dragons fought there, "presumably the same dragons that are now imprisoned within the stone circle" (tBH p.173)
- Dragon's blood can slide through warrens until it reaches its warren of aspect and presents an inescapable trap to wraiths (RG)
- When Cotillion notes Eloth and Silanah both claim Thyr and that it was clever of K'rul to make her share power, Ampelas points out that "unlike Tiam, when we're killed we stay dead" so there is some redundancy in aspects as a sort of failsafe. (tBH p.53),
- Scabandari spilled draconean blood in the heart of Emurlahn, though whose is not specified. (tBH p52)
- The KCCM are known as the firstborn of dragons (RG) and as of the DoD prologue we see one of the last enclaves lives in a place called Ampelas Rooted.
- Murdering the dragon embodying the aspect can weaken the warren, as per Icarium and Mappo's conversation about Sorrit in tBH, and is one way of undermining the pantheon.
- SPECULATION: Dragons, being Elder, are resistant to otataral alone (a newer manifestation, it seems), and so to really kill them you need to throw in an older element -- the Blackwood, which grows native to KE and can pass through realms -- thus Icarium's comment "Old and new." And if that wasn't enough, Mappo seems to believe someone drank from Sorrit's blood, too . . .


That's it for now because my frontal lobe is crying.

Also, a personal request: If anyone sees any passages about Tiam, could you snag them? Her precise history is unclear, specifically whether or not it was Rake who killed her for the final time -- I doubt actual quotes will turn up the truth, but at least we can go on with our wild mass guessing from a stable platform.

[Abyss]

Nicely collected DK.

Scabby isn't actually confirmed as a son of Mommy D (as opposed to Rake and bros). The Letherii Edur believe him to be that, but then, they also thought Sukul and Menandore were his daughters.

The name of at least one other of Rake's Andii draconics is out there somewhere but i'm completely blanking (It's not Serrat, before anyone jumps in with that - she was a mage-assassin).

In the TB prologue, Spite invokes Starvald Demelain which in turn invokes otataral to remove the rituals binding Dejim, so there is a link there somewhere.

There are also the piles of dead eleint sitting outside the gate from SD that Udinaas and co discovered in RG.

And finally the unidentified three maroon dragons Fiddler and co spotted while passing through the Azath in DG.


- Abyss, draconic until he's had his first coffee...

[Bauchelain the Evil]

And lets not forget the Eleint Soletaken Galayn Lord that Rake battles in GotM. He surely was a powerful chap and I think it was speculated here that maybe he fell in the "he became Soletaken by drinking Tiam's blood" category.

This post has been edited by Bauchelain the Evil: 12 May 2009 - 05:48 PM

[dawnkiller]

Abyss, on May 12 2009, 12:35 PM, said:

Scabby isn't actually confirmed as a son of Mommy D (as opposed to Rake and bros). The Letherii Edur believe him to be that, but then, they also thought Sukul and Menandore were his daughters.

I took Stabby from the list of Soletaken Cotillion gave the three chained dragons in tBH, all of whom I believe drank of Tiam, so it's implied that's his source as well. However, agreed on the question mark of maternity. On the same page he is given as "originally Edur" and thus became their champion (after murdering the royal line, spilling draconean blood, and opening a gate in Shadow), and we still don't know exactly how that works, so that's anyone's guess. Fortunately this is a Draconic resource, not an MD resource.

Quote

The name of at least one other of Rake's Andii draconics is out there somewhere but i'm completely blanking (It's not Serrat, before anyone jumps in with that - she was a mage-assassin).

Yeah, ditto. I think we also have an approximate number of other Soletaken Andii -- I want to say like 7 or something. There's a scene, I think in MoI, where Silanah and X number of black dragons fly.

Aren't there also some undead dragons in the finale of TtH?

[Bauchelain the Evil]

There was Tulas Shorn, first master of the Hounds of Shadow,Tiste Edur and an unnamed Eleint who talked with Kallor although it's not clear if they're the same or no.

[Aptorian]

Abyss, on May 12 2009, 07:35 PM, said:

There are also the piles of dead eleint sitting outside the gate from SD that Udinaas and co discovered in RG.

Wait... you mean inside SD, right? Otherwise I got things all wrong and need to shift my whole understanding of what happened to the dragons and what the gods did.

The dead Imass bonecaster was lying on the inside of the gate to SD. Ruin and co were using SD as their final shortcut to get to the Refugium.

[dawnkiller]

Aptorian, on May 12 2009, 01:15 PM, said:

Abyss, on May 12 2009, 07:35 PM, said:

There are also the piles of dead eleint sitting outside the gate from SD that Udinaas and co discovered in RG.

Wait... you mean inside SD, right? Otherwise I got things all wrong and need to shift my whole understanding of what happened to the dragons and what the gods did.

The dead Imass bonecaster was lying on the inside of the gate to SD. Ruin and co were using SD as their final shortcut to get to the Refugium.

