Of late I have been devoting a lot of time and attention to the question of Axeoth's relationship to Ashan and in doing so the question of what the relationship of Ashan's consmology is to that of the basic Might and Magic one? Regardless to whether of not Axeoth and Ashan are the same world, this question would do well to be adressed.
Dragon-Gods and Planes
In Ashan lore there are 7 dragon-gods, 2 of these are described as the primordial dragons, these are Asha and Urgash; who precede the other 5 dragons, who are described as the elemental dragons. Asha creates the world AND the elemental dragons, Urgash creates the demons only and the mythic age ends with an epic war 'faught at all levels of reality' which brings to an end the mythic age.
Might and Magic lore has 'at least' 7 planes, they are.
The Plane of Fire.
The Plane of Water.
The Plane of Air.
The Plane of Earth.
The Plane of Glory (where the portals of glory the Heroes III Angels come from go).
The Plane of Death (appears in the Heroes IV death campaign)
The Material Plane (boring old material reality).
The Fiery Realm (appears in the Heroes IV death campaign as the 'realm where the demons get their power from')
I do not believe that the gods of Ashan are really dragons, no that is merely the form that the inhabitents of Ashan depict them as, a situation which the dragons of Ashan are all too happy to oblige because it grants the sacred status. While the gods do not see any reason to upset the dragons because the dragons have to serve them somewhat in order to keep said status. Not all the inhabitants of Ashan even worship these gods as dragons, the orcs for instance worship Mother Earth and Father Sky. Does this mean that the orcs are mistaken or that there are 9 gods? No it doesn't; these gods are merely Sylanna (Earth) and Sylath (Air) in a different non-draconian form.
In 'reality' then each god is either the governing spirit of each plane or perhaps a 'reflection' of the consciousness of their worshippers cast onto the plane. The fundamental relationship between the gods and their planes can be depicted as follows.
There are four fundermental contradictions that govern the Might and Magic Universe each of these played out within the sphere of the planes that lie between the two opponants. Each god has primary servants which he or she created and which are the primary executors of their will within the plane they rule. Each god and their primary and secondary servants is as follows.
Asha
Primary Servants- The Ancients
Plane- Material Reality
Secondary Servants- Various sentiant constructs, Heroes IV Order faction, Heroes V/VI Necropolis faction. Heroes V wizards to an extent.
Urgash
Primary Servants- The Creators
Plane- The Fiery Realm
Secondary Servants- Kreegans/Demons, Heroes IV Chaos faction.
Sylanna
Primary Servants- The Earth Elementals
Plane- Plane of Earth
Secondary Servants- Heroes V Sylvan faction, Heroes IV Nature Faction. Ashan Orcs. Green/Emerald Dragons.
Sylath
Primary Servants- The Air Elementals
Plane- Plane of Air
Secondary Servants- Free Cities of Ashan, pre-Falcon humans, Heroes IV Nature Faction. Ashan Orcs.
Shalassa
Primary Servants- The Water Elementals
Plane- Plane of Water
Secondary Servants- Heroes III Fortress, Heroes VI Sanctuary, Dragon Eels
Arkash
Primary Servants- The Fire Elementals
Plane- Plane of Fire
Secondary Servants- Heroes V Dwarves, Magma Dragons.
Elrath
Primary Servants- The Angels.
Plane- Plane of Glory/Life
Secondary Servants- Heroes V/VI Haven faction. Shining One's.
Malassa
Primary Servants- The Faceless.
Plane- Plane of Death/Shadows
Secondary Servants- Heroes V dark elves, Heroes IV death faction.
Meaing of Dragon Mythology
According to the Ashan Timeline the fundamental contradiction which precedes all the others is the division between Urgash and Asha. Because Asha and Urgash precede the other dragons we can determine that at the time of the 'Cosmic Egg' and the 'Void' there was unity between the Elements. Ashan is described as creating the Elemental Dragons AND the world at the same time.
Demons appear to have a rather extensive love-affair with fire, or rather with Magma. Magma and fire are however not the same thing, in a manner of speaking Magma is all the elements combined into a single substance. So the Fiery Realm is pretty much the Molten Realm. So the battle of Urgash against Asha is ultimately the battle of the magma against it's seperation into seperate elements, the result of which is the material world. The material world is originally empty space; the Void.
As Magma is drawn from Urgash's Fiery Realm itself, the result of Asha's victory is the 'jailing' of Urgash to the 'Fiery core' of the world, which of course means magma. Asha isn't able to banish him from material reality altogether, because she depends upon that magma to create new material elements.
