 Ye Olde Dragon Bone Hunt, as in the Big D's Will |
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 Jun 28 2006, 01:59 PM
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319  |
For some reason I got it into my head to hunt (using good ol' Google Earth) for those dragon bones mentioned in Dunkelzahn's Will. Does anyone know if this particular mystery (or part thereof) was ever cracked in canon? If it was then I missed it. Couldn't find anything like this elsewhere in Dumpshock either, so sorry if someone else has tried this and I missed it. I do know that Ancient History has given approximate locations in his fantastic Annotated Dunkelzahn's Will but actually (sorry AH) I think he's a bit out in places. But you be the judge. Latitude 41°, Longitude 121° AH says: "Offshore of Seattle" Not by my reckoning. It might be in modern-day California (nr Hayden Hill) / SR's Cal Free State (nr border with Tir Tairngire, though only 70-80 miles away from the Shasta Dam, so probably in Hestaby's territory). But... since the longitude isn't specifically stated as west (as in most of the other coordinates), I take it to be the default direction, which is east. That places this location in modern-day China (~255 miles east of Beijing, nr Jinzhou, close to a large petrochemical refinery) / SR's Liaoning state. There's nothing very interesting in that area that I can see. But I don't own Shadows of Asia. Latitude 41° 50n, Longitude 87°45w AH says: "North America, near Chicago" In Chicago, in fact. More or less right under the modern-day Chicago Motor Speedway. No idea what's happened to this precise area in SR. Is it inside the former Chicago Containment Zone or not? Latitude 47° 21n, Longitude 122° 12w AH says: "Near Seattle; maybe in the Salish Shide or Tir Tairngire" Again the exact co-ords are right in Seattle: what looks like an unobstrusive modern-day suburb. In SR terms, this is in the SW corner of the Renton district. The closest SR feature I can see (using Mauler's excellent Shadowrun Locations on Google Maps) is the Merideth Comfy Cubicle hotel! Again there's nothing vastly obvious in this area (but bear with me! I do come up trumps in a minute!) Latitude 19° 24n, Longitude 99° 9w AH says: "The Western Mountains of the Mexican Plateau" No I can definitely do better than this. This is smack bang in Mexico City, aka SR's Tenochtitlán (Benito Jaurez district). In fact at more or less those exact cordinates is something rather old, and certainly significant! For those unwilling to click on links: it is the site of the Templo Mayor- the religious center of the original Aztec city of Tenochtitlán. Don't tell me that's a coincidence! Latitude 65°, Longitude 130° AH says: "Somewhere in the Algonkian-Manitou Council." Again I think this should be 130E not 130W. That instead lands it right in the middle of Siberia, in SR terms: Awakened Siberia, aka the Yakut. Again, nothing obvious there (anyone with a copy of Shadows of Asia?) but I suppose you could argue that Earthdawn's Parlainth might have been in that area (when it could be bothered to appear in the physical world, anyway!) Latitude 39° 44n, Longitude 104° 59w AH says: "Somewhere in the NAN, southern Rocky Mountains-meets-desert region. Nevada or Arizona maybe." That's actually bang in the middle of modern-day Denver. SR: the north end of what was once the Aztlan sector (but is now, if I understand correctly, absorbed by the CAS sector) . It is more or less exactly the site of the Burnsley Hotel (modern-day and SR:Denver book p98- but nothing terribly interesting listed about that hotel). Dunkelzahn himself first appeared in Denver in 2012. According to some reports he first appeared at Cherry Creek Lake (just 9 miles to the SE) but in other, earlier, reports (or in my reading of them anyway) that's where he first snoozed after his initial inspection of the city and where he was then cornered and interviewed. So he could have been scratching around this location during his first appearance. And of course Ghostwalker later came to the city in 2061- the Year of the Comet (but where did his body come from?) Obviously I've been taking the coordinates as exact and then looking for interesting stuff in the wider area. I'm pretty sure that the Tenochtitlán location must be an exact hit [EDIT: do I get a reward? ;)], but probably it's necessary to widen the scope for the others, or to be more fluent in some of the sourcebooks. |
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Jun 28 2006, 02:15 PM
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#2
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
How hard to you have to be hit to scatter your bones around the planet? Maybe the dragon took an uppercut from Verjigorm?
