Here’s a question I’ve gotten many times.

“Doesn’t -mancy come from the Greek root “-mantia” meaning “divination”? Why is the religion called Dragomancy? Does that make it a type of magic?”

Well, in the world of Enayra, it comes from the opposition to religion. Before Dragomancy became the main religion of Enayra, it was originally known as Aspectism, brought by the first two waves of humans to Enayra that eventually landed in what is now Asardaea, Estion and Altimara. Aspectism involves the worship of the Aspects of the natural world, dualistic beings that represent two halves of a natural dichotomy that exist within the world. For example, the Aspect of Night and Day, the Aspect of Earth and Autumn, etc. All but the Five Great Aspects are dualistic in nature.

When the humans came to Enayra, many encountered the dragons, and thus, the ancient Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Dragon Clans, and the Metallic Dragons. Many, especially in the more traditional Asardaea, proclaimed the dragons to be abominations, or the enemy.

But in the east, in the people that would eventually become the Xiarans, Qiri’arans and Altimarans, they saw the dragons are the living embodiment, or familiars, of the Aspects. With this perspective, they began to venerate and worship the ancient dragons as holy beings with some control over the natural world. These humans decided to try and live in harmony with the dragons.

Over time, they restructured their religion to shift worship from the Aspects to the Great Dragons as the living embodiment or familiars of the Aspects. The the Aspects could be dualistic in nature, and be two aspects at once, two halves of the same whole, they it was reasonable to believe they could be two physical beings as well. During this period of religious restructuring, the dragons shared the truth of life and death on Enayra: the Earth Mother.

They explained how the Earth Mother and Earth Father had created Enayra together, but by the end of creation, the Earth Mother had grown weakened and diminished and had been buried deep within the cave, becoming part of the world itself, and the centre of all life energy and magic. Humans were told that all who died in Enayra returned to the Earth via a series of underground mana currents, and replenished the power of the Earth Mother, and the earth itself.

Back in Asardaea, however, word of this new form of Aspectism began to spread. The more reserved and traditional clergy of Asardaea had already been beside themselves about the veneration of dragons as the Aspects, but hearing of this flow of energy, and how all who died returned to the soul of an ancient dragon, they proclaimed the new religion as heresy. Active measures were taken to try and discredit and squash it.

In an attempt to discredit this new branch of Aspectism and to link it to the new, feared, and mysterious “magic” that humanity had become aware of once arriving in Enayra, the Asardaean clergy proclaimed the new branch of Aspectism not to be at all related to True Aspectism, but to instead be a heretic form of magic that used dragons to cast powerful magic spells for evil. They declared this “wicked magic” Dragomancy.

Those in the east, who practiced this newly dubbed Dragomancy, knowing the importance of mana to the cycle of life, rebirth and nature throughout all of Enayra, knew that there was truth in the word Dragomancy. Dragons were inherently magical creatures, Enayra was a land permeated and steeped in deep and ancient magics. Mana was the lifeblood of all creation and the world itself, and also the fuel of magic (which the dragons had begun to teach humanity.) But to these new believers, magic was not evil or wicked, magic was the natural way of things in Enayra. They were visitors in this land, and magic was as natural as the elements here.

So they took up the title of Dragomancy. It was a religion based on magic and magical creatures, and mana. It was their old religion married to their new reality. It did not stop them to be labelled as heretics, nor did it crush their belief.

The practice of Dragomancy began to grow and spread in the east, and before long, the east was a predominant bastion of Dragomancy, while the west held true to beliefs of True Aspectism, though missionaries of the Dragomantic faith were secretly preaching in the west–often at the cost of their own life.

The true turning point for Dragomancy in Enayra was its adoption by a young man named Volesus of Gens Tarquinia. As Volesus conquered more and more of Enayra, he realized the truth that Dragomancy spoke, and also the power of the dragons. Knowing no human army could ever destroy the dragons–at least in his time–Volesus chose to live peacefully alongside the dragons. He respected their territorial boundaries, and enshrined their enclaves in law. He even converted to Dragomancy after his conquest of the lands of Gerovia.

The conversion of the First Enayran Emperor did much to aide in the spread of Dragomancy across Enayra. Many of the old True Aspectism believers soon converted to this new form of Aspectism and by the end of the Enayran Empire, most of Enayra was practicing Dragomancy. Volesus’s creation of the first pan-Enayran language, nowadays known as Common, also helped to spread the believes, teachings and writings of Dragomantic scholars.

It should be noted that Dragomancy itself has several branch religions, especially in Danaen and Espias, where pre-Enayran religions merged Dragomancy to create new hybridized religions. These religions are not considered heretical to the main Dragomantic believers, but complimentary to the teaching of Dragomancy. Dragomancy also has no central religious authority, as the religion did in the days of True Aspectism in the east. It was Volesus who decreed that the religion belonged to the people of Enayra, and not to the whims of a single societal caste or group. Decisions on the religion are made in large ecumenical gatherings of priests, priestesses and clergy, though few of these gatherings have been called in Enayra history.

Altimara, since the turn of the era and the days of King Rego, has attempted to revive True Aspectism, as part of their Great Hunt and the purging of draconic influences on Altimaran culture. Many scholars agree that the reconstructed Altimaran Aspectism is more of a facsimile of the original religion than a perfect restoration, though Altimara does not acknowledge these criticisms, and continues to uphold its religion as authentic and absolute.