We thought we had won the War of the Dragons,
but that was only an illusion. An illusion shattered by the
image of a child foaming at the mouth, flailing with inhuman strength against
elders who try to restrain it, while another lies crumpled on the ground
at their feet. No we did not win. We grappled with the beast and
became what we tried to destroy, that which cannot be destroyed.
We waited and watched as our children went inexplicably insane, seemingly
homicidal in some cases. The dragon didn't take our souls it took
our life, our children. Our much vaunted healers those brave enough
or unlucky enough were traumatized or worse yet driven insane themselves
by contact with the afflicted children. Then there was that
unfortunate incident at Heart Home. We became cautious, afraid of
our own children? I don't know, if anything our response was to pamper
them more hoping perhaps vainly that maybe our somewhat over zealous love
could make a difference in who was taken by this oddly sporadic plague
of mental illness.
Blood Rage
The beginnings of the Nemahgant
When a child exhibited what would later be called the blood rage. The Justiciars would be called to take the child into protective custody. The Justiciars took these children to observatories ( They later began adopting them on an individual basis ) Where they could be studied and cared for and perhaps something could be found to help them. The Justiciars tried to teach us signs to quickly notice a dragon child, but there auras were so preternaturally potent it wasn't all that difficult. I feared greatly we were loosing our most gifted later evidence bears this up too well. We are without healers it wasn't just the tragedy at Hearthome. The pyromantic conflageration that desiccated that revered place left few living healers since most had gathered to contend with the madness. The afflicted sensitives were our healers or would have been. The insane fits were discovered to be for the most part temporary and recurrent, frequently followed by catatonia. Not much was said about the ones for whom the madness became a permanent state. I understood them to be rare (the gift heals both mind and body) but I am not so interested in unpleasantness as to investigate that deeply. The rage was discovered to be induced or at least preceded by some strong emotion and a number of techniques were developed including meditative emotional control at least to keep the Dragons Curse at bay. However it soon went far beyond that and there was mention of a great teacher who I never personally met but who was attributed with developing much of this lore. I can't seem to recall his name however he was said to be worshipped as one of the 12 lords of light in the barbarian states. This body of knowledge now called Dragon Mastery was quickly extended to encompass making use of the strengths, speed, stamina, perception even aspects of the mentality which the sensitives obtained during madness. I have seen Dragon Masters perform feats of strength which seem utterly impossible. In essence they learned to tap and make better use of the inner potentials our normal everyday inhibitors prevent most of us from even imagining. Raised by Justiciars these Dragon Masters (Nemahgant) became as adults Justiciars. Ironically our law, our justice and our mercy is in the hands of people who have conquered and tamed their inner demons. Some of which who murdered and live to atone for that crime which was against their own natures. They are our only soldiers and our only police. How is it that we trust them so completely? We couldn't protect them and now they protect us.