#dragon communion

[scarewulf]

Tarnished Commission for an anonymous customer 🐲

[tarnussy]

Lend me thy strength, o kindred.

[smorgasbort]

I like Godrick a lot from a design perspective because he's a giant frankenstein's monster who looks messed up even by the standards of a many-limbed eldritch manspider.

But since I'm bad at Soulsborne games, I ended up playing a character who would go on to eat a lot of dragon hearts in the pursuit of pure strength to make up for a lack of skill, so in that sense, I also kind of have some sympathy for Limgrave's biggest failson.

I like him a bit because, in some ways, he just like me for real. We're both Mr. Struggle. We're both using heathen arcane secrets to survive. We're both blasting enemies with dragonfire and hoping they don't get back up.

[ice--ocean]

would you still love me if i was a wyrm

[longtailcat]

Dragon communion must suck.

No matter how you go about it, eating a dragon heart must be disgusting. Even after death, the hearts beat. They are full of gravel stones. The sensation of pulsating meat in your mouth sounds so viscerally unpleasant, especially combined with scraping your teeth on the gravel stone.

Dragon communion is largely ritualistic. I doubt you can get away with removing the stones first. Even then, I'm sure it'd be hard to get them all. You'll always bite down on gravel when you aren't expecting it. Maybe the hearts can be cooked, cut into smaller pieces. Even then, I'm not confident that they would go still.

And of course, there is the fact that the title of Dragon-hearted is entirely literal. Magma Wyrms drop dragon hearts. If you partake of dragon communion, your heart will become that of a dragon. Something heavier than you were ever meant to hold, inlaid with rough stone that assails you from within with every heartbeat. Something that you will likely eventually be killed for, yourself, to continue the cycle of dragon communion.

It's such an effectively disgusting concept.

[thatboreddrake]

The Drake Knights of Elden Ring

Alright, so. Despite having like, literally no actual information on them in canon, my brain decided that we were going to construct an entire culture/story around a group that never properly appears in-game! (:

Obligatory "absolutely none of this is official canon, it is connecting loose threads at best and rampant speculation at worst" warning out of the way. So strap in buckos, because tonight we're talking about the Knights of the Dragon Communion!

Let's start with what we know from the game itself:

Yura: "Those who partake in Dragon Communion will one day shed their humanity. Their hunger for dragon, their yearning, only worsens. Until the floodgates burst, unleashing eternal torment. The strength of a mighty dragon"

Magma Breath Incantation: "Those who have performed the Dragon Communion will find their humanity slowly slipping away. Once they fully succumb to their fate, they are left no more than wyrms that crawl the earth"

Dragonclaw, etc, also in-game mechanic: knights of the Dragon Communion gained their power from hunting and feasting on dragon hearts (metal)

Drake Knight Armor: "Features the spoils of a dragon catch as an emblem of pride as both dragon hunter and partake of communion."

TL;DR Drake Knights were people who hunted down dragons in order to consume their hearts and gain power, but eventually they were doomed to lose their humanity and become the Magma Wyrms we find throughout the Lands Between.

This also tells us with near 100% certainty that Eleonora was a member of the Dragon Communion, and with considerably less certainty that she and Yura hunted dragons together (but that's a topic for another day).

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaand here begins the speculation:

De-gamifying the incantations, I've headcanoned the power of Dragon Communion as a sort of "berzerker" state. The basic idea is that once they've partaken in the communion, the Drake Knights can tap into the might of dragons in order to augment their strength, durability, and endurance. This would manifest mostly in the form of growing scales, horns, claws, and the like. The more hearts a Drake Knight consumes, the more powerful transformations they can achieve. However, the more powerful they borrow from the dragon hearts, the harder it is for them to return to their human form.

Side note: another power available to them would be regeneration (because lizards), but this power is particularly dangerous, as its directly replacing parts of themselves with the dragon. It's still possible to return to human form after regenerating, but it's exceptionally difficult.

My idea is that the Drake Knights originally started exclusively as a corps of dragon slayers, but gradually came to realize that they could borrow the power of slain dragons in order to grow more powerful and slay more dragons ("those who fight monsters are doomed to become monsters themselves" and all that).

Anyway, because death is screwy in the Lands Between and we don't really have a clear picture of what death even looked like pre-game (Rune of Death being gone, at least 3 different death cults, etc.) I choose to believe that the original Drake Knights were made up of Tarnished warriors, whose guidance of grace allowed them to return from death (this is important).

Basically, as the Drake Knights realized the dangers inherent in using the dragon's powers, they came up with a solution to the loss of humanity. Basically, by a seppuku-esque ritual, Drake Knights who are approaching the threshold are able to, in essence, "reset" their humanity. Each Drake Knight carries a cold-forged iron blade on their person (for ritualistic purposes, it has to be created using only human strength. Thus the cold-forging). Anyway, if a Knight feels that they will not be able to return after another transformation, they recite a certain litany (these will come later) and impale their heart with the dagger. Because the center of the dragon's power is in the heart, this prevents the regeneration from taking place, allowing them to die a true death and purge themselves of the corruption of dragons and restart the cycle.

[draconic-ichor]

“I'll chew you up and I'll spit you out

'Cause that's what young love is all about

So pull me closer and kiss me hard

I'm gonna pop your bubblegum heart”

Bubblegum Bitch: MARINA

Una feasting on a dragon’s heart

[visibleclosedeyes]

The sacrificial devouring of the heart gives power.

Indeed, Dragon Communion is too primal in nature for the term "incantation" to be appropriate.

This seal scales incantations with one's arcane attribute.

[sir-virtem]

Third round of ideas for a roleswap Golden Lineage's Incantations, just one, but I think I would to post some other incantations and sorceries later on.

