Song of the World Dragon is a narrative poem. It is a creation myth of Earth’s far future—a world with magic, monsters, and a ring around it, with stars that aren’t fixed but dance and swirl.

DONJON LANDS is a far-future fantasy role-playing game setting.

I.

In the void between all things,
Surrounded by darkness and cold,
A faraway light shone dim.
The dragon lay dreaming in the void,
And naught else was in the void
But the dragon who lay dreaming and the light.
And in its dream the dragon dreamt
Of a world that was known as Earth.…

Continue reading: Song of the World Dragon

In the dream of the dragon, Earth
Was ruled by the Greater Ones,
Who created magic and with it
Made themselves from men, the First Race.
From the flesh-blood of men did make
The Greater Ones they themselves.
For nothing on Earth was beyond
Their power with the magic they created.

The Noblest Races also they made
From the flesh-blood of men.
And to each of the Noblest Races
Its own domain allotted:
To elves, immortal, the practice
Of magic and the ward of its lore;
To dwarves, mining and building in stone;
To gnomes, the making of jew’lry and clever craft.

The Greater Ones created magic,
And their multitude had knowledge of magic,
Its use and its working, and wielt it
By speech and gesture and fetish.
Not one of their number was without
The knowledge of the power of magic.
For by their making, magic
Was manifest in the earth, inherent.

The Greater Ones created magic,
And magic its own power drew
From Earth, from the warmth of its air,
From the light of the sun in its sky,
From the wind and the wave on its waters,
From all the corners of Earth.
For by their making, magic
Was everywhere in the world, unseen.

With their magic, the Greater Ones remade
The surface of Earth to their own purpose.
Cities and citadels and bridges
And tall towers reaching above,
Not one part of Earth they left unmade.
The whole world, above and below,
Even the dust and the stones
From the hollows of Earth they remade.

Also, the beasts of Earth,
Of land, air, and sea, with their magic
They remade to their own purpose.
Insects and reptiles, mammals and fishes,
All these, with magic, they remade.
By experiment, by trial, and by mistake,
They bound one beast to another
And so made all manner of monster.

All this the dragon dreamt
In the void with the light far away,
And the dreaming its heart did fill
With gladness and joy and contentment.
But then the dragon dreamt
Of the Illmind from beyond the void,
Whose mysterious power has no bound,
Whose sinister plot has no end.

In the dream of the dragon, the Illmind
Rent a tear in Earth’s space and time.
The Earth was torn asunder,
Its parts, unjoined, shattered
And strewn afar—save one.
The one part, the Ershard,
Through the rent did fall to the void
With the dragon who lay dreaming and the light.

The dragon then dreamt of the future
Where the dragon stayed dreaming.
Surrounded by darkness and cold,
The Ershard drifted alone
In the void far away from the light.
Cities and citadels destroyed,
And the Greater Ones and men
And the Noblest Races all dead.

All this the dragon dreamt
In the void with the light far away,
And the dreaming its heart did fill
With sadness and sorrow and pity.
So the dragon who lay dreaming awoke.
No more dreaming of the Ershard and its future
Nor of the Illmind and its plot,
The dragon spread wing and flew.

II.

To the Ershard the dragon did fly
And saw the destruction there wrought:
The magic of the Greater Ones ruined,
Their cities and tall towers crumbled.
And the Greater Ones themselves—
They who created magic
And made the Noblest Races—
Forever from the world were gone.

Seeing this with its eyes, the dragon
Cried tears of twinkling colors
For the loss of the Greater Ones, now dead.
Then it saw, in the hollows of the Ershard,
The elves, dwarves, and gnomes—
The Noblest Races yet lived.
And also lived men, the First Race,
From whose flesh-blood they were created.

The dragon, still crying its tears,
In an arc flew around and beneath
And so captured the Ershard on its back,
Its spines raising peaks on the surface.
Then keeping to its arc, the dragon
Flew toward the faraway light,
Its tears of twinkling colors
Streaming along behind.

The dragon flew toward the light
Whereto all directions align:
Toward the light, the Punctif and order,
Straight along the radial line
Away from the Tardif and chaos;
Keeping to the Eternal and good,
Curving round the rotational arc
Away from the Ephemeral and evil.

But, in its waking, the dragon undreaming
Saw not the machination of the Illmind.
Thus, unknown to the dragon,
By the Illmind was called into being
It which took hold of the dragon and flung it
From behind and to the Ephemeral,
So men and the Noblest Races
Knew evil, and evil became them.

