The Book, as it is referred to by those who know of it, is an explanation written in 1789 by the good Sir concerning, of course, dragons, Slate, and the Wash. It is the foremost, if not the only, authority in the world pertaining to the existence of those three mysterious elements of the universe. The entire text of the book is included here for reference:

An Explanation of the Wash and Dragons
By: Sir Allan Adam Dirkshire

The information to which I will swear in this explanation to be true has been endowed upon me by numerous methods; some dubious of which I am not proud. But, while this is information that could create hazards for myself and my family—i.e., the church has already declared much of this information heretical, the penalty for which is excommunication and death by torture—there is little I can do but let it be known. I pray that it will be received by a willing ear and stored in the repository of a faithful breast, for, as you will see, this information could kill—or save—us all.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
God save the King. 1789

On Slate
In times of prehistory, the two major land masses that we now know of which host the majority of the peoples of Earth were one. They were joined together forming a single, vast continental land mass. Cataclysmic pressures caused a rift to form in this land mass, resulting in a separation, forming, as it were, the surface of the planet with which we are now familiar. The cause of this unbelievable pressure is as startling as the fact itself: The Earth once had two moons.

The Moon—the illustrious title we’ve given it, suggesting singularity not only of our own world but of the entire universe—stands pale and luminescent in the night sky. Through it we can determine the months of the year as it passes from full to new and back again, and its gravitational pull is so significant that it causes the oceans to slide from side to side across the Earth, resulting in the phenomena we call the tides. Given time, it is conceivable that these gravitations could be strenuous enough to result in the effect I have described, that is, the restructuring of the physical geography of the surface of the Earth. But there is another contributor to this phenomena of which no physical evidence remains: the Earth’s second moon.

As a researcher of arcane and mythic knowledge, I now know that the cataclysmic force which caused the necessary tremors which surely shook the entire planet to its core to have originated from a second moon, which orbited Earth from the dawn of time. This 2nd moon was near enough to the Earth so as to cause not only tides on the oceans, but on land as well, along with other tumultuous and astonishing effects of which we can now only imagine. The absence of such a tremulous condition on Earth now would lead many to believe that what I now write is some contrived fiction, but the 2nd moon did exist, and did reshape the Earth’s geography, and was, many, many eons ago, banished from the heavens as surely as you might snuff out a candle.
Why would I risk my life sharing this bit of admittedly refutable information which would surely only be of interest to certain geologists and historians, certainly not of any modern impact on the world as we know it now? It is not the physical presence of the 2nd moon we must be concerned with, but of the alien life which thrived on it, and thrives on it to this day. Allow me to explain the inherent traits that made this 2nd moon so pivotal to our present-day life:

The 2nd moon was the opposite of our current singular moon in almost every way. It was as black as the night sky, its surface was composed entirely of black shale rock. It has been related to me that the name of this 2nd moon was Slate; which may or may not have been its actual name or some semblance in tone to the actual term used to describe it.

Its presence in the heavens was dark and insidious; in the night sky it would have appeared as a spectral hole in the universe, a void blotting out the stars; by day it must have appeared as a black blight on the heavens. It was smaller than the Moon in physical size, but was nearer to the Earth by half and thus appeared to be larger in the sky; but surely there could have been no disguising its distance. This was no tiny dot in the sky but a large sphere, on which could be seen contours and texture and depth with the naked eye when viewed from Earth.

On Slate the atmosphere was poisoned with choking gasses and smoky vapours and hotter than Earth’s hottest deserts. Day and night on Slate were dependent on which side of Earth was facing the sun—the near side or the far side, because only one surface of Slate ever faced the Earth. Slate’s daylight hours were caused by the sun’s illumination of the Earth’s celestial sphere. The opposite side of Slate, that side that endlessly faced out into the blackness of the universe, was colder than the depths of Antarctica by night and, by day, burned. Thus: it was never truly dark on Slate. By night the sky burned red; nothing could be seen in the heavens but the persistent waft of smoky tendrils and the dull crimson glow that grew from the heat of the moon itself. And by day the heavens opened up, the sky’s red hue faded to black and slowly, the massive sphere of Earth materialized—lovely, brilliantly colored and bright, it blocked out virtually all of the sky, hovering above the blackened terrain like some blissful, beautiful omnipresent doom.

