Whose handles end in claws.
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| Prayer Bells (Lontjeng), 16-17th Century, Java, Indonesia University of Michigan Museum of Art Photo c. 2012 John Everett Till |
These bronze prayer bells were a gift from Lord Air to the First Dragon Queen. He made this gift when the multiverse - and its gods and Dragons - were still young. So young, that Lord Air was still a role for a god. So young, that the Dragons had not yet rebelled and begun to be diminished.
The Lightning Bells opened a thousand more realms to the Dragons. Fit for a Queen, the prayer bells opened Air gates from the Dragon's Ur-realm of fabled Spring Roost to the many realms beyond.
It is said that the First Dragon Queen had a short and terrible reign. The bells' ringing could only be heard by the Dragon who wore them. Their sound was continuous, deafening, enlightening. It drove her mad. She turned on the other Dragons, and tried to ascend and become Lord Air's consort.
This did not go well; the other god's would not have it. They put a curse on the Queen, and her own desire and the mad vibrations of the bells caused her flesh to tear away. This is why the Fortune Card for The Dragon depicts her half-skeletal form. It is said that when she fell to her death, the Lightning Bells had already rendered her completely deaf. She could not hear her own screams of rage and fear.
The Lightning Bells were lost after the Queen's Fall. Patiently, for generation after generation, and from sphere to sphere, a few Dragons listened for rumors and have sought-out the bells. It is said the bells can re-open a gate to Spring Roost, which has been lost to the Dragons since their great rebellion against the gods. The bells do appear from time-to-time, usually in connection with the Dragon Trade. Disaster almost always befalls the land that tries to buy or sell the bells.
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