Elrath and Malassa are more of a mystery. They are obviously elemental dragons, but they are also intimately linked to Asha because of her 'three faces' as described by Sar-Elam. Elrath clearly links to Life and Malassa by contrast must link to Death. Perhaps the answer is that in order to defeat Urgash she had to unite with one of the elemental contradictions, fundermentally transforming herself, Elrath and Malassa in the process.
Mortal Life then may be the result of this alliance, the means to establish a truce between Light and Dark, Death and Life respectively. That Urgash comes back on the stage as a result of the massive conflict between the Angels and the Faceless- the primary servants of Elrath and Malassa supports this notion. The severe weakening Asha suffers is due to the need to resolve the contradiction that she has embraced in order to win the conflict.
The stronger the conflict between Elrath and Malassa are then, the weaker Asha is. The less the conflict between Elrath and Malassa, the stronger Asha is. The less the conflict however between the elemental dragons, the stronger Urgash is. This comes to the question of magic.
Might and Magic as Divine Commerce
Magic is the expression of the conflicts between these conflicting powers. Magic is a sense divine commerce, the magician establishes contact with a particular divine being, trading them a substance called mana which he has generated from the extent of his consciousness (his knowledge) is exchanged for a concrete result. The nature of the results must reflect the present alliances of the god in question. In Heroes V they are.
Summoning Magic- Asha
Light Magic- Elrath
Dark Magic- Malassa
Destruction Magic- All four Elemental Dragons.
However all four forms of magic are actually available to everyone (except orcs I think), which means that essentially although it is neccesary to cultivate a 'relationship' to the gods in question, they are actually willing to 'sell' to anyone, even their sworn enemies! This is because they are sufficiantly desperate to get their hands on more mana than their enemies that because they reckon they are trading 'at a profit' it is perfectly acceptable to trade with their mortal enemies because they can do more 'good' with that mana than the harm the spell actually does. A heroes spellpower represents how effective the hero is at 'bargaining', pursuading their godly patron to 'hand over' a greater amount of 'stuff' for the same 'price'.
The form magic takes then in a game would represent in that time and place the balance between the conflicting gods, the stability of the situation and the extent the advantage is on their side.
Stable Situation favours god: Magic is not available from god.
Stable Situation dis-favours god: God is prevented from trading by it's opponant.
Stable Relationship is balanced: Both gods compete to offer their magic as a same branch of magical knowledge with their opponant.
Fluctuating Situation presently balanced: God desperately trades with everyone trying to gain any advantage.
Fluctuating Situation presently favours god: God offers magic only to it's servants trying to stabalise it's advantage.
Fluctuating Situation presently disfavours god: God loans magical spells to other gods rather than operating independantly trying to restore balance.
Having sold a bunch of spells our god and acquired a small hoard of mana, the god now has to spend the mana. What they spend it on is granting might to those heroes whose agendas favour their own interests. This can mean anything from giving them tactical ability, to helping them inspire their troops, negating spells or fixing seemingly random events in their favour. Granting magic is thus the divine equivilant of selling, while granting might is their equivilant of buying.
This is why heroes are so prone to 'unleveling'- mantaining a level 30 hero indefinately is prohibitively expensive in mana for the god(s) that favour them, so as soon as they have completed their tasks they are promptly demoted rather than allowing them to remain on the payroll.
Role of the Dark Messiah
The only god missing from the list of forms of magic is Urgash. The basic elemental dragons are unified into a single form of magic. Thus we can determine the situation in Heroes V is as follows.
Asha- Fluctuating Situation presently balanced
Urgash- Stable Situation dis-favours god
Malassa- Fluctuating Situation presently balanced
Elrath- Fluctuating Situation presently balanced
Arkash- Stable Relationship is balanced
Sylanna- Stable Relationship is balanced
Shalassa- Stable Relationship is balanced
Sylath- Stable Relationship is balanced
We can see that while Urgash is disfavoured in a stable manner, Asha is not favoured in a similar manner, else summoning magic would not be on offer. At present although Urgash and the demons can wage war in material reality, they cannot do so without expending magic or gaining might from another source- he has no mana currency.
That Asha is 'trading' means that Urgash is only being kept down by Asha's alliances with Elrath and Malassa. However because the other elemental dragons are in a stable balance while they are not, the relational situation favours Urgash (relative unity within the elemental dragons but division between Elrath and Malassa).
The Dark Messiah by his ability to wield the 'magic of Urgash' essentially set's up shop and establishes a mana income for Urgash which allows him to build an independant powerbase in the material world like the other gods.
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