Galdjent Viis and mystel- what's behind those names on the first?

[LineageRazor]

We get this from the Fafnir fate:

"As the old saying goes: every wyrm's ending is just a voidsent wyrm's beginning. Banish this particularly vicious example, and remember that no one's to blame—except the adventurers that killed the high dragon whose dying breath summoned forth this monstrosity."

Yeah - I read this as the dying Wyrm summoned a Voidsent into its own dying body, essentially reanimating itself as a Voidsent, much like a Succubus reanimates a woman's corpse to create its host body. So, once again, only the Voidsent's spirit crosses the Void, not its body. Ahriman animate creatures' eyes to form their bodies on the source.

I think it's mentioned somewhere that a sufficiently powerful portal CAN allow Voidsent to pass bodily across the rift, but such a thing is rare enough that EVERY Voidsent we encounter on the Source can be assumed to be a Voidsent's spirit animating a Source body, unless we're explicitly told otherwise.

And yeah - unless they're explicitly confirmed to be Dragons, we can assume Hydras aren't dragons. They're dragon-like certainly, but just about any lizard can be said to be so (raptors, efts, etc).

[Vyrerus]

Yeah - I read this as the dying Wyrm summoned a Voidsent into its own dying body, essentially reanimating itself as a Voidsent, much like a Succubus reanimates a woman's corpse to create its host body. So, once again, only the Voidsent's spirit crosses the Void, not its body. Ahriman animate creatures' eyes to form their bodies on the source.

I think it's mentioned somewhere that a sufficiently powerful portal CAN allow Voidsent to pass bodily across the rift, but such a thing is rare enough that EVERY Voidsent we encounter on the Source can be assumed to be a Voidsent's spirit animating a Source body, unless we're explicitly told otherwise.

And yeah - unless they're explicitly confirmed to be Dragons, we can assume Hydras aren't dragons. They're dragon-like certainly, but just about any lizard can be said to be so (raptors, efts, etc).

The Fate in Azys Lla, No Greater Goryshche

"Even the mighty dragons themselves were subject to the Allagan Empire's incessant tinkering with the very laws of nature─Goryshche is one such product of that imperial hubris. Aimlessly roaming the Azys Lla wastes, the multi-headed abomination silently seeks an end to five thousand years of suffering."

[Iscah]

I'm under the assumption that the dragons we see in Eureka came across the void as all the other voidsent did.

We get this from the Fafnir fate:

I'm sure there's at least one other FATE in Anemos that specifically notes a monster's corpse was left by the adventurers who killed it and got taken over by a voidsent. It's an invitation but not necessarily anything to do with the dragon summoning it.

The dragons in Eureka may (more likely) simply be living dragons from the Source, not counting any taken over by voidsent in the meanwhile.

[LineageRazor]

The Fate in Azys Lla, No Greater Goryshche

"Even the mighty dragons themselves were subject to the Allagan Empire's incessant tinkering with the very laws of nature─Goryshche is one such product of that imperial hubris. Aimlessly roaming the Azys Lla wastes, the multi-headed abomination silently seeks an end to five thousand years of suffering."

That's an example where, yes, as I said, we have a Hydra that is explicitly stated to be a dragon. Dragons can take whatever form they want when they grow up, and this one chose to take a hydra-like form.

It does not mean that all Hydras are dragons. When I said "unless they're explicitly confirmed to be Dragons", I did not mean to imply that finding ONE Hydra that happens to be a dragon would prove the point.

Goryshche is a hydra. (One of several in Azys Lla, actually.)
Goryshche is stated to be a dragon. (It is likely all the creatures in Gamma Quadrant are dragons, and the Hydras are no exception. I agree this is likely.)
Therefore, all hydras are dragons. (Logical leap; questionable. Dragons can take many forms, including that of a hydra, but that doesn't mean all hydras are dragons.)
Five-Headed Dragon is a hydra.
Therefore, Five-Headed Dragon is a Dragon. (Logical leap; questionable. Voidsent can also take many forms, including that of a hydra.)
Therefore Dragons exist in the Void.
Therefore, Dragons can exist someplace other than the Source.
Therefore, Dragons can exist on the First.

There are many logical leaps there that are not necessarily warranted - not the least of which is that the Allagans ARE one of those rare cases I mentioned who were able to create a powerful enough gate to allow bodily passage between the Source and the Void. Could they have created a gate to the First? Possibly - but we have no evidence that they ever had any inclination to do so. Xande was entirely focused on the Void, from what little we know. While I personally think Five-Headed is just a hydra-looking Voidsent, it's entirely possible that Amon crammed a couple of dragons bodily through the gate in their experiments in creating one large enough to allow the Cloud of Darkness passage.

Basically, finding a category of monster that exists in both places is not enough, due to the shape-changing abilities of both Voidsent and Dragons. These creatures can LOOK like just about anything. Unless we see a creature on the First that is undeniably referred to as one of Midgardsormr's descendants, we can assume that Midgardsormr's descendants exist on the Source, and the Source alone. Even if we got a boss on the first that was the spitting image of Nidhogg or Hraesvalgr, I'd still maintain that they are not Middy-type Dragons unless it was explicitly stated.

[Vyrerus]

explicitly stated.

Got anything concrete you think about the game? You're gonna not be thinking anything is concrete with an attitude like that.

