The Dragon
| The Dragon | |
|---|---|
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| Type: | Joinable |
| Key people: | Bong Cha |
| Headquarters: | Seoul |
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"Change requires chaos, and chaos is ours to orchestrate."
The Dragon are a player and NPC secret society which utilize Chaos theory to "guide" the world into chaotic harmony; small ripples leading to tsunamis of change. The society is the most mysterious of the three and even members of the faction are not told its true goals.
A whisper of a rumour of a shadow, this Asian group is the most secretive of societies. With no fixed territory or structure, the Dragon have dissolved and reformed throughout history. They believe that a closed, controlled society is a sick society. Only through collapse and rebuilding, the natural chaos of life, can the world be in harmony. Recently, they have taken root in a nameless district of Seoul, Korea.
The Dragon uniforms To an outsider, their strategies are incomprehensible. Fractal patterns, chaos theory, random numbers, unrelated events. The Dragon understand that there is no pattern, only acts of great change to be committed. From a whisper to an explosion, they divine that an incident here, a disappearance there, can change the course of everything; acupuncture applied to a paralysed planet.
The Dragon character In the order of the Dragon, you are given the entire cosmos in potential. They have practiced martial and mental arts attuned to the true harmony of the world. The most dangerous and unpredictable of magics bend to the wills of those who are dangerous and unpredictable. In the approaching dark times, things will never be the same again. You are in the Dragon's element.
"True harmony is described in the moment the rake passes through the Zen garden" Dragon proverb
These guys believe that the world needs to descend into chaos before achieving balance. They're unknowable...they are chaotic...they are like the Chinese puzzle box - secrets within secrets within secrets.
—Ragnar Tørnquist, Source
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What sort of player will most enjoy playing as a Dragon character?
Ragnar Tornquist: They're a bit of a puzzle box--hard to understand until you really get under their skin--and high up in the ranks, which is going to take a long time. Their ulterior motive won't become clear until the game's launched and players have settled in. I guess people who like a bit of mystery... The Dragon has patience. Not that playing a Dragon initiate is going to be boring, though if you're looking for clear answers [from this group], you may end up a bit frustrated.
—Ragnar Tørnquist, Source
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First Appearance
A flash based quiz was added to the front page of the Dark Days Are Coming website. Players could take the quiz to see which of the three revealed player factions their temperament would fit into best. After completing the quiz, players were offered the option to view descriptions for each of the factions. The following description was given for the Dragons:
"The Art of Chaos"
Manipulators and conspirators, the Dragon have survived for millennia by playing their enemies against each other. Since before the first empire, through the aggression of the Mongol Khans and the ebb and tide of political change, a whisper in the right ear, a strategic assassination, alliances carefully crafted and broken - and the world eventually bends to the patient will of the immortal Dragon. With a spiritual and philosophical approach to the secret crafts, as an acolyte of the Dragon you are taught to listen, shown how to teach others, and expected to respect the balance of the universe and to be humble in the face of fate. Yours is not the path of force, though force is often needed to clear the path. Few know of the Dragon and their long history, and that is how the Dragon want it. You are invisible but pervasive, silent but all-knowing, and when the other secret societies have decimated each other, you will rebuild the world from the ruins of their arrogance. The Dragon is too easily underestimated, but those who do so live to regret it - or die before they get the chance.—Flash Quiz, darkdaysarecoming.com
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Background
Shrouded in secrecy the Dragon is considered the most mysterious of secret societies, even to its members. Dragon believe in the idea that seemingly insignificant events can lead to cataclysmic change; ripples spreading across the world.
Through the ages, the Dragon dissolve and reform. The location of the headquarters shifting with each generation as it resets and begins again. The only continuity are the silent monks, who have the ages' old task of finding the new leader and acquiring the agents needed to assist in keeping the world on the proper destiny.
Without the head of the Dragon, the body does not survive and the cycle is reset. The head, always a child at selection, is fiercely guarded by the Mute Monks and communication with and translation of the boy's orders to the body of the Dragon are done by his right hand, name, as of yet, unknown.
The body of the Dragon is formed by two sets of people. The first, used by the Dragon to cause small actions weaving into a greater whole. And the second, members who are not voluntarily recruited but are instead chosen for service. Abducted by the Mute Monks, new recruits are deposited in a neighborhood in Seoul, trapped until they discover the clues that lead them into the headquarters. Few direct orders are ever issued; instead members to are expected to follow the tenets of the Dragon and to instinctively understand how to meet their goals.[1][2][3]
The current Dragon reformed in Seoul sometimes after the end of the second world war; the end of the previous generation.[3]
All war is deception.
When they think we are in front of them, we are behind them. When they think we are weak, we are strong. When they think we are few, we are legion. For there ever to be true balance, there must first be chaos. And chaos is ours to orchestrate. One word can equal the might of a thousand swords. And one sword can obliterate a thousand lives. Everyone and everything has a purpose and a path, if only as a ruse or a diversion. Everything can be manipulated into usefulness by those who truly understand the very nature of things. We understand. We create chaos in order to achieve balance. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. We are Dragon, and we have both.—Initiation Video, Video
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Lore
Little is known about the origin of the Dragon, its lore is scarce and difficult to obtain; many assume it began in East Asia. Few chronicles exist from previous cycles; evidence suggests that they played a roll in the fall of the Tower of Babel, the Mongol hordes, the death of Caesar, and the French Revolution.[3]
The Lore honeycombs for The Dragon are all located in Seoul. You can find the detailed list at The Dragon lore archive. The text from those honeycombs is as follows:
Lore Honeycombs
- Main article: Lore:Dragon
Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.