IIRC, Silchas & Co. entered Starvald Demelain via KG, and found all the dragons there dead and facing one direction -- the gate the Bonecaster had died in front of, the one leading to the Refugium.

And okay, correct me if I'm wrong here -- the Refugium was a pocket of living Tellann inside the unused Jaghut "afterlife", right? Eloth and Hedge seemed to walk there through it, and there were references to how even on Wu there were such pockets of life. I ask because I wonder if the fact all the dragons were facing in the realm's direction -- away from KG -- has any relevance. (Or maybe the Bonecaster came through before they kicked it and they all turned to stare . . . I don't know.)

[Abyss]

My take is that the Refugium was a chunk of Starvald Demelain which was populated by the souls of the Bonecaster's clan when she closed the First Empire gates. Over time, the presence of the Imass souls/ghosts and inadvertently Scabby's soul in the finnest created a 'pocket' when consciousness is sufficient for a soul to recreate its physical body.

As a complete aside, this could also mean that given how powerful Draconic souls are supposed to be, Menandore, Shelthana and Sukul may not be quite as dead as they appeared to be at the end of RG.

The proximity of the Refugium to the 'dead' chunk of Omtose that Hedge travelled through may be because both are elder warrens and there is an element of chaos to both - Omtose is said to be close to 'death' and death has an element of chaos, as does SD.

I figure the dragons found themselves locked in and with no way to leave SD, they just sat there until they starved to death. That seems odd since in TB we're told there are animal life forms native to SD, but there may have been a more metaphysical reason for the starvation. After all, feral dragons were keen to claim KE, and Krul did convince a number of them to take on warren aspects, which was presumably to their advantage somehow.

- Abyss, bets you can't find that on googlemaps.

[Hetan]

You've included Olar in the list of purebloods - but Olar is the Imass word for dragon or eleint
Olar Ethil is the Bonecaster (Soletaken)

Dragon in the prologue - it's not a dragon - it's a Nah'ruk.

The Refugium was within the Hold of Starvald Demelain as Abyss says

[dawnkiller]

Hetan, on May 12 2009, 01:55 PM, said:

You've included Olar in the list of purebloods - but Olar is the Imass word for dragon or eleint

. . . wow. It was indeed the last word in a list, and it took me this long to realize it could just have been a generalized word.

I'm smart.

Quote

Dragon in the prologue - it's not a dragon - it's a Nah'ruk.

The Refugium was within the Hold of Starvald Demelain as Abyss says

It was? Damn that's depressing. Behold, the place where the dead live again . . . except for the original inhabitants. It would, however, explain why the cave contained a junction of something like 12 different gates -- if the flavors of K'rul's blood are originally SD, it would make sense the warrens all at one point connected there.

As for the prologue -- I stuck it in there for the crucified dragon the Nah'ruk was looking at. <G> It's still alive, so it's not Sorrit, and probably not the Otataral dragon because the Otataral dragon is crucified on an X, not a latticework, and there was IIRC no rivers of blood or stone landings in the Imperial Warren. With Icarium's insistance the KCCM couldn't have killed Sorrit, though, I thought it worth including -- the short-tail seems to be deriving some satisfaction from the scene, which seems unusual.

This post has been edited by dawnkiller: 12 May 2009 - 07:10 PM

[Hetan]

ah! my bad.

Regarding Anomander killing Tiam - from Toll the Hounds :-

There is new blood within you.
“Yes.”
My son, what have you done?
“Like you, Mother, I have chosen to embrace change. Yes, there are others now. I sense them. There will be wars between us, and so I shall unite the Andii. Resistance is ending. Andarist, Drethdenan, Vanut Degalla. Silchas is fleeing, and so too Hish Tulla and Manalle. Civil strife is now over, Mother.”
You have killed Tiam. My son, do you realize what you have begun? Silchas flees, yes, and where do you think he goes? And the newborn, the others, what scent will draw them now, what taste of chaotic power? Anomander, in murder you seek peace, and now the blood flows and there shall be no peace, not ever again.

[Aptorian]

Hetan, on May 12 2009, 08:55 PM, said:

Dragon in the prologue - it's not a dragon - it's a Nah'ruk.

Is this some inside info from Erikson? Doesn't prologue actually say dragon or did we all just jump to conclussion?

Why are the Nah'ruk chaining each other then? Are there rebels within the faction.

And could this "cruxifiction of a Nah'ruk have relevant connection with the one Karsa fought in the Keep that was also, likely, bound for a long time.

Hetan, on May 12 2009, 08:55 PM, said:

The Refugium was within the Hold of Starvald Demelain as Abyss says

Interesting. From the descriptions It sounded like it simply bordered SD along with Death and Omotose Phellack. Like a floating chunck of warren drifting in the abyss.

