Random Nerd/FalseCreationMyth

First, there is nothing, and Gaia. Gaia, not wanting to be alone, tries to make a world, but fails(1). All she makes is possibility(2).

Then she cries out for something, anything, to hear her and give her aid. She exhales five times(3).

Her first breath flows into the world from the (untranslatable), and turns the unformed possibility into something able to hold its own strength, stable and strong.

Her second(4) breath flows into the world from the South, and gives the cold world heat and light. Things become able to radiate heat and glory, and to pass these qualities to others.

Her third breath flows into the world from the West, and gives the world water and fluidity. Things able to change their form without lapsing to formlessness.

Her fourth breath flows into the world from the North, and gives the world lightness and movement. Things become able to move from one place to another without changing what they are.

Her fifth breath flows into the world from the East, and gives the world growth and life. Things become able to grow to more than they had been.

The five Dragons fly in a circle through the sky(5), observing what now is.

The Dragon of Earth flies below the world, and builds a foundation, sure and strong, on which it may rest(6).

The Dragon of Fire flies over the world, and makes the Sun, strong and bright, whose glory will give the world light with which to see.

The Dragon of Water flies across the world, and makes the Moon, subtle and changing, whose transformation will show the world how to become what it is not.

The Dragon of Air flies above the world, and makes the Sky, firm and star-speckled, whose boundary will show the world that some things are beyond it.

The Dragon of Wood flows through the world, and makes the Animals(7), curious and wise, whose searchings will show the world how to know itself.

(This story continues, of course, to include the Choosing of the Dragonblooded, the foul origins of the Anathema, and the vast war in which the Anathema and the twisted demons that taught them to steal power from the Great Works of the Dragons were cast down.)


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Translator's notes:
(1) To understand this parable of Mela's, one must realize that in the original Old Realm version, Gaia is both the maker of the world and the world itself, and is trying to give birth to herself.
(2) Or, in some versions of the myth, the Wyld.
(3) Here, Gaia is not making the Elemental Dragons, but is rather the vehicle and medium through which they choose to give themselves birth.
(4) Textual variants exist in which the identity of the Second Breath through the Fourth Breath varies, although Earth is always first and Wood is always last.
(5) This, the Circuit of the Dragons Before Their Works, is a common topic of religious art.
(6) According to some scholars (who do not adhere to the Wyld theory of pre-formed Creation), this foundation is or represents Gaia herself.
(7) Including, of course, humanity itself.

Comments

Putting humanity and animals in the same creation group doesn't strike me as something the Immaculate Faith would do. One of its major tenets is the Hierarchy, and animals are considered to be below humans. Also, I would think that they would put something in that would somehow create the Dragon-Blooded even before humanity, although I guess they could justify their higher spiritual station otherwise.
~ Shataina

Really, I think that the first Dragonblooded need to come after the first humans, because the humans have to have time to reincarnate and reach the proper spiritual perfection before they can be born as DBs. As for the animals, I see at least one Immaculate school of thought as having Creation start out with lesser animals, and (through a process rather like a cross between Darwinian evolution and Hinduism) those animals that act out their role properly are reborn as higher animals, and so on up the line through humans, Dragonblooded, and unity with the Dragons. How would you change it, to separate humans and animals? -Random Nerd

You're probably right about the Dragon-Blooded. Personally, I would write it like this: first the animals were created, then the humans. Then the Five Dragons each chose a consort that they thought was the most enlightened / spiritually superior / whatever. The Dragon-Blooded are the descendants of these five pairings and only the most spiritually enlightened get reincarnated in the bodies of the descendants of the Dragons. Of course, this makes the Dragon-Blooded into little more than glorified God-Blooded, which is something I like (and think could possibly be correct from a metaplot standpoint) but it might not be something that the Dynasty would want to point out. So on the other hand I might just have animals, then humans, then the Dragon-Blooded start choosing the most spiritually superior of the humans. The thing about the latter is that from the literature of the game, from what I can gather, the makers intend for the Dragon-Blooded to view those who are Chosen to have been incarnated into bodies that were going to be chosen rather than chosen after their incarnation. The former works better with the theory that it's something physical about the bodies, which is really undeniable even to the Dragon-Blooded, who would doubtless prefer that they were specifically chosen but can't deny that for them the Second Breath is passed down through the blood -- empirically, this is incredibly obvious even to the devout. So ... like I said, I would go with my first explanation. But this is great either way.  :)
~ Shataina

Part of the thing is that I think Exalted should have more myths that are flat-out wrong. I mean, there are jillions of people there, and probably under two or three hundred know all that much much about how the world really works, so there have to be lots of myths that are pretty much all wrong. I think these sorts of things can be useful for understanding the cultural background a character comes from, and they can provide interesting flavor. Plus, it's easier to write something that's deliberately not true without having to make sure it's not contradicted elsewhere.

-Random_Nerd

Of course; I was taking that into account. I was just under the impression that this myth would be a sort of official Dynastic creation myth, which means that it can't ignore physical evidence like the physical nature of Dragon-Blooded Exaltation, because members of the Dynasty tend to know what's up and would notice an inconsistency like that. Even the peasants have noticed that Dragon-Blooded only Exalt from children of other Dragon-Blooded, after all, and I think that should be addressed in whatever myth the Dynasty chooses to propagate. I guess it's sort of irrelevant that I like to think about the Dragon-Blooded actually being glorified God-Blooded; I just put in that note, I don't know, because I was rambling. In terms of what the Dynasty would want people to think, I figure it could go either way. <shrug>
I mean, I don't know. Was I wrong about this being an official Dynastic creation myth? If I was, then that changes everything.
~ Shataina