By all accounts Slate’s natural state was in eclipse, whereas eclipses on Earth are much rarer, although they would have been much more frequent during those days. The ground on Slate was unvaryingly dirty, rocky and jagged with black shale rock. No mountain or valley crept higher or lower than hundred feet from mean.

The alien life on which I have remarked are present in Earthly mythology from one culture to the next without fail, creatures so magnificent and remarkable that it was through them that I first began to learn the truth. Slate was populated with dragons.

Slate’s habitable region was secluded to one small section of the moon which faced the Earth. The other side was much too violent, even for dragons, but no dragon ever drew breath that didn’t long for Earth and its cool blue comfort. To say Slate was habitable is a misnomer, however, because in truth, even they would have succumbed in the universe’s infancy had it not been for some inherent qualities ingrained in every aspect of Slate’s composition.

There are certain items, objects, and elements which are known to have magical properties and can augment magical powers and spells. By nature, humanity is not a magical race, nor is any “living” creature, by which we measure the standards of “living.” But humankind can (and do) utilize certain of these elements, such as the lodestone, to enable them to access unnatural powers. Slate is such an element; and dragons are wholly magical creatures which could not exist—on Slate or anywhere else—without the existence of magic. The entire moon is a lodestone of sorts, and its atmosphere teems with the spark and crackle of magical energy; this is what enabled Slate’s existence from the dawn of time, and is also the means to which it was banished from this plane of existence.

On Dragons
Dragons are elders of the universe; they crawled into existence when light became light, and they’ve been ravenous ever since, cursed by their fate to observe the planet of plenty they orbited, just beyond their reach. But they plotted, earnestly desiring to create some portal through which they could travel to the Great Blue Planet.

There were three classes of dragons, two of which belonged to the aristocracy of Slate and one which was bred as food. The ruling class was made up of giant, ruthless beasts that had little use for language or tolerance; they ruled through sheer power and force of will. Their temperament was like that of a wasp—to strike, destroy, devour.

Next in the hierarchal line was a group more like moths in temperament than wasps; they were more cerebral than their brutish counterparts. Though all dragons were magical creatures, these moth dragons were the ones that most utilized these inherent abilities. They were often very powerful magicians and telepaths, the strongest of which would serve as advisors and assistants to the wasps that jockeyed for superior positions among themselves. Those that were granted these lofty rankings were inducted into the only real organization among the dragons, known as the Clan, and plied their unique abilities in attempts to make their master the king of all dragons.

If the brutish rulers could be thought of as wasps and the cerebral thinkers as moths, then the foodbreed dragons must be thought of as grubs. There being no other life on Slate, animal or plant, dragons ate other dragons, and the foodbreed were bred exclusively for that purpose. Fat, ungainly and the only breed of dragon incapable of flight or speech, foodbreed dragons were bred beneath the steamy surface of Slate in deep, dark labyrinthine caverns and chambers (like an ant’s nest or rabbit’s warren, but on a much grander scale) by moths that weren’t blessed with psychic abilities and had no hope of ever becoming members of the Clan.

In appearance, the wasp dragons ranged in dark versions of red, green, gold and blue. Their stature was towering, with a long reptilian tail and muscular arms and legs and broad leathery wings. Atop their heads they grew various lengths and numbers of ivory tusks and horns. Occasionally they might even grow a bony frill, like a triceratops. Their hide was armored with plate mail scales. Moths were more likely to be gray, silver or white or black. Not normally blessed with tusks or horns, they grew beards and sometimes manes and their tails were normally snake-like and coiling. They often had long, serpentine necks as well, very similar in appearance to the dragons of the Far East that we have seen in artwork from that ancient area. The foodbreed grubs were fat, round, and indeed grub-like in appearance, with rows of small legs rather than a single pair like the moths and wasps, and a small, crunchy head that was a particular delicacy among the ruling class.

Wasps, in addition to their superior strength and size, were usually able to spew fire from their mouths, whereas the moth dragons were imbued with a less devastating ability to spit venom or acid. The wasp’s magical abilities were minimal, but they could perform some basic magic. To the moth’s great relief, they found magic to be boring and somewhat weak.

