I’m not a big fan of exposition after-the-fact of events that happened off-camera, but this is one case where I did it because I had a lot of stuff to do this chapter and I wanted this part over quickly. It’s Terry, Greg’s old friend (and Greg’s other two valley-cursed friends, Gren and Drew).
The Dragon Doctors
Battling evil and curing what ails you!
There’s a part of me that wants to know the details of Phoenix Fire production and distribution that I may better coordinate its use. The larger part says ‘it’s rare, move on.’
I have most of it figured out. The hardest part is that the creatures that lay the eggs only do so once a decade. (These don’t come from the BIG phoenix that nobody has seen; they’re “lesser phoenixes” that look like red peacocks). They lay a clutch of eggs which don’t have any embryos, just the flame of life in its rawest form. The eggs explode after a while, rejuvenating the phoenix, and sometimes more than one emerges from the flames, so they reproduce slowly.
That is an interesting concept.
I was wondering how a phoenix egg would would work and that one is interesting and makes sense,
Now I wonder how many laws there are to state don’t take all the eggs of a clutch and whether its possible to raise any in captivity(actually scratch that plan)/ bond and become friends of a sort with a wild one so as to get a regular every decade couple of eggs.
any its nice to have a bit more information other than its rare.
Also how do they know the big ones are still around if nobody has seen them?
See, this here is exactly the sort of thing I love about Dragon Doctors. That is really neat sense-of-wonder stuff right there!
Is it possible for a shaman or anyone else to use magic to determine the optimum egg collection strategy? Suppose a phoenix always lays six eggs, but then suppose that reproduction will only occur if all six explode at once. Then optimum strategy should include leaving some nests intact to try to get more phoenixes (invest in the future). On the other hand, if only one egg is needed to rejuvenate a phoenix and reproduction is just as likely to occur with one egg as with more, then optimal strategy is to take all eggs but one, every time. If they lay eggs only once a decade, then experimentation will be slow, thus someone should attempt to “cast the bones” or whatever to try to figure this stuff out. But are phoenixes so magical that divination doesn’t work well on them?
Now imagine a top-secret government project to try to create artificial phoenix fire. Just what sort of forces would they be tampering with, and what might go wrong? And if someone were to sabotage that project, just how badly could it go wrong?
Creating artificial Phoenix Fire would almost literally be creating life itself. Technically it is the purest and most elemental form of the essence of life bonded to fire, but you’d either have to take it from somewhere else or create it.
Is it just me or have we not seen Greg actually pissed off before? I know he’s been in at least one confrontation (with Jeremy), but he was pretty relaxed about it when the stuff hit the fan. He’s an easygoing guy! Almost the Carrot Ironfoundersson of the strip. I’m kind of amazed that the first time we see him really angry (aside from under the werewolf influence), it’s not even in the heat of a moment- he’s discussing this whole thing after the fact.
(The fangs in the last panel are a nice touch- good reminder that he’s not entirely human, even if we haven’t seen him change in a long time.)