Coin of the Dragon

It's always funny to me how people make assumptions about the origin of words. Take, for example, 'coin.' To most of Argentii, this simply means a piece of economic exchange, usually metal or wood of a certain size, weight, quality, etc. But, in Ancient Argentin, 'coin' means 'education,' which is of course, the true root of the word.

In the time of the Last Landbound War, the great dragon clanlord U the Chaotic gathered their most loyal servants. U taught them the secrets of how to connect to the deep and ancient leyline magics.

These loyal few were then sent out into the world, to educate others. They were known as the Mecoin of U and later, the Coin of the Dragon. Over time, as economics changed, so did the meaning of 'coin,' and now 'Coin of the Dragon' is misunderstood as a physical treasure hoarde.

Career

Qualifications

For all their size and power, dragons are still just a people unto themselves. They can fall victim to the same faults and flaws as all other peoples. They have vanity to play upon, gaps in knowledge to exploit, and cultural vulnerabilities.

U was forgetful of the ethical inequality between themself and the small creatures in their care and service. U operated under the assumption that the chosen would honor the responsibility placed upon them. Because of this, U choose their acolytes based on loyalty, alone.

This was not the wisest choice U could have made. The entire world paid the price of this foolishness.

Payment & Reimbursement

Knowledge is a currency all its own.
— U the Chaotic

Other Benefits

Educated by the mecoin, their disciples and descendants applied the raw power of the ancient leylines to every task. They harnessed the kinetic powers of this new magica to erect marvelous constructions. They found ways to power clever contraptions and to imbue objects with powerful, magical sentience. In time, they even learned to heal the ill and injured as well as how to reunite the spirit with the body.

It was this last bit, the violation of the eternal laws of life and death, that proved to be too far.

Type
Education
Famous in the Field
Summer Camp 2023
Summer Camp 2023 Whiteboard
Generic article | Jul 30, 2023

Comments

Author's Notes

Rise of Nations Award 2024 Submission

Hi hi hi! I thought it would be fun to share some of the inspiration behind this article.

Inspiration

One of my favorite little worldbuilding tricks is playing with linguistic drift. In English, we have words like 'currency' which has only come to mean 'money' in the last 400 years or so. Before, it only referred to 'flow,' such as a river's currency. 'Revolution' is another example and a personal favorite of mine.

This goes hand-in-hand with how phrases drift as their words change meaning or, more often, are twisted or abbreviated to serve a particular agenda. Take, for example, "blood is thicker than water." In modern context this is used to mean that one's birth-assigned family is supposed to be more important than one's chosen family.

The actual phrase in full context is quite the opposite: "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." And even this is still a Christians-as-the-only-literate-scholars rephrasing of the even older and -- as near as I can tell -- original "the blood of the coven is thicker than the water of the womb."

However, at least it preserves the original sentiment: the natural state of life is to leave your birth-assigned family in order to forge your own bonds within the community.

How absolutely incredible is this sort of thing for worldbuilding?!

When I used the VulgarLang.com language generator to create Ancient Argentin, the language of the dragons, it churned out 'coin' as being not only phonetically acceptable, but also had a wholly different meaning: education. Immediately, I was struck to write this article.

About the Artwork

Almost all of the artwork on this page was made from clipart and other resources via my Canva Pro account. This includes the Haly Bitmoji on my Welcome Badge. The single exception is the Seven Tomes Chapter Badge, which was made by Polina "Line" Arteev, and is used with permission as I am a member of the Chapter.


Please Login in order to comment!
Jul 26, 2023 05:32 by Reanna R

It's cool how you incorporated some of the translations of the word, and how that led to the misunderstandings about dragon treasure.   Also, do they still teach how to use the leylines? I'm asking for a friend :)

May your worldbuilding hammer always fall true! Also, check out the world of the Skydwellers for lots of aerial adventures.
Jul 26, 2023 13:13 by Haly the Moonlight Bard

The last landbound war ended with U being imprisoned in the Caldera and the other dragons ripping all the leylines physically from the land, which rent the continent into 9 pieces, long before the melted ice cap flooded the land into the diaspora it is now.   https://www.worldanvil.com/w/argentii-moonlight-bard/a/u-the-chaotic-person

Haly, the Moonlight Bard

Rhapsody by Moonlight , a daily email worldbuilding newsletter.

Aug 29, 2023 21:24 by Deleyna Marr

I love that you took into consideration linguistic drift. Wonderful article!

Deleyna
Aug 29, 2023 22:36 by Haly the Moonlight Bard

Funny story, true story.... Back in June, during prep, I was looking around at the different templates that I hadn't used. On the language template is a link to VulgarLang.com, and I jumped in and played around with it for a while and accidentally conlanged.   It was just by chance that "coin" is both phonetically acceptable in the language, AND randomly included in the dictionary that I ended up with, meaning...education. Well, Argentii is a diaspora of islands, and they spent so long isolated from each other that genetic divergence occurred, and so when they reunited at the beginning of the age before the present age, trading skills was the basis of the economy. Oh, you have trees and know how to make things from wood, we have livestock we know how to breed and train and cook. I teach you, you teach me.   And it all just spring-boarded from there. Any time I can subvert expectations by using words in unexpected and meaningful ways (Coin of the Dragon, Text Messaging, etc.), I'm down. (I am, after all, a native Hoosier, and there are about 12 different folk tales around the origin of that word!!!)

Haly, the Moonlight Bard

Rhapsody by Moonlight , a daily email worldbuilding newsletter.