Now turning, the dragon beheld
A form amorphous, limbs flailing,
Encompassing enormous maw
Whence only darkness escaped.
The dragon recoiled on its tail
And lowered its head to defend,
For it knew without dreaming that it faced
Uthabyss, behemoth of the void.

Uthabyss, approaching, grew larger
In the eyes of the dragon, strike ready.
But the behemoth disappeared from before
And reappeared beside, and its maw
Engulfed the dragon and the Ershard.
Uthabyss then withdrew to the Tardif,
So men and the Noblest Races
Knew chaos, and chaos became them.

III.

Now drifting in the maw of Uthabyss
The dragon no more saw the light.
Unseeing, undreaming, and without hope,
The dragon began to sing.
It sang the song of the world
That it carried upon its back
That the Illmind tried to destroy
That the dragon tried to save.

All this the dragon sang
While drifting in the maw of Uthabyss,
And the singing its heart did fill
With grief and regret and melancholy.
But men and the Noblest Races
Were heartened by the song of the dragon.
They remembered order and good
So turned from chaos and evil.

Then men and the Noblest Races
Held council among themselves.
We must act or be lost, said men.
According to lore, said elves,
The Greater Ones would, with magic, cause Uthabyss
To belch forth as a whale ambergris.
The same, said men, shall we accomplish,
Together, using our own talents.

We shall mine the earth, said dwarves,
For its hollows’ precious stones.
To shapes and sharp edge, said gnomes,
The stones shall we cut.
We dwarves shall rebuild the tall towers.
And atop the tall towers, we gnomes
Shall craft a device to cast
The cut stones to the maw of Uthabyss.

And so these things they did.
Elves studied lore and read augury.
Dwarves and gnomes did their work,
Mining and cutting the stones,
Crafting device atop towers
Rebuilt in the dwarven fashion.
And men, without allotted domain,
To each task adapted their talents.

And when cut stones were cast
From the towers to the sky, a bright ring
Then circled the Ershard around.
When men and the Noblest Races
Looked upon the bright ring in the sky,
They were amazed at what they had made.
With a great heave Uthabyss
Then expelled the dragon and the Ershard.

IV.

From the maw of Uthabyss now free,
The dragon its song sang anew
And flew again to the light, the Punctif,
While keeping to its arc Eternal.
Its tears of twinkling colors,
Still streaming along behind,
Danced to the rhythm of its song.
And yet the behemoth followed.

The dragon undreaming still singing
Saw not the machination of the Illmind.
So it came, a fierce storm, blowing wind
At once to the Tardif and the Ephemeral.
By the Illmind was it called into being,
And though the dragon strove against it,
The storm carried the dragon away
From the light, the Punctif, and the Eternal.

Against the wind to the Tardif,
The dragon its wings steady beat
And flew to the Punctif, the light.
But against the wind Ephemeral,
The dragon could not resist
And so was carried by it
Round the light that had been far away.
And yet the behemoth followed.

The dragon turned round the light,
A great orb now burning hot.
And the dragon came nigh to the light,
So the Ershard was burnt with fire.
Dwarves and gnomes themselves did hide
And lived in the hollows of the Ershard,
While men and elves cried out:
Save us, O dragon, we pray!

To the burning of the orb while turning round
The dragon its breast bore up
Till a fire kindled therein.
Then again came the behemoth of the void,
Uthabyss, to engulf the dragon.
With the fire and the wind Ephemeral
The dragon let spew a great flame,
And the behemoth, Uthabyss, was dead.

V.

In the void between all things,
Surrounded by darkness and cold,
A great orb in the day sky glows warm.
Over spiny peaks upraised,
A bright ring encircles the world.
In the night sky, constellations of tears,
Twinkling colors, dance and swirl
To the rhythm of the song of the dragon.

Though the Greater Ones are gone from the world,
Their cities and bridges in ruins,
And their towers rebuilt again fallen,
Yet the Noblest Races remain
As well the magic they created.
For by their making, magic
Is manifest in the earth, inherent,
Everywhere in the world, unseen.

And the dragon again dreaming now turns
Around the great orb in the Ephemeral.
It dreams of the world on its back,
Of men and the Noblest Races,
Who fight all manner of monster
Inspired to evil by the turning.
And yet all live and die
To the rhythm of the song of the dragon.

All this the dragon dreams
While turning around the great orb,
And the dreaming its heart does fill
With gladness and joy—and fear.
For yet the dragon dreams
Of the Illmind from beyond the void,
Whose mysterious power has no bound,
Whose sinister plot has no end.