Religion and Dragonlance seems to be a hot topic lately. The other day, a chat session led to a pretty solid crystallization of my concept of Krynnish creation. I think it’s kinda cool, and a good balance to the Martinian Canon.

If you’ve seen the Japanese anime of Dragon Ball (not Z, but the original series), then you are familiar with a character called Kami-sama. This green being was chosen to be the guardian spirit (aka God) of earth, and provide it with the dragonballs and such. But to assume the position, Kami had to excise all the evil and chaos in his body. This matter became the demon Piccolo, who was then killed by the hero Goku. As he died, he spit out an egg to create the current piccolo character, one not quite as evil or chaotic.

What does this have to do with Dragonlance? Well, first you have to be willing to go beyond what’s written in Dragonlance Adventures. Use your imagination, if you will. Consider the proposition that Krynn is in a pocket dimension. A universe created solely for it. The High God of Krynn was granted this commission from beyond, to create and nurture this world. To do so, he had to become the essence of law and creation. The excised portion became the essence of Chaos, and the material from which the Dragonlance universe was forged.

Like the Mystical Hero slaying the demon, High God tamed the wild chaos and created order out of it, but as the last blows were struck, chaos spit out an egg. A grey egg. A grey gemstone egg. And need I tell you what hatched from this egg? A new Chaos. A Chaos which could easily call itself the Father of All and Nothing, since the High God had created everything from its essence.

So where did the rest of the pantheon come from? The High God as Observer called forth to the Beyond. Given the above explanation, the Beyond is all that isn’t part of the High God/Chaos. Now if the High God is everything, and Chaos is the opposite of that, what is beyond even that? We must then believe that the gods came from the id of the High God. The subconscious of creation is beyond everything and nothing.

So then we can reconcile both the fact that the gods came from Beyond, and the claim that Chaos is the All Father. First came Paladine and Takhisis, intrinsically linked, opposites yet equals, in essence lesser analogs of the High God and Chaos, but along the good evil spectrum.

But while the High God and Chaos could draw upon the universal subconscious for their neutral ground, the mortal pantheon needs a solid anchor for the balance. Through time Gilean is found and granted with the knowledge of creation, or the High God’s framework for Chaos.

Now the rest of the gods came as explained in Dragonlance Adventures. The Beyond is in this case the mind of the High God. The stars were sparks cast off from the forging of the planet, or in essence chunks of Chaos entrapped by the essence of the High God. These spirits were harnessed by the three factions and filtered to the prime material, bound to an alignment along the good-evil axis.

Now, let us return to our egg. This egg had a consciousness, and a will to defy the High God, in revenge for the eternal entrapment in the guise of creation. So with the help of Chaos, we had corruptions of the original spirits.

From there, Dragonlance progresses as normal, and Lo! Dragons of Summer Flame makes sense now!

The Fifth Age and the Grey are discussions best left for another post. But before I end, let’s discuss the home of the gods, since that’s what this was originally about.

Good- Dome of Creation. Evil- Abyss. Neutral- Prime material/Hidden Vale. Now the Good and Evil domains are pretty standard heaven and hell analogs. Where each individual deity lives isn’t really important in the greater scheme of things. Now Neutrality is a different matter. Gilean lives in his constellation, holding the framework of creation together. Zivilyn is everywhere, the extension of the High God’s id never fully separated. Sirrion is present in every flame, both physical and creative. Shinare lives in the essence of trade and economy. Chislev is the nature of Krynn, alive and omnipresent. Reorx wanders the world, having completed his task as the forger. And Lunitari is kinda there, ya know? Floating in space, doing her thing.