The Goryshche fate alludes to the idea that like the Chimera, the Hydra is an Allagan creation. The fusion of multiple dragon heads onto a single dragon body. Since the Goryshche is still a Hydra in pain after 5,000 years, it's likely that the Allagans also inhibited the dragon's innate ability to change forms.

You've either missed or ignored what this FATE implies. It's as close as we're going to get to the game spelling it out for us. All Hydras exist due to Allagan experimentation. Like how all Ixali, Chimeras, Lamias, Ananta, and all the other stuff that the game tied into this plot point do. This means, unless otherwise stated, that all Hydras are dragons by their ancestry.

As for whether or not the Five-Headed Dragon is a voidsent wearing dragonskin or not is irrelevant to the topic at hand. The topic at hand is that, is there a way for dragons to get to other shards in any way, shape, or form so that legends and myths could be made about them? The answer is yes.

Consider this. Where is the Five-Headed Dragon? It's on what's left of the 13th. If it's a voidsent, why is it in the shape of a Hydra, adhering to fighting as a Hydra instead of in its true voidsent form? Ultimately it doesn't matter, and we could endlessly speculate or theorize as to the whys of it. Fact is, it's in the shape of a dragon. For whatever reasons it takes that shape or that body, it knows about dragons. It knows what dragons think. It knows their language(Think of Voidsent possession and Ascian possession of living hosts). And it's been there for thousands of years.

Also there is the trash monster, the Two-Headed Dragon. Which maybe a voidsent in dragon form. This is even better for our purposes of hashing this out, because the other place Two-Headed Dragons show up at is in Newvoid in Eureka Anemos. Whatever is in Eureka that allows voidsent to cross the veil so easily is unexplained, but they do with a frightening frequency, given that there are no summoners(in the creates portals sense) to create blood pacts or open void rifts.

It follows that all we need for voidsent to show up on other shards is areas like Eureka, traditional sorcerers that surreptitiously perform void portal rituals, or super civilizations(Ronka/Allag analogues) that create stable true portals. Anyone of the three will suffice, and all that need happen is that a voidsent with a penchant to take dragon form cross over.

This is my actual logic train.

Goryshche is a hydra by appearance. (Undeniable)
Goryshche is a dragon by fate text implication. (You could also read the FATE to just be saying that he was a poor likkle Hydra that got some nasty unperceivable experiments done on him, but that would be a worthless read)
By other plot threads from both fates and dungeons and sidequests, Hydras have been implied to be experimental dragons created and distributed by the Allagans like many other species.
Five-Headed Dragon is a Hydra by appearance and a dragon by name and implication and exists in the Void.
Two-Headed Dragon is a Hydra by appearance and a dragon by name and implication and exists in the Void as well.
Therefore the Void took or was given dragons at an undefined point in the past.
The Void is accessible by sorcerers and technology on every shard.
Therefore it is highly probable that dragons were brought to the other shards by the Void.

[Kesey]

By other plot threads from both fates and dungeons and sidequests, Hydras have been implied to be experimental dragons created and distributed by the Allagans like many other species.

This quote is the answer to the above argument.

But lets not forget that the World of Darkness dungeon was created with bosses from Greek mythology. So of course it would have a hydra, regardless of the lore reason that would have been filled in later.

[LineageRazor]

*snip*

The main thing I was trying to deny is that we have enough evidence to say that dragons can move bodily between shards (outside of extreme cases, such as the Allagan portal to the Void). The idea that ideas could be transmitted indirectly from the Source to the First via Voidsent summoning is one I can get on board with. We could have gotten the Drahn name in that way.

I would, however, not go so far as to say that Midgardsormr dragons being bodily on other shards is "highly probable". The Crystal Tower is touted as such a miracle even Emet-Selch was taken off-guard, and there's no evidence that any civilization on the First achieved nearly the heights that the Allagans did. "Minutely possible" is a better tag, I think.

[Veloran]

The main thing I was trying to deny is that we have enough evidence to say that dragons can move bodily between shards (outside of extreme cases, such as the Allagan portal to the Void). The idea that ideas could be transmitted indirectly from the Source to the First via Voidsent summoning is one I can get on board with. We could have gotten the Drahn name in that way.

I would, however, not go so far as to say that Midgardsormr dragons being bodily on other shards is "highly probable". The Crystal Tower is touted as such a miracle even Emet-Selch was taken off-guard, and there's no evidence that any civilization on the First achieved nearly the heights that the Allagans did. "Minutely possible" is a better tag, I think.

The miracle of the Crystal Tower was in combining shard-hopping with Alexander's technology to create time travel. Midgardsormr himself could travel the rift, it's well possible that one of his children did so at some point in the past.

[LineageRazor]

The miracle of the Crystal Tower was in combining shard-hopping with Alexander's technology to create time travel. Midgardsormr himself could travel the rift, it's well possible that one of his children did so at some point in the past.

Can he, though? The one example we have of him "traveling the rift" was when he entered Omega's domain to rescue us - and there is no evidence that the way Omega's pocket universe worked is in any way related to how the Shards are divided from the Source.

[Iscah]

The one example we have of him "traveling the rift" was when he entered Omega's domain to rescue us

I think you're confusing Midgardsormr and Hraesvelgr there, but still. The fact that we can enter Omega's pocket dimension despite not having any innate rift-traversing powers means that the dragons can get in there too, whether they can naturally cross the rift or not.

Also important to note, Omega and Midgardsormr didn't come to Hydaelyn from across the dimensional rift but across vast physical space.