Part 1 Part 2

Stormlord's Roar

Legendary incantation of The Golden Lineage

Transform caster into a draconic scion to emit a terrible roar, summoning a storm of lightning.

The Stormlord fly above Limgrave awaitting the call of their subordinates to continue the campaing against the Golden Order and finally blaze The Golden One.

Golden Lineage Seal

A Golden seal decorated with an erdtree crest and embed with drakeblood. Enhances Golden Lineage incantations.

The Golden Lineage, long fell of grace, draws from arcane in addittion to faith to enhance the potency of their incantations.

[eros-sinclair]

Maple; the Draconic Lord of Frenzied Flame.

When he was born, Maple inherited his father’s ability for Draconic incantations. For his entire life he hid his eyes hoping that his village wouldn’t give him the same fate as his father had…

During his journey to becoming Elden Lord, he was faced with the choice of sacrificing Melina to the giants flame or to inherit the Flame of Frenzy to save her. And while he and Melina had had their disagreements, he truly did not think that she should have to die for him to rise to power. He went behind her back and took the Flame, after doing diligent research he sought to gain complete and utter control of it. He used the combination of the Frenzied and Draconic flame’s power to burn through the thicket blocking entrance into the Erdtree. After dethroning Marika he burned the Erdtree and rebuilt it from the husk of the Crucible’s great tree. It’s leaves no longer gold, but brilliant oranges and reds.

He saw an unjust world under the greater will, so he simply rebuilt the world in his own vision. He gave second chances to those who otherwise would have been left to rot. He healed broken relationships of others while he himself remained in solitude, for he did not believe himself worthy of such love. Though he did love, he gave love to his friends, and his subjects alike. And he never asked for anything in return.

[elden-ring-item-descriptions]

Greyoll's Roar

Superior incantation of Dragon Communion. Channels the power of Greyoll, the Elder Dragon. An incantation of legendary status.

Transforms caster into a dragon to emit a terrible roar, reducing the attack power and defense of nearby enemies.

Greyoll was the mother of all dragons, dwarfing all who stood before her like a looming mountain.

[dragon-communion]

Headcanons for dragon communion:

🐉🫀🍽🫀🐉

• Most people aren’t built for eating dragon hearts, since they’re partially stone. One of the first few changes a heretic might experience is growing a new set of teeth, as the magic forcibly adapts them to be able to eat more.

• Similarly, getting into a dragon’s ribcage is exceptionally difficult, and the changes may include claws that can rip into stone scales.

• While at first the body may attempt to reject the magic of the heart, resulting in fevers, fainting, and other expressions of illness, after three or so the heretic’s body adapts enough for a craving to set in.

• Heretics further along in their transformation may only experience hunger for dragon meat- more than just the hearts, and increasingly become disinterested in ordinary human diets.

• Some heretics who genuinely wish to become a dragon carry the belief that exposure to gold during the transformation process will turn them into true dragons, and this belief is often what sustains them through the maddening process. In the end, they are still worms on a pile of coin.

• All of them believe they can stop when they choose.

• They are misguided.

• The Mother craves wounds.

[smorgasbort]

I do not understand a big chunk of Elden Ring's lore or history. I don't necessarily want to learn it either because I like the idea of my Tarnished being clueless about what's going on and it's easier to roleplay if I don't fully know what's going on either.

My guy just shows up in the Lands Between wearing (headcanoned as stolen) samurai armour and will proceed to eat as many dragon hearts as he can until he's strong enough to kill God's evil twin brother-husband. He barely knows why he's doing it (he's low-intelligence and basically just a bad person) and he won't even properly face the consequences of changing the world because he's going to turn into a giant Magma Wyrm as a result of too much dragon communion (not that he would know this is going to happen to him even if I do).

And I think that's incredible.

[killjo-q]

Bunch of Verena drawings from the past few days

[junesejar]

my tarnished dragon hunter slowly loosing his humanity <333

[thatboreddrake]

In lieu of a new chapter for Dragonhearted, here are some various Drake Knight headcanons for your perusal:

Because of the longevity associated with dragon communion and grace shenanigans, the Drake Knights have a robust oral history. Part of the training process for young squires prior to first partaking in the communion is to learn the history of their knightly heritage (their knight, their knight's knight, etc.)

The legacy of Dragon Communion traces its roots to the Mountaintops of the Giants. After the giants claimed lordship over the mountains from the ice dragons, they instituted the rite of dragon communion to capture the power of their slain foes. Their relations with the dragon within were more mutualistic than later cultists. As the bloodline of the giants waned and gave rise to the Northlanders, dragon communion became more and more dangerous for its participants. Where the giants could afford an equal partnership because of their own massive power, humans were far more likely to succumb to the dragon within and turn into Magma Wyrms. As such, the Knights of the Dragon Communion introduced the Litanies of the Dragon Ascendant and the Human Dominant to provide young inductees with a method to focus their defense against their inner dragon.

One of the first augmenting incantations that new initiates learn is the Dragon's Voice. As opposed to other incantations which were either offensive or defensive, the Dragon's Voice merely deepened and amplified one's voice. As the cult grew, Drake Knights developed a unique form of throat singing using the Dragon's Voice. They composed ballads in this style to more easily recount the deeds of Drake Knights from long ago.

Amongst the modern Drake Knights, it is a badge of great honor for one to exercise precise control over one's draconic power. While the Litanies allow one to beat the inner dragon into submission, only allowing it to manifest in times of battle, it takes a firm hand to control casual use of the dragon's power. As such, one of the greatest honors a senior Drake Knight can hold is that of the Feastmaster. As Feastmaster, a Drake Knight will use their access to dragon claws and fire to prepare massive feasts for their entire sect.