Steve writes:

>       For one, I agree with what some of you are saying in that the 
>origins 
>of DC's should be obscure, maybe a little more for the players, a 
>little less 
>for the GM.

That has been the plan for a while.  I am including more factual info for
the the AM in the AMM, surprises that the players can discover
eventually.

>       I got to thinking:  One, DC's represent sin.  Two, sin spread 
>throughout creation when mankind fell. So here's my idea:  Although I 
>think 
>their whole existence should not be defined as "poof, they exist,"  
>their 
>initial coming into existence at the start of the fall would be 
>somewhat of a 
>"poof."  To keep it obscure, we could tell gamers that when sin 
>entered the 
>world, dark creatures started appearing.  Now, I'm not saying that 
>they just 
>appeared before the early Talanians' very eyes, but that people 
>started 
>noticing them more and more.  

That is fine, but there should be some legends (whether true or false)
about how the DCs came to be.  Now, the myth may be that the DCs were
made from dung, dragon magick and human sacrifice while the truth is that
some knowingly and willing sold their souls to the dragons for power and
fame and were altered and warped by the dragons.   Or something like
that.

>Also, beyond their original appearing, 
>they 
>would not simply disappear if they died; they came into existence as a 
><physical> manifestation, so they would rot like any other when they 
>died.  

Agreed.

> Do 
>we need to give gamers any further explanation then, "When mankind 
>rebelled 
>against the Overlord, darkness spread across the land as foul 
>creatures became 
>more numerous"???  This fits the allegory well, I think.

There should be more of an explaination should the need for it comes up. 
I don't want to leave it at a lame excuse like "They just appeared
because man fell."

>       If one wanted a further explanation (GM's for instance)  I 
>would 
>propose that they could have been magically cloned, hatched, or 
>whatever, by 
>the dragons, but only as the result of sin permeating creation.  It is 
>almost 
>as if the negative energy (does that sound too New Age?) of sin 

Yes, it does.  It would be better to say that the first few dragons were
the most powerful dragons of all and used that power to produce the DCs,
and more dragons, of course.  Current dragons would not be able to do
much more than manipulate the current breeds (ie. Fluster Beast).

>allowed the 
>dragons to produce the dark spawn.  Once the DC's were first 
>'created', a 
>dragon would not need to make any more, because they would produce 
>naturally.

Right.

>       This got me thinking of a question:  Do DC's sense sin?  Can 
>they tell 
>if a person is falling under their enchantment, or is their 
>enchantment just a 
>'natural' part of life for them, like breathing, i.e. they wouldn't 
>even know 
>what they were doing?

In quite a few places in the LRH and adventures, the DCs seem to know
that they are trying to spread their Sin Enchantments.  That is what the
dragons train them to do and expect of them.  And, they would be more
comfortable with evil than with good.  Does that necessarily mean that
they can "Sense Good"?  Maybe, but that would also mean that they would
have a way to track TwiceBorn.  

So maybe all DCs and dragons do have the ability to Sense Good in
TwiceBorn in a similar way and at similar ranges that LRs can Sense Evil.
 But realize that this would really help the dark side in tracking down
believers residing in the Dragon Lands.

Joe