>I am quite glad that Garnet isn't taking after her Mom. ;-)
>
>But I admit that I may be doing Dread Matalde an injustice. She's
>cranky but we haven't seen her be, well, Nax's role model or
>something.

Matalde is a very ancient dragon - much older than Nax - and the ancients tend to get a bit strange, particularly if they spend most of their time in isolation. She dislikes company intensely (how she ever managed to mate even once is a question virtually everyone in Draconia has considered, but none of them has ever dared ask) and can be very territorial, but she isn't especially evil. She's even been known to protect the Jotun villages in the vicinity of Ortrûlcánd - not because she has any particular love for the Jotun, but because she sees it as a duty to be performed. It's her territory and she has a responsibility to look after it.

Beyond that, she has no interest in raiding or mayhem or any of the other petty amusements often indulged in by younger dragons. She knows she's powerful. She doesn't need to demonstrate it to herself by making lesser being suffer. In her eyes, that's more than a little bit pathetic.

(She's also almost completely uninterested in treasure, which is considered deeply weird among Westerns.)

In other words, they don't call Matalde the Terror of the Tindalos for nothing, but there is one distinct difference between her and the way Nax operated: Matalde is terrible when roused. Nax was just terrible.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.