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Jun 28 2006, 05:41 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 101 Joined: 27-October 02 From: Chicago Containment Zone Member No.: 3,504 |
That's inside the Containment Zone, though just barely (compared to the rest of the city). Harlem Ave. is the western edge of the Zone. However, if I'm remembering my Bug City map correctly, I think Volksville, an anti-metahuman, anti-magic group is in that area. Which would make recovering dragon bones interesting to say the least ~_^ |
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Jun 28 2006, 05:58 PM
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#4
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,026 Joined: 23-November 05 From: Seattle (Really!) Member No.: 7,996 |
A couple of other possibilities are that some of those undesignated coordinates could have Southern Latitudes.
My thoughts are that these bones are hidden in the hoards or lairs of other dragons who may be enemies or rivals of Dunkelzahn, or may be deceased as well. |
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Jun 28 2006, 06:17 PM
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#5
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Is there any background given on the bones, or just that they're bones?
What if Dunkie set them up so he could return as a dracolich if killed, and other powerful entities found out so they stole them. They kept them around in case they ever needed them as leverage. :) |
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Jun 28 2006, 10:37 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319 |
I'd contemplated this, but if that's taken to be the case then every single one ends up in the sea (whether you take the accompanying longitude as E or W). As for background, well not really (that I can find). AH speculates that they might be the bones of All Wings (but is mystified why they should have ended up where they supposedly are). It may be, of course, that they were artificially spread around in this fashion- carried around the world in different ways by different groups for different reasons. As for dracolichs... well... I'm not sure how such things work! Suppose they were Ghostwalker's bones. He's allegedly been trapped in the astral for eons, and it was his astral form that came out of the Rift. What about his body? Does a dragon's body, in those circumstances, need to be maintained intact and whole and in some sense alive? Or can powerful magics be used to reassemble it? *shrug* It's dragons! Anything goes! I've a sneaking suspicion that there may not be a real back-story here as such, but it does seem like the writers wouldn't have bothered providing such specific co-ordinates if there wasn't some little Easter Egg worth discovering. But who knows!? |
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Jun 28 2006, 10:38 PM
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#7
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319 |
I must say BTW that this specific scenario seems unlikely, given that he told the world where to look for them! |
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Jun 28 2006, 10:55 PM
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#8
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Yeah, I don't think it's really what's happening. More likely is that Big D spread them out himself, placing them in such a manner that to be reached certain things had to be done, and those things will eventually help mankind, probably against the horrors.
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Jun 28 2006, 11:07 PM
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#9
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Great, I'm a Dragon... Group: Retired Admins Posts: 6,699 Joined: 8-October 03 From: North Germany Member No.: 5,698 |
Big D never said/wrote that there are bones at every mentioned location ;)
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Jun 29 2006, 12:22 AM
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#10
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
<cough> Well, I ne'er said I was right on everything.
A couple notes: I hedged on exact locations because the directions never went beyond degrees into minutes and seconds (that, and the software I was using at the time brings new meaning to the word "guesstimate") Likewise, when in doubt (pecause of lack of direction) I chose the locations in and around North America as more reasonable. Hey, I can always update it, right? |
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Jun 29 2006, 12:56 AM
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Target Group: Members Posts: 33 Joined: 23-May 06 From: California Free State Member No.: 8,597 |
If it's 41N, 121W, then it's in the disputed territory between Tir Tairngire and CalFree. Hestaby's territory is described as being within 40 miles of Mt. Shasta, so this would be just a bit outside. If it's 41N, 121E, then it's in Manchuria. According to Shadows of Asia, Manchuria is a funny place, with spirits having the same legal status as people. If it's 41S, 121W, it's way out in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific. Hm... isn't this where Cthulu is supposed to be sleeping? If it's 41S, 121E, it's in the ocean south of Australia.
Definitely inside the former Chicago CZ. About 5 miles west of the Cermak blast. As mentioned already, it's in the area used to be controlled by the Volksville. They control along I-55 from the west end of CZ at Harlem to Pulaski Ave.
Yeah, it's north of Route 18, so it's in Renton District. I've looked through the Seattle Sourcebook and New Seattle, and nothing that particularly jumps out.
The exact coordinates leads to the Parque "Las Americas". The Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlán, the Templo Mayor, is at 19°25'5"N, 99°7'57W. In Shadowrun, the Great Pyramid was rebuilt and is now dedicated to Quetzalcoatl. The Aztechnology Pyramid and the National Palace in the same square as the temples. Makes you wonder how precise those coordinates are, and if it has anything to with the Corrupted dragon seen in the vicinity.
