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The Fire of the Dragon
(Ryuu no honou)
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"The Fire of the Dragon is, basically, just another type of ki
in this world. But... there are complications..."
"There is no power without price."
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Origin of the Fire
The Councils For and Against the Fire, Ryuu-ou, and Ryuuenkioujutsu
How this all relates to GRIT
End of the 2000 year old conflict
The One
Dark Days
Technical Stuff
What the Fire is (short version)
What the Fire is (long version)
The Fire's Will
The Rage of the Fire
The Awakening
The Increase
The One To Carry On The Fire
Credits
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THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRE
About 2000 years ago in Japan, the same time as the Yamata no Orochi,
there was this dragon. It was evil, very powerful, and ancient. Like your
typical evil dragon, it terrorised the populace of Eastern Asia - Korea,
and Eastern China, but mainly Japan.
After the Yamata no Orochi was defeated by Susa-no-o, this other dragon,
arrogant in its power and convinced of its superiority, went around saying
that the Yamata no Orochi was a wimp and Susano-o was a bully, and picked a
fight with Susa-no-o. This was the last mistake it made, for it wasn't
powerful enough to defeat an annoyed god. It was dealt a fatal blow, and
left to die. As it lay there dying, the people it had terrorised came out,
waving sticks, spears, swords, farming implements, chairs, etc., and
started attacking it as it was vulnerable.
The dragon saw that death was imminent and, in his last few seconds,
feverishly concocted an extremely elaborate and complicated plan. The plan
was this - he would release his body's holds on his ki - that is, his Fire
- and tie his own consciousness to it. Thus, when his body was destroyed,
his ki and consciousness would live on.
At first, his Fire would be greatly reduced, but the dragon knew that
the amount of his ki in the world would slowly increase, eventually to the
point where there would be enough to somehow ressurect itself, come back,
and get revenge. The dragon wasn't quite sure if this plan would work, but
he had about one and a half seconds to come up with it and thought it
sounded better than doing nothing.
So he set things in motion. He released his Fire from his body's usual
restraints, and it started to surge wildly. At the same time he tied his
consciousness to his Fire. And not a moment too soon, for a villager
struck the dragon on the head with a table just a moment later, finally
killing it.
The dragon's Fire was in a turmoil and still raging, so it did not die
or calmly dissipate when the dragon's body died. Instead, its Fire burst
forth in a very large and very very messy explosion, killing the table
wielder and those nearby. And, quickly and with the unstoppability of
gravity, the dragon's Fire started to spread throughout the world.
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THE COUNCILS FOR AND AGAINST THE FIRE, RYUU-OU, AND RYUUENKIOUJUTSU
As soon as they realised what was going on, the remaining wise ones /
elders of the nearby village set up a council to work out how to deal with
the spread of the Fire. What they didn't count on was background Fire
taking up place inside people's bodies, and those of newborn babies - the
Fireborn. They didn't count on these people learning how to harness the
Fire inside them. They especially didn't count on these people being
mentally affected by it to be nastier.
Before the council knew it, those that had the Fire were arguing with
those who didn't about what exactly to do with the Fire. Some wanted it
eradicated from the world entirely, some wanted it tightly controlled,
others wanted it to stick around and not be interfered with at all. The
arguing became heated and eventually turned into all-out warfare, and the
council eventually split into those For the Fire, and those Against. The
two councils fought against each other ever since.
About a mile from the original explosion, there was this old wanderer
martial artist. Far enough away to survive, but still close enough to be
affected. He was Ryuu-ou, or to be more exact, the one who would become
Ryuu-ou.
Normally, a human who gains the Fire loses control to it. But... in
rare cases, one of the Fire learns to control it instead. Ryuu-ou was one
of the first to do so, and from his Fire he has not only incredible inner
power, but like of all of those who have the Fire, power over external
Fire, allowing him to control ki external to his body. This became a key
element of his martial arts. The Fire in his body, however, also curses
him to a life of immortality.
Ryuu-ou, since time immemorial, worked with the Council Against. He
wandered the world, finding those with the Fire, and taught them
Ryuuenkioujutsu, so that they may better control their Fire, and never lose
control to it. In some cases he succeeded in this goal, in others he
failed in this goal quite spectacularly.
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AND HOW THIS ALL RELATES TO GRIT
Steve, my primary GRIT character, was one of the Fireborn. Ryuu-ou
eventually found him and took him under his wing, and taught him
Ryuuenkioujutsu but never once told Steve of the Fire. And then the two
parted.
Ryuu-ou eventually came to Nerima to chase up Steve and see how he was
doing, and saw that Steve's Fire was starting to become too much for him.
There was a long drawn out thread called 'Secrets Revealed', there was a
really big fight in which one For the Fire - known as just Ryuuta - showed
up and was defeated, and by the end of the thread Steve's Fire had been
neutralised.
