Drake's Shrine

Drake's Shrine is located at the top of Mount Aenatumgana. This is the shrine to the Great Drake featuring the throne of Koar and is known to have a magical portal leading to The Rift. It was inaccessible for many millennia due to the terrible mana storms surrounding it, but these abated, allowing access by adventurers at the end of the Vvrael Saga after inserting the Stones of Virtue.

Indigenous creatures

• Please see The Rift for further information.

Landmarks and other information

Your non self-cast spells will be stripped from you as you enter the pool in Drake's Shrine. Please see The Rift for further information.

Behind the Scenes

The Drake's Shrine contains a number of subtle allusions to the Book of Revelation, including the tympanum of Moissac Abbey in France, and "The Dream of Macsen Wledig" from the Welsh Mabinogion. The heart shape with the ice and the "dance of the dragons" room might be allusions to the first Game of Thrones book from 1996. The "Great (Red) Dragon" is the beast of the Book of Revelation, but the Inferno and Paradiso imagery of Dante has been inverted, so climbing up the back of the statue of the great dragon really represents God rather than Satan. This inversion of "judgment" to "forgiveness" in the Book of Revelation regarding the Great Red Dragon might be an allusion to the prophetic books of William Blake, where the Whore of Babylon becomes the chaste virgin Vala, the lake of fire becomes the water of life (arguably symbolized by the Lake of Tears), and the prefatory poem of his "Milton" is about the legend behind Glastonbury Abbey where Joseph of Arimathea brought Jesus to England. The entrance to the Drake's Shrine was unlocked by inserting the Stones of Virtue into the six tined crown symbol of Koar. It is an allusion to "Diu Crone" ("The Crown") by Heinrich von dem Türlin, where each Arthurian story is likened to a jewel in a crown, and each Stone of Virtue contains a story of a virtuous feat. This is the only medieval version where Gawain is the knight who achieves the Grail. When messing with the stones you become stunned with an image of Lorminstra as a weeping young lass, which is an allusion to the weeping young Grail maiden, where she forgives you even though that is not part of her theology. The Eye of the Drake just past the Lake of Tears is the portal to The Rift. It is a reference to the way Dante depicted God as overlapping circles of reflecting rainbows and fire at the end of his "Divine Comedy".

References

• Geographic Area: Drake's Shrine, on play.net