[Osseric's mortal sword]

dawnkiller, on May 12 2009, 06:01 PM, said:

Casting of the Dragon Hold
"The Hold of the Dragon. Eleint Tiam purake setoram n'brael buras ("Children of the mother Tiam lost in all that they surrendered") . . . The Eleint would destroy all in their paths to achieve vengeance. As we all shall see in the long night to come. The Queen lies dead and may never again rise. The Consort writhes upon a tree and whispers with madness of the time of his release. The Liege is lost, dragging chains in a world where to walk is to endure, where to halt is to be devoured. The Knight strides his own doomed path, soon to cross blades with his own vengeance. Gate rages with wild fire. Wyval -- Locqui Wyval waits. The Lady and the Sister dance round each other, each on her own side of the world. Blood-drinker waits as well, waits to be found. Path-Shaper knows fever in his blood and staggers on the edge of the precipice." --Midnight Tides, p.207-208

I've always wondered about this translation, particularly the "purake". We know Rake gained the "pu" prefix when he killed Tiam... so what does his name now actually mean... which part of the "Children of the mother Tiam lost in all that they surrendered" does it translate as.

I'm hoping not "mother" : that would be a serious disappointment which leaves either "lost", "all" or some form of "surrender" none of which seems terribly appropiate! (This is if this language bears a resemblence to 90% of modern languages...)

So any ideas or guesses?

This post has been edited by Osseric's mortal sword: 12 May 2009 - 07:34 PM

[lord of tragedy]

the queen is MD, the liege draconus, the knight rake facing dassem with the sword vengance. the wyval a reference to the fate udinas has in store, so who is the consort and why is he writing on a tree? is he MD's consort?

[Abyss]

Osseric's mortal sword, on May 12 2009, 03:33 PM, said:

"The Hold of the Dragon. Eleint Tiam purake setoram n'brael buras ("Children of the mother Tiam lost in all that they surrendered") . . . The Eleint would destroy all in their paths to achieve vengeance. As we all shall see in the long night to come. The Queen lies dead and may never again rise. The Consort writhes upon a tree and whispers with madness of the time of his release. The Liege is lost, dragging chains in a world where to walk is to endure, where to halt is to be devoured. The Knight strides his own doomed path, soon to cross blades with his own vengeance. Gate rages with wild fire. Wyval -- Locqui Wyval waits. The Lady and the Sister dance round each other, each on her own side of the world. Blood-drinker waits as well, waits to be found. Path-Shaper knows fever in his blood and staggers on the edge of the precipice." --Midnight Tides, p.207-208

Queen = Tiam, aka 'Mother of Dragons'
Consort = at that time i figure Silchas, who was still stuck under the Azath but getting better. It's been suggested he wasn't exactly sane when he got out.
Liege = Draconus, still in chains then.
Knight = Rake for reasons now obvious
Gate = the Otataral dragon seems possible but Clip is also a contender for this position.
Loqui Wyval = the wyval possessing Udinaas
Lady = Envy
Sister = Spite
Blood-drinker = Silchas also fits this one, but i can't help but wonder if it's a ref to Heuk, who worships apprently Draconus, and drank blood for power once he was found and required to act.
Path Shaper = Krul, who was being poisoned by the CG at the time.

- Abyss, scotch drinker.

[Tosh]

Quote

the queen is MD, the liege draconus, the knight rake facing dassem with the sword vengance. the wyval a reference to the fate udinas has in store, so who is the consort and why is he writing on a tree? is he MD's consort?

Everything seems to point towards Tiam being the Queen. I don't think we have anything on the consort, unless its one of the crucified dragons we know about.

I'm very curious about Blood-drinker

Quote

Path-Shaper knows fever in his blood and staggers on the edge of the precipice.

Makes me think of K'rul.

Could K'rul be in the hold of dragons, if he is not in some way draconic? Can an elder god be draconic? Who came first, the eldergod or the eleint?

Damn your siren song Steven Erikson.

This post has been edited by Tosh: 12 May 2009 - 10:11 PM

[Khellendros]

Consort is one of the crucified dragons, no? 'Writhing on a tree', a dramatic way of saying crucified on blackwood?

[lord of tragedy]

its the ambiguity of the 'upon a tree' silchas was beneath a tree. and if i'm not mistaken he is also described as the most draconian, cold and ruthless of MD's children whose spell in the azath house was planned by himself. upon a tree seems to hint to me of crucifiction.

[Lisheo]

It's been suggested by someone that the consort is the Otataral Dragon, iirc.

[Khellendros]

Lisheo, on May 12 2009, 11:45 PM, said:

It's been suggested by someone that the consort is the Otataral Dragon, iirc.

I second that suggestion. If dragons are aspected to magic, and Tiam is the mother of them all, then stands to reason she is sort totally magical aspected. And the otataral dragon, as the polar opposite of that, as her Consort, adds a touch of poetic symmetry. Though sex must have been a tad dangerous. Do you think the otataral dragon always had to wear protection?


What?