With Steve's Fire and one of those For dealt with, there was no more
reason for Ryuu-ou to stay in Nerima. So he left.
And then I decided that Steve with just normal ki manipulation would
have been pretty boring, so I reintroduced the Fire along with Ryuu-ou, and
Steve regained the Fire, lost it, and regained it yet again. I think he's
keeping it this time.
But the Fire has grown to be much more than something that relates to
just my characters, and is starting to pop up in other places that I never
thought possible. For example, Jei, and presumably all of the Heavensrun
clan, have been revealed to be Fireborn. Gaeld is interested in getting at
it, in an attempt to break his curse. The Fire ties in in other ways to
GRIT, but I'm sworn to secrecy, and thus can't say any more about it. ^_^
One final note - in the "Nine Months" thread, Ryuu-ou showed up at the
birth of Ranma and Akane's twins, Isamu and Nuriko. He was there to see
if the Tendo-Saotome children had the Fire. Thankfully, they did not.
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THE END OF THE 2000 YEAR OLD CONFLICT
In GRIT there have been a few major events concerning the Fire.
The first was in the "Sanctuary of the Sun" thread, where a contingent
of our GRITter heroes faced off against the Demon of Wrath. During the
battle, Steve took a fatal wound and was lying amidst a heap of rubble,
dying. The original dragon of the Fire appeared to Steve in a vision, and
then used Steve's body to help ressurect itself (incidentally saving Steve
from death in the process). Only, over the past 2000 years the dragon has
mellowed and is nowhere near the evil nasty bastard he used to be, and is
almost Steve-like in his behaviour.
The dragon, having just ressurected, had nowhere near the amount of Fire
that it used to have - it couldn't even shapeshift into a human from. So
he set off on a quest to travel around the world and collect up all his old
Fire in order to get back up to strength.
With the dragon collecting all its old Fire and all the Fire in the
environment thus disappearing quite quickly, the Council For the Fire
became extremely worried, for they wanted the Fire to stay. This led into
the second major event, which occurred about three weeks after the dragon's
ressurection, in "The One to Carry On III" thread. In the thread, Ann was
revealed to be, in some mystical way, the One to Carry On the Fire. The
best fighters of the council For the Fire showed up to kidnap Ann, because
they needed her to bring the Fire back to the world. Ryuu-ou got wind of
their plans and showed up to help Ann.
A typical big scale GRIT fight broke out. In typical GRIT "things go
spectacularly out of hand" style, TWO major threats to the safety of the
planet developed throughout the course of the fight. Neither of which I
was particularly intending, but hey, that's the way GRIT goes.
During the fight, a spell was cast that drew all the Fire remaining in
the world to Ann and then into a crystal, effectively removing it from the
environment. The dragon of course noticed such a large scale movement of
the Fire and showed up at the fight.
Once the fight was over, Ann offered the crystal to the dragon.
However, because of a phenomenon called the Increase, in 2000 years there
was drastically more Fire than the dragon started off with. And the
dragon's body wasn't designed to hold much more Fire than what it started
off with, so he couldn't take the Fire that had been collected into the
crystal. And the Fire ended up flooding back into the world.
This has had a major effect on the Councils For and Against. They feel
that with the original dragon itself saying that the Fire's going to be in
the world, whether they like it or not, the reason for their feud is now
pretty much groundless. They're no longer going to fight, nor are they
going to go around in big Mysterious Cloaks, and so on. In fact, the two
councils have merged and gone back to the original one Council of the Fire.
Basically, with all these happenings, the old age of the Fire is
finished, and a new one is beginning.
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THE ONE
In another thread, the name of which I can't quite remember anymore (it
was one of the ones around "A Hokkaido Interlude") Steve discovered that
he's also a One to Carry On The Fire. What this means is that he has a
special spark of the Fire that automatically draws other Fire to itself.
Steve isn't quite sure what being One To Carry On The Fire will entail, if
anything. He was going to ask Ryuu-ou, but now can't.
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DARK DAYS INDEED
As I write this (26th Dec 1999) more stuff has recently happened, in the
"Just Plain Stupid" New York threads. Demonstrating that I'm not an
infallible GRIT veteran, I introduced a really annoying villain called Shi.
He was Steve's "evil twin" (it's a lot more complex than that but it's a
good enough explanation for now). Because of the evil tinge of the Fire,
it melded with Shi's personality better, and he could better use the Fire
than Steve could.
In that thread there were many deaths. Shi killed Ryuu-ou and Ganryu
(the original dragon of the Fire). In vengeance and for the safety of the
world, Steve, Scott, Hitomi and Stark banded together to fight Shi, and in
an impressive group effort managed to defeat and kill Shi.
Steve isn't quite sure what the deaths of Ryuu-ou and Ganryu mean - he
thinks that because he's One to Carry on the Fire, he may have some special
duty to the world and the Fire - that he'd be some sort of Guardian or
Avatar of the Fire.