If it's 65N, 130W, then it's in the Northwest Territories, which is Athabaskan Council. If it's 65N, 130E, then it's 200 miles due north of Yakutsk. It's quite distant from the Tunguska blast too. Definitely too far away for Parlainth. Parlainth is somewhere north of the Caspian Sea. 65 S, 130W, and 65 S 130E, are in the ocean near the Antarctic. Supposedly, something is buried in the Antarctic, resembling a city. (Insert SG-1 reference). Saeder-Krupp is digging there, and Harlequin joked Lofwyr was looking for old relatives. Ancient History suggested they might be the bones of Dunkelzahn's and Ghostwalker's mother, All-Wings. They had dismembered her body, creating artifacts from it. If all the locations are in North America, then it makes sense that Dunkelzahn and Ghostwalker brought the body with them when they resettled in North America. However, I don't think it is her body. Dragons are strange, alien beasts, but I I think even Dunkelzahn and Ghostwalker would find it disrespectful for a bunch of shadowrunners running around digging up their mother's bones and putting it on display in the Smithsonian, or being ground up and made into foci. I personally think it's the dead body of an enemy. I would get much mirth if the body of an enemy was put on display in a museum, for young kids to poke and gawk at. |
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Jun 29 2006, 09:16 AM
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#12
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319 |
Yeah I can see that as a possibility too.
Good point.
Right 99.9% of the time ain't bad! ;) As far as the software goes, I figured as much. Like I said, my strategy was to take them as exact to begin with and then look in the wider area for the closest most obvious candidate site. Maybe that'll yield fruit, maybe not. As far as I'm concerned, yeah by all means update it with anything we might conclude here.
Great work Glorian! According to the SR 2062 world map pdf I've got it doesn't look far enough north of the sea to be Manchuria, but that may be wrong. Manchuria certainly sounds a more interesting candidate.
That is quite true. I did find- at that exact location, within the Parque- a GE Community panorama placemark with a hyperlink to the site I linked to above. It later occured to me that this placemark might be a bit wrong, but on the other hand look at the GPS coordinates given on the page I linked to: they don't agree with yours. (Though that doesn't mean yours are wrong of course!). My conclusion was that the Templo Mayor was maybe a fairly large area, with multiple temples / pyramids in it (not unlike the Forum in Rome), and that there might be some ruins at that particular location. But I don't know this for sure. At any rate, you can go a few miles NW and still be at coordinates that would be rounded to the ones given.
Actually I find that the Great Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the Azzie pyramid et al are at roughly 19°26'2.96"N, 99° 7'59.28"W (over the modern-day site of the cathedral- see Aztlan p170). Looks like they weren't too fussy about sticking to the actual archaeological locations.
I agree it looks too far way. But then I've never taken the Barsaive maps to be any more geographically accurate than some ancient mappa mundi- certainly when it comes to objects on the edges of the map. *shrug*. It was the only ED/SR location I could think of even vaguely in that general vicinity! But I'm not totally wedded to the idea.
Yeah this sort of rings true. The Big D certainly didn't seem extraordinarily fussed about whether anybody handed the bones in or not. Alternatively i suppose, the whole dragon bones / skeleton thing could be a metaphor rather than something literal. |
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Jun 29 2006, 10:00 AM
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#13
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Target Group: Members Posts: 33 Joined: 23-May 06 From: California Free State Member No.: 8,597 |
Well, the coordinates are still in Liaoning province. It's just that Liaoning is a part of Manchuria. Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces make up Manchuria, both historically, and in Shadowrun. Wordman's big world map listed Liaoning as a separate country.
Yeah, I transcribed the wrong coordinates. The Great Pyramid aka Templo Mayor, was located in what is now called the Zócalo. The Spaniards destroyed it. The Spaniards then built the Catedral Metropolitana in the same area. That got knocked down and they built it back up again. Some digging was done in the Zócalo in the 20th century to lay some underground cables and the ruins of Templo Mayor was found. According to Aztlan, the Great Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the Temple of Tezcatlipoca, the Aztechnology Pyramid, and the Palacio National, are all in the Zócalo. I assume the Cathedral got knocked down, since Catholicism is banned in Aztlan. I believe the Google Earth placemark is where someone took a picture, in the direction of the Zócalo, where both the Cathedral and the Templo Mayor are. The picture itself definitely shows the Cathedral. If you turn on the the Google Earth Community layer, and go to the Zócalo, you should see some placemarks that say Templo Mayor. |
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Jun 29 2006, 10:14 AM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319 |
Ah ok then. Cool.
