#Gveleshapi

[draconesmundi]

Happy Dracones Monday! Gveleshapi sketch

Hello! Happy Monday! I am still attempting to get some finished artworks but in the spirit of the 'post something every monday' challenge I will share a WIP of the Georgian dragon gveleshapi - might need to work on it a bit more to make it look more like a whale-serpent...

Previously in Dracones Mundi I had merged the Georgian gveleshapi and the Armenian vishap into one species but I have since changed my mind.

I think gveleshapi will still be in the 'azi' group alongside the Persian azhdar, the Armenian vishap and the central Asian nahang, although in my quest to make it more 'whale-ish' I may redraw it as a type of sea serpent (like my stoorwyrm). This current drawing is "species of azi dragon which looks more aquatic than the others", if a future version looks like a fat wyrm then you know I have redesigned it XD

This is a design loosely based on Georgian mythology for my field guide to Dragons of the World, Dracones Mundi. I am doing a challenge to try and post some progress every Monday (dracones mondays!) so feel free to follow along @draconesmundi !

[kitschke]

AOTD 1/30: Gveleshapi (Rotsa sikete damartskhda) - Vaqo

if u like psychedelic rock or folk or both definitely give this one a listen. he's only got like 450 listeners on spotify i think he deserves more

[rotten-sarcophagus]

damn I just found this, very cool fantasy lore for Gveleshapi, sea serpents from Georgian mythology

amazing art

[draconesmundi]

Examples of Species Reshuffling between drafts!

I was going to go through my drafts and do a complete breakdown, but got bored part-way through, so I apologise that this list only covers a few groups, but if you're curious on how species-shuffling goes down, here's a taste below the cut:

Quick breakdown of 51k word Old Draft vs Current Draft (at 25k, will be 80k one day)

Firedrakes

Old Draft: ‘Firedrake’ wasn’t specifically a concept, but the ‘firedrake family’ was split into winged firebreathers and into ‘hydra/multi headed’ dragons. The firedrakes were the smok (most firedrakes were named ‘smok’ whether or not smok was the local word for ‘dragon’) and zmey (after talking to some Russian people I found this name may not be best for Russian firedrakes), the hydra dragons were the boitatá and bullar – those familiar with mythology will be raising some eyebrows as m’boitatá being a ‘hydra’ here, and it’s because I lumped a lot of different mythology into one dragon – this was severely uncool of me – so the m’boitatá was somehow entangled with Ihuaivulu, guardian of Mapu Vilu in Mapuche mythology. As a multi-headed serpent-dog he qualified as a ‘hydra’ – did I do the same nonsensical lumping for Cerberus, a multi-headed serpent dog in Greek mythology? Nope! Cannot remember why I made this decision!

New Draft: the firedrakes are the Common Firedrake, the Viridian Firedrake and the Glitterdrake. The Common Firedrake has some subspecies (Welsh ddraig goch, Polish smok, and the bog standard western firedrake), as does the Viridian Firedrake (Greek hydra, Belarussian smok, Eastern European bullar, Russian chudo-zmeya, Eastern European hala), and the glitterdrake is also split into subspecies but this isn’t to do with mythology, it’s just for cosmetic reasons (red ones, purple ones, blue ones, green ones etc.). The lumping of dragons makes sense to me, I may be persuaded to do a whole chapter per subspecies, but I’m keen to see if this reads better as it is (…and ‘as it is’ is half written, OOPS). The concept of ‘hydra’ dragons is gone, as all firedrakes have ‘hydra’ behaviour (carrying young on their back like extra ‘heads’). M’boitatá is now a subspecies of flaming serpent.

Long and Azhi

Old Draft: Ryu, Rong, Yong, Tianlong, Shenlong (with a Qinglong subspecies), Dilong, Fucanglong, Druk, Azidaja (with Vishap subspecies), Temple Dragon (domestic?). Tianlong, Shenlong, Dilong and Fucanglong are often talked about as distinct types of dragon – Celestial, Spiritual, Earth Dragon and a dragon of hidden treasures, underground. Sometimes it is a coiling dragon. However, further prodding around lead me to believe that these dragons are actually life stages – as there is a popular mythology about Long being born as coiling serpents, then later growing horns and wings and ascending to heaven, and sometimes the four life stages of dragon line up with the four types of dragon, so I am inclined to interpret them that way.

New Draft: I’ve split the ‘Long’ group into dragons based on West Asian mythology and dragons based on East Asian mythology – the Azi group contains Azhdar, Nahang and Vishap (with subspecies Georgian Gveleshapi and Armenian Vishap). The Long group contains the Yellow Dragon (Huanglong), the Azure Dragon/Azure Yong, the Ryu (with subspecies for Honshu, Hokkaido and Ryukoko), the Rong, the Dancing Naga and the Druk. All the mythology from the previous draft was translated into the new draft, the Tianlong/Shenlong/Dilong and Fucanglong stuff has been incorporated into the Azure Dragon chapter. The Temple Dragon/domesticated Long has been removed from this draft, as I don’t actually want domestic dragons anymore (my dragons are very crocodile-like, I don’t want to hypothesise on how to domesticate crocodiles), and the dancing naga is a new dragon, based on Lunar New Year puppet designs and on bright pink dragon fruit.

Wyverns

Old Draft: Voivre (name for all green wyverns – I don’t think giving all green wyverns from all over European mythology a French name was a good idea), tatsu, balinese naga. Very short list!

New Draft:  Green Wyvern (includes vouivre, vibria, Saint George’s dragon, Mordiford Wyvern, African wyvern etc.), tatsu, Balinese naga, Zilant, Grey Wyvern (also includes ice dragons), Forest Dragon and maybe a Red Wyvern as well but I’m still gathering ideas for that (can’t just base it on some illustrations from Christian mythology, I want More to this dragon. If I can’t find more, forget the red wyvern was ever mentioned).

Cockatrices

Old Draft: Aitvaras, Cockatrice (includes basilisk)

New Draft: Glowtail (new, more inclusive, includes aitvaras, gandaspati, glühschwanz and verechelen, among some others I may have forgotten) and Cockatrice

A lot of these are just creative choices - this is a word of fiction, not an encyclopedia of dragon lore. While I am trying to keep this accurate to mythology, I am allowed to make groupings for my fictional dragon book if it makes sense to me - so lumping all the 'dragons with glowing tails' into 'glowtails' makes sense to me, despite gandaspati from Indonesia sharing no folklore with the glühschwanz from Germany. I have pointed out where I've made dumb mistakes in a previous draft, but have not done so for my current draft, as I am currently feeling happy about the current draft.