Can't you just tell that a big new development for the Fire is in the
offing? ^_^
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AND IT GOES ON...
There's quite a lot that's happened since the end of the New York threads.
However, because I'm lazy I'll point out the Fire Summary, which summarises
all the important events related to the Fire in GRIT up to early 2001. I'll
properly incorporate it into this document some other time.
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TECHNICAL STUFF
Just what IS this Fire thing, anyway?
That's a long and complicated story. (rimshot)
The short version is that it's another type of ki - the sort that
dragons have. However, much as there is some 'background' ki that occurs
in the natural environment, there is also background Fire that occurs in
the natural environment. The Fire has a fair number of quirks to it that
distinguish it from normal ki and make it the force it is in GRIT.
The Long Version
The long version tells you what those quirks are.
Because Ganryu (the original dragon) put his will and consciousness into
his Fire when it exploded from his body, there are all sorts of extra
quirks to the Fire.
One of the foremost is that it that it has very close bonds with itself,
or something like that. This means that if someone has their own Fire and
knows how to harness it, they can use it to affect Fire outside their own
body, and this is much easier than affecting normal ki outside their body.
This makes it possible to do things like remote ki blasts, making remote
objects explode, and even telekinesis.
The disadvantage is that the Fire is draconic ki and not properly
designed for human bodies. Therefore if not properly controlled it can
kill a human host.
Also, because Ganryu was an evil S.O.B when his Fire was released, the
Fire has an evil tinge to it. The human host has to exert a constant
calming effort to make sure this evil tinge doesn't overcome them. If they
lose control to it, then they lose control of the Fire and not too long
after they get killed by their own Fire.
Still confused? Keep on reading, I get even MORE detailed!
The Fire's Will
First of all, the Fire has an intrinsic evilness / rage / hatred to it,
from the dragon that it originally came from, and the feelings it was most
feeling when its Fire escaped its body. When someone has the Fire, this
evilness / rage / hatred can overcome their own will and make them act
nastier in general.
The Fire, in humans, has inherent nasty evil aggressive tendencies (what
is sometimes called its 'will', though the Fire itself is not sentient)
that can affect a person who has it.
If the Fire's 'will' becomes too much for the control of someone who has
it, then the unfortunate person goes into the berserker state. Exactly how
much of a berserker they become depends on how much control they can still
exert over the Fire - if they can't exert any at all then they become a
true berserker and will lash out at anyone, both friend and foe.
Once the berserker state has been entered, with the Fire's 'will' too
much for the human host's will, there's another danger. The Fire's 'will'
can also, in some bizarre way, become too much for the physical constraints
of the host's body. When THIS happens, the unfortunate person gets messily
blown up by their Fire. This has never actually happened in GRIT, but it
has been mentioned and threatened.
The Rage of the Fire
This is just what I'm going to call the berserker state now. I need to
give it some impressive name, after all. ^_^
The Awakening
Consider a human's Fire, when they are first born, to have a couple of
restraints on it and thus it's 'dormant' and not as powerful. An Awakening
is when these restraints are lifted from the human's Fire and it becomes
much much more powerful. There's always a downside, however, and in this
case the downside is that the Fire's aggressive 'will' also becomes much
greater and harder to keep under control.
Steve and Ann are examples of characters who have had their Fire
Awakened but have not succumbed to the Fire's will.
The Increase
When part of the background Fire attaches itself to someone upon birth,
it's just a small amount. As the Fireborn grows, so does their Fire, until
it's significantly more than what they started out with.
And then that person dies. Because the Fire is draconic in nature, it
doesn't die / dissipate normally upon the death of a human host, but
returns to the pool of background Fire.
More is going back into the background Fire than what initially went
out, and the overall amount of Fire in the world has gone up a tiny
fraction... Now, with this happening over thousands of years, the amount
of Fire in the world goes up a significant amount. This increase is why
Ganryu didn't take all his Fire back when it was offered to him in the One
To Carry On III thread - it had become significantly more than even his
draconic body could handle.
The One To Carry On The Fire
In every generation there is the One To Carry On The Fire.
This time around it was Steve. Only, because she's Steve's clone, Ann is
also a One To Carry On The Fire.
Someone who is One To Carry On The Fire has a special 'spark' of Fire
within his/her body. This spark is unlike normal Fire, in that it can't be
expelled from the body at all. The spark is also unusual in that it
automatically draws external Fire to it. In other words, a One To Carry On
The Fire can never get rid of their Fire.
Also, someone who is One To Carry On The Fire may have some special destiny
with the Fire, but this hasn't been revealed in GRIT and I haven't worked it
out yet, either. ^_^;
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CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
Alejandro Melchor came up with the term 'Fireborn' LONG before I did,
and is being used with his permission.
This page was last updated on the 22nd of February, 2002