Golden Country Dragon Leftovers

 Have you ever had a weekend vanish on you, Dungeon Meshi Maniacs?  Sure, someone could hit the mead a little too hard and wake up days later but that's not what happened to me.  Nope. I got a vaccine on Saturday which meant I was laid up all day Sunday!  Happens to me all the time.  But it's worth a minor inconvenience to make sure others around me stay healthy.  What did make Sunday fun is it became a day to dream.  And what better thing to dream about than the very animal we ate last week!  I know there is more than enough Golden Country Dragon leftovers to go around so let's dig in.

 Dragons!  Is there any other fictional beast that conjures up more fantastic images?  The dragon has been with us since we sat down and found out we could tell tall tales to impress other humanoids. Every culture around the globe has something that could be considered a dragon. We just can't stop talking about them.  And that's the largest problem with this week's update, DMMs!  There's TOO MUCH dragon history!  I'm not interested in writing the encyclopedia Dragacanica.  I already own three of them!

Okay, technically they are Editor's...but I can read them any time I want.  So where does that leave this week's update?  Why don't we at least start at what could possibly be the earliest written description of a dragon. We have to go way back to the Babylonian days and talk Mušḫuššu.

Mušḫuššu is an interesting lizard...thing.  Like a lot of ancient animals it is more of a hybrid than any single thing.  What makes Mušḫuššu the standard for what many consider the earliest written dragon is the many snake aspects that it has like scale and a forked tongue.  Mušḫuššu shows up in the 21rst century BCE which makes it SUPER old as far as human stories go.  How important was Mušḫuššu to the Babylonians?  Their patron deity, Marduk, tamed the beast and kept it as a pet!

This was the main image of Marduk so Mušḫuššu must have been a very favored pet!  Not bad for a dragon Marduk had to beat into submission.  The problem is we just know that Mušḫuššu was a thing.  What did it do?  What type of powers did it have?  Did it love gold?  These are lost to time.  So that got me to thinking "What makes a dragon?"  I was lucky to once sit in on a panel moderated by author Jody Lynn Nye and Todd McCaffrey where they posed that same question.  It's a simple question with a very open answer.  The best we could land on as a crowd is it has to be BIG, impressive and a lust for possessions of some kind.  Dragons love hordes, DMMs!  Especially golden hodres.  Why gold?  Well, hay tends to easily burn when you sleep on it if you have fire breath.  I personally have a soft spot for how Smaug described himself when it comes to "What is a dragon?"

"My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!"  That's a dragon to me!  But that's because it is the version of a dragon popular media has sold to me.  Tolkien wrote it, others wanted to make money and their dragons all became Smaug-like.  Nothing wrong with copying from the best. Smaug would say so himself if it wasn't for a snitch-ass thrush.  However, even with Smaug there have been so many versions of him over the years.  My hands down favorite is the catlike version we got from the Rakin Bass Hobbit.

Lizard?  Hardly.  Dragon?  You better believe it, DMMs! That's what has given the dragon such staying power.  Why it keeps showing up all over the world.  Beowulf fought one. They bring good luck in China. They are a god to the Aztecs.  So just for fun.  Shut your eyes.  What do you see when you think of a Dragon?  What bubbles up to the surface?  Is it friendly?  Is it an enemy?  Does it care about what you do?  Would it ever run for President?

He had my vote, Chummer!  I hope you see why this week was so hard to even start on.  There is no way a humble slime such as I could even scratch the surface on the dragon.  They mean too much to too many people.  How about this?  If my thought process brought up a famous or favorite dragon why don't you share it with the others, DMMs?  We all could use a nice dragon show & tell.  This week could be a Dragonpalooza!  And that's it for...wait...wait...I'm being told that Yaad's soul is now in a doll and found by Izutsumi.

*sigh* He's just the best.  Be sure to come back next week, DMMs!  We are going back to desserts for the first time in a long time!