Red Draconic Effect for Adherents: You may increase either bSTR, bDEX, bCON, bSPD, or bINT by 1. Your maximum insight is increased by a value equal to your number of Attributes.

“Give up no ground to despair, you warriors of righteousness. Mortals’ greatest battle is fought within themselves - and by your will, you choose the victor. It is by discipline, by accountability, by pain, and by time - but by your will it remains.” -Aph’Tharsis, the One of Struggle

    The philosophy of the red dragons holds that all mortal sentients are born with a dual nature - Phonoss, the nature of death and evil, and Soh’Tareeoss, the nature of life and protection. Although mortals are fated to follow their two natures, they are held to have some element of choice between the two, and thus must make a concerted effort to follow Soh’Tareeoss over Phonoss. Unlike the white dragons, who teach that Phonoss is inevitable and virtue futile, the reds demand the daily rejection of the destructive via internal transformation. Thanks to the efforts of today’s red acolytes, this philosophy boasts many adherents among the general populace, with particular favor in I'Gremsul, Macska, and Manusia.

    Followers of this philosophy are greatly concerned with ethics, and are intolerant of all forms of 'evil.' They also distrust more free-spirited individuals, since they believe the path to goodness is one of disciplined effort - even, and especially, when it is difficult. Currently, the Red Synod has defined the Thirteen Virtues: Wisdom, Family, Penance, Service, Self-Denial, Chastity, Generosity, Hope, Silence, Justice, Submission, Struggle, and Valor (for more details, see Dragon Lore). Through the Virtues, adherents are taught to not just do good things, but to become good people. Only in slow-burning, continual war against one's inner evil half can true goodness be strengthened. Still, this struggle is not wholly individualized - the Virtues are best inculcated in an environment of good influences and responsible leadership. Even outside of their strict abbeys, red adherents tend to promote principles of structure, hierarchy, and order - everything from a family ingraining honor and virtue into its children, to a traditionalist speaking out against the more progress-minded philosophies in a political council.

    Actual red acolytes often progress through the service of various dragons, each one with a system of rules, disciplines, and teachings designed to inculcate a given Virtue into one's character. Of course, many people adhere to the philosophy without becoming acolytes, choosing and developing these Virtues on their own or with the occasional aid of traveling Vicars. Most red followers were simply born into red families. Notably, red doctrine tends to incorporate Lur-Asko's Creator religion into its imagery and allegory far more often than other philosophies, which can imbue its duties with cosmic significance in impressionable minds. Regardless of how they are inculcated, the Virtues are held to be unalterable wisdom; too much individual interpretation or innovation can summon the Red Synod's inquisitors, regardless of whether or not the wayward soul in question was an acolyte.

    Critics of Red Draconic philosophy point out its historical failures (such as the Fallen Acolytes), the contradictions between virtues such as Family vs. Chastity and Struggle vs. Submission, and the oppressive nature of many draconic abbeys and families. Reds usually counter by asserting that no philosophy is lived out perfectly, that their own beliefs of Soh'Tareeoss and Phonoss consistently explain this, and that such imperfection only proves the struggle's necessity.