I follow /r/ThedasLore, and a discussion thread started there based on this codex entry:
On the worship of dragons
Let us suggest, for the moment, that a high dragon is simply an animal. A cunning animal, to be sure, but in possession of no true self-awareness or sentience. There has not, after all, been a single recorded case of a dragon attempting to communicate or performing any act that could not likewise be attributed to a clever beast.How, then, does one explain the existence of so-called "dragon cults" throughout history?
One dragon cult might be explainable, especially in light of the reverence of the Old Gods in the ancient Tevinter Imperium. In the wake of the first Blight, many desperate imperial citizens turned to the worship of real dragons to replace the Old Gods who had failed them. A dragon, after all, was a god-figure that they could see: It was there, as real as the archdemon itself, and, as evidence makes clear, did offer a degree of protection to its cultists.
Other dragon cults could be explained in light of the first. Some cult members might have survived and spread the word. The worship of the Old Gods was as widespread as the Imperium itself--certainly such secrets could have made their way into many hands. But there have been reports of dragon cults even in places where the Imperium never touched, among folks who had never heard of the Old Gods or had any reason to. How does one explain them?
Members of a dragon cult live in the same lair as a high dragon, nurturing and protecting its defenseless young. In exchange, the high dragon seem to permit those cultists to kill a small number of those young in order to feast on draconic blood. That blood is said to have a number of strange long-term effects, including bestowing greater strength and endurance, as well as an increased desire to kill. It may breed insanity as well. Nevarran dragon-hunters have said these cultists are incredibly powerful opponents. The changes in the cultists are a form of blood magic, surely, but how did the symbiotic relationship between the cult and the high dragon form in the first place? How did the cultists know to drink the dragon's blood? How did the high dragon convince them to care for its young, or know that they would?
Is there more to draconic intelligence than we have heretofore guessed at? No member of a dragon cult has ever been taken alive, and what accounts exist from the days of the Nevarran hunters record only mad rants and impossible tales of godhood. With dragons only recently reappearing and still incredibly rare, we may never know the truth, but the question remains.
--From Flame and Scale, by Brother Florian, Chantry scholar, 9:28 Dragon.
I made a couple of posts in reply about which I'd be interested to hear others' opinions:
What if... the elven pantheon are an example of a dragon cult who were successful in achieving godhood through their worship?
Dragon blood is meant to be the blood of the world, I believe it has been said. If it carries some key to creation and/or to magic, perhaps this is where they got their godlike powers from.
Perhaps the Forgotten Ones are indeed the Old Gods, initially worshipped by the elves, until the elven pantheon gained their power and overthrew them.
This in turn opens up all sorts of possibilities for interpreting subsequent events.
For example, from this we can infer that the elven pantheon were successful where the Tevinter magisters were not. The difference is in the scope of what they expected to achieve, and how they interpreted what 'godhood' was.
The magisters believed that to attain godhood they had to breach the Golden City and take it from the Maker (as understood by Andrastian religion). While they used the worship of dragons (the Old Gods, in fact, the same as the elves) to achieve this, their downfall (literal and metaphorical, I suppose) was in believing godhood was situated in a mythical, nonexistent being that dwelled outside of the realm of mortals.
The elven pantheon, however, rightly recognised that godhood comes from power, from being worshipped, from ruling. What separates a god from, say, a king or an empress is that they possess some kind of power that it isn't possible for other mortals to possess. They understood that it was the magical power they could gain from dragons (specifically from the Old Gods) that would allow them to fashion themselves as gods. Whereas the magisters erroneously believed there was a step after that; they believed in the mythological godhood of Andrastian faith, which of course never existed.
There are some nobles talking in Skyhold, you can overhear them. They say the less the Maker does, the more he proves himself; and yet we have archdemons flying around burning everything to the ground and they aren't gods. This is why the magisters failed and why the elven pantheon succeeded: the magisters put stock in the distant Maker and didn't recognise true power for what it is. The elven pantheon did.
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This feels like a very simple solution to a lot of things. I think we try to overcomplicate matters a lot of the time, and in that respect we're very much like the people of Thedas -- always looking for some fantastical explanation to explain phenomena when the reality is quite obvious.
The main question that stems from this is "where did the dragons get their power?" I don't know. Maybe we'll never know. Maybe they're nothing more than a result of evolution in a world that contains lyrium.
Everything else is stories. The Maker, the myths the Dalish told about their pantheon, the legends of the Avvar gods -- they're all stories people have told over history, some of it based on actual events, most of it elaborated on in fanciful ways for a variety of reasons (for comfort; to exert power; etc.). Trying to unpick the factual roots of some of the stories can still be fruitful, and fun! Understanding where the line becomes blurred between fact and fiction will of course help build up a better idea of Thedas' history, and these myths largely being nothing but stories doesn't invalidate them or make them any less important: they are still hugely important in understanding how a society or culture creates a sense of itself, and how it tries to make sense of the world.
But on godhood, by looking at it as I've outlined above I believe we can better understand how it has been used throughout Thedas' history, in particular with reference to the elven pantheon and the Tevinter magisters.
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