Yeah again, you're right. The picture is actually a Quicktime panorama and if you turn the view around there are definitely some small ruins under a protective roof. I guess from the proximity of the cathedral that the panorama location must still be wrong though. Still, that location in the Will is only 2 miles or so from the Zócalo, so there could still have been a (different) temple closer to the coordinates given? Perhaps? This post has been edited by Witness: Jun 29 2006, 10:16 AM |
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Jun 29 2006, 12:06 PM
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#15
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 295 Joined: 10-July 05 Member No.: 7,492 |
Here's a thought: Some of the coords ended up in the water when you went south, right? Mayhaps Atlantis?
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Jun 29 2006, 12:21 PM
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#16
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319 |
I must say I'm not feeling it.
Of the two coordinates that don't specifically say N: 41S 121W ends up in the mid Pacific 41S 121E ends up 500 miles south of Australia As Glorian noted: 65S 130W ends up 600 miles off Antarctica in the Pacific 65S 130E ends up 70 miles off Antarctica south of Australia. So, maybe, just maybe, the last one is pointing towards that buried Antarctic city Glorian mentioned from SR canon (Graham Hancock will be thrilled). But Atlantis as such was almost certainly around Thera in the Med (in SR, and possibly in RL too). |
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Jun 29 2006, 12:32 PM
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#17
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Target Group: Members Posts: 33 Joined: 23-May 06 From: California Free State Member No.: 8,597 |
Well, in Shadowrun, Atlantis is the island Thera, and in Earthdawn, Thera was the center of the Theran Empire. Thera is in the Mediterranean, near Greece. |
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Jun 29 2006, 12:37 PM
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#18
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319 |
Another thing I was wondering about (and one of the reasons for doing this in the first place in fact) was whether these locations would form some interesting and significant symbol: a pentagram or such. But I don't see that either.
On a related note, I'm slightly disappointed that the Big D's death, and the Rift that formed afterwards, didn't take place smack bang at the middle of the pentagram in Washington DC's street layout. (Just imagine it... 'I need to do some massive self-sacrifical magic ritual to power this artifact. I know! I'll use this city's massive built-in mysterious pentagram as the worlds biggest ritual circle to make the magic even more uber!') But as far as I can tell, he died/disappeared close to the Watergate (although possibly, just possibly at one of the points of the pentagram- which would do, I suppose, although the center would have been cooler!) |
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Jun 29 2006, 08:16 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 239 Joined: 16-December 05 From: new jack city Member No.: 8,077 |
you kids and your pentagrams. ;)
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Jun 29 2006, 08:19 PM
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#20
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
What is at the center of that?
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Jun 29 2006, 08:56 PM
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,026 Joined: 23-November 05 From: Seattle (Really!) Member No.: 7,996 |
Granted the photo sort of looks like a pentagram, however the street map I'm looking at shows that it's incomplete. Kind of an illusion created by the Non Grid Pattern streets that connect the various Circles in DC. If memory serves these circular areas in the middle of major intersections were put in in the cities early days (after the war of 1812 IIRC) to serve as artillery emplacements should the city be invaded again. |
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Jun 29 2006, 09:52 PM
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#22
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 470 Joined: 2-January 05 From: Quebec Member No.: 6,924 |
Whoops, didn't mean to post that.
This post has been edited by Trax: Jun 29 2006, 09:54 PM |
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Jun 29 2006, 10:57 PM
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#23
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 681 Joined: 28-February 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,319 |
I'm not normally into conspiracy theories and such, and yes the pentagram has two segments of line missing (only two though), but I've got to say- that layout looks like more than a coincidence. It's a perfectly bilaterally symmetrical north-south aligned inverted pentagram with the White House at the southern point.
Somebody did design the layout for Washington DC (Pierre Charles L'Enfante IIRC), and he chose that layout. Now I'm not saying that he worshipped Satan or belonged to the freemasons (although the latter hardly seems impossible), and I don't really think it's got any real significance beyond maybe a bit of Grand High Poobah-envying whimsy (although I bet Dan Brown'll get around to inventing some such significance before too long). But I do think it's oh-so-very SR plot-worthy! EDIT: James, there's nothing much at the center of it, btw. As far as I know. I just wish the Rift was! |
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Jun 29 2006, 11:03 PM
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,026 Joined: 23-November 05 From: Seattle (Really!) Member No.: 7,996 |
A Beauty Salon and a Gym The Points, based on Witness's estimates are: The White House Logan Circle Mount Veron Square Washington Circle Dupont Circle Which puts Alex Davalos, Beautician on 16th NW pretty close to the center. |
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Jun 29 2006, 11:15 PM
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#25
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
That kinda exemplifies the evils of the modern world: vanity. :)
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