TRANSMIT - initiate Yeouiju signal - RECEIVE - initiate Hei'an Zhuan frequency - DOWNLOAD - initiate Epic of Darkness lexicon - VOID WHERE PROHIBITED - initiate the King Munmu Protocol - OUR PRICE ARE INSANE - initiate the butterfly effect cadence - DO YOU SUBSCRIBE TO CHAOS? the green spectrum - WITNESS - The Dragon.
Before Gaia, there was Chaos.
A man leaps off a high rise, flapping his arms all the way down. Across the world, a moon cycle later, a tsunami savages a coastal town. What connects these events? The motion of his arms? The scream of despair silenced by terminal velocity? The chemical composition of the ink in the letter he left? The light refracting in the tears of the she who read it? The pattern of his wet, Rorschach impact on the cracked pavement?
In the chaos fractures that connect these singularities, the Dragon winds its coils. You cannot follow, sweetling, but we can. WE follow the Dragon's spiral - the shape of the universe - molecular patterns, the snail shell, the hurricane, spinning galaxies, the flight path of vultures - we follow the Dragon - we swim with the plankton and frolic with the sperm - prancing with microwaves - dancing with atoms ont he head of a pin - twirling with the opiated children on the strobe-flash dance floor - spirals with spirals within spirals...
The totality of the Dragon's coils cannot be seen by mortals, with the three flaccid dimensions of your jellied sockets. But there are those who dive into pandemonium blind. They chase the Dragon and take its name. Their silent monks stalk your streets even now, secrets locked into mouths sewn shut. Metaphors become obsolete when thread and needles run so very cheap.
Initiate the secret histories.
WARNING: chaos ripples. Disruption is imminent. Our vision warps. The most difficult secret society to track. Apply dynamical filter. Initiate.
In the beginning... No. Not far enough. Rewind. Before the beginning. There have been at least four beginnings. Before the before the before, a childling prophet glimpsed the Dragon's tail in the nano-second equations of rippling water. She grabbed the tail. They found her that night, half drowned. Before she died, she whispered of the Dragon opening its mouth. A nine-headed naga slithered out, each serpent head singing nine discordant truths. The childling whispered those truths with her final breaths. Those who listened became the first converts.
Time passes. Wisdom transcends cataclysms, bleeds into new Ages. nearly three millennia before the birth of the affixed go, and there are chaos riders, who will call themselves the Dragon, in ancient China. They cast ripples, guiding the fractal-pattern growth of civilisation. Some among them will echo in mythology as the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors.
The Dragon continues, through the Xia Dynasty, the Shang Dynasty, and the Zhou Dynasty. They spread throughout Asia. They notice the secret societies of the West and are noticed in turn. Later, their hold will be weakened by the Mongol hordes. Covetous eyes will look East, dream of expansion, and send an agent in the person of Marco Polo.
Dear sweetling, have you ever wondered about the Chaoskampf Myth? Why the image of the holy warrior slaying a dragon is stamped across western society? Thor slays Jormungandr. Zeus smites Typhon. Michael the archangel defeats Satan. Over and over, order vanquishes Chaos.
It was an unusually subtle plan by the Templars, to poison the wells of culture against the Dragon. Too subtle by far, sweetling. We saw the Illuminati whisper the plan into the proud ear of the Templars, to fight a potential enemy one step removed.
Yet Chaoskampf was not fully successful. Chaos is water; it tests weakness, flows into the cracks and fissures of any ordered plan. For all the Templars' efforts, for their statues of St. George killing the wyrm, for all of this, what child does not love dragons?
Time passes, but what is time? The Dragon spirals and all points become one. These days see the cabal based in Seoul, South Korea. They are the most unknowable. They are the humble mask over the devious core. They learn to play the western secret worlders against one another, to more subtly stake their influence. While the others grab rough and rude control over the world, the Dragon rides the waves of chance, taps disturbances in the water, for they can read the ripples.
Those who join, those who leap blindly into bedlam, let go of their ordered life. They release the rigid paradigms of the mind. They learn the paradox to achieve order through chaos - to realise opposite forces are not contrary or in conflict but interconnected - a rise in one precipitates the other - round and round.
The Dragon is the medicinal hyper-yang. The shrieking needle that will lance the boils of this world. The imbalance that will fix the imbalance. The dark days are here. Someone must sing the sacred obscenities. If chaos does not destroy the world, it might even save it.
The Dragon's coils spin and spin, and where they go, not even we know.
The Secret War
The Dragon do not have the long standing rivalry of the other two participants but do continue to battle against the Illuminati and the Templars at sanctioned areas and in the manipulation of the financial and political worlds.[2]
They (the Dragon) are the manipulators and agitators in the wars between the secret societies - they like playing the Illuminati and the Templars off against each other, so long as they're there to pick up the pieces.
—Ragnar Tørnquist, Source
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Known Members
| Name | Role | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Akma | ||
| Dylan Keane | ||
| Mei Ling | ||
| Mizuki Koga |
Videos
Gallery
Dragon headquarters
Order of Mute Monks
PC Bang
Dragon walking through Seoul
Dragons PvP Battle
Dragon capturing the Automaton in PvP
Dragons PvP Healer
Dragon battling in Egypt
Dragon magic
Dragon wielding magic
References
- ↑ http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/404/feature/5713/The-Secret-World-Into-Darkness-An-Exclusive-Dragon-Preview.html
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1210214p1.html
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 http://wiki.crygaia.com/index.php?title=Dragon_week
Note
Cler1c and Vengeful-frog collected some of this information in a post on the official forums that was deleted and replaced with the current forums we have now.