Dragons first journeyed to Earth when they found that on one day each hundred years Slate passed near enough to Earth so that their atmospheres intermingled. This was an especially destructive day on Earth, unbeknownst to the dragons, who intensely desired to taste the fruits of Earth. The northern lights turned out to be the doorway of sorts, and on that day each century, scores of dragons—wasps and moths—would make the journey. Once on Earth they discovered some very important things, for instance: wasps were cold blooded. The passage through the portal left them stiff and often unable to fly if unaided, but, through the magic of the Clan, they could be granted enough internal warmth to make the journey to some tropical land, where they could rule as they felt was their right. The moths, warm-blooded, found themselves to be quite comfortable in mountainous and chilly lands and found that on Earth, when the wasps were elsewhere, they were rulers themselves.

With Slate orbiting Earth, the Earth’s surface was under constant cataclysmic transformation by volcanic eruptions, devastating tempests and earthquakes that could be felt on opposite sides of the planet. The oceanic tides flooded miles inland on every shore forcing man far into the interiors of land. But for the dragons, these disturbances were minor at worst. Even in the tumultuous state of the Earth’s surface, it was far better than Slate ever could have been. They ate whatever they liked, many varieties of food animals, large and small, and the sport was unparalleled, for when the dragons first came to Earth man was still in his infancy. The masters of Earth were dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs provided game until the dragons finally killed them all, and then came the mammals: weak, warm and dumb, the mammals made good sport for many years, right through to the dawn of man. When man came, during the Earth’s great cataclysm, when the surface of the planet itself was in a drastic state of flux that would separate its boundaries forever, dragons paused only briefly enough to decide individually how best to subjugate the new race of Earthlings. But man gained intelligence which grew and grew until it was either worshipping the dragons at one point or disparaging them at another. When it became obvious that man would not be as easily throttled as had all the other Earth creatures, the dragons, rather than draw away to observe, sought to stamp them out and crush them before they became too problematic. But man’s intelligence grew, and there finally came a time when man was more intelligent than dragonkind. Man discovered magic for himself, and the axis of power on Earth began to tilt.

Singularly, a man was no match for a dragon; but generation by generation, man’s march to dominance continued to shift the tables. He used his intelligence to hide, to keep on the move, and, when the opportunity presented itself, he became the hunter of dragons—a position the dragon had never experienced before. As years passed and dragon numbers diminished, the true dawn of civilization crept forward. Cities thrust up throughout the world, and society progressed. But then came the hundred-year shift, and the flood of dragons that came to Earth from Slate that year was unstoppable. All of the grandeur that mankind had built was, in a matter of only a few seasons, reduced to ash. There is no surviving testament to this time, when man sought to rise above the wilderness and set himself apart as the masters of Earth. Little had mankind known that the Clan on Slate was in constant telepathic contact with the dragons on Earth, and that they’d arranged to burn mankind out in a single, awe-inspiring onslaught of annihilation. The skies writhed so densely with dragons that they blocked out the sun.

Once again, mankind was reduced to scattered tribes roaming the wasteland by night, not daring to build a fire or to sleep out in the open.

At this time a man stepped forward whose name was Esca Moor. Centuries-old and wizened, he was Earth’s greatest magician and he alone discovered that the source of the dragons was Slate. He had been a king, but after his great city was destroyed he went into a cave and spent many years meditating on a solution to the problem. When he finally emerged, he had in mind a way to finally rid the world of the threat of dragons once and for all.

Esca Moor performed a magical feat that was unparalleled by dragon or man before or since. After that spell was cast Slate was gone from the sky.

Slate—an entire moon orbiting the Earth—had disappeared.

With Slate gone, Earth was influenced by only one moon’s gravitational pull, and it was farther away and weaker than Slate’s. So Earth began to enjoy a stability it never had. In one fell blow, the oceans settled; tidal waves no longer assaulted the coasts every day; the many volcanoes that kept people running for their lives settled to a few smoldering mountains; the once raging tempests which shred the Earth’s surface of every tree and shrub no longer raged as they once had. The surface of the Earth, finally, was peaceful. But the greatest benefit to mankind above all else was that the scourge of the dragons was over.

The consequences of Esca Moor’s decisive blow became apparent immediately: without Slate, magic was no longer a useful element of power on Earth. The dragons lost their powers of flight and speech; they could no longer breathe fire. They became little more than dinosaurs, subject to age and time, starving, slothful, and were hunted out and ultimately destroyed. But man also lost the use of magic, and Esca the Moor became old quickly, and before long, succumbed to age. Before he died, however, and having in his possession a stone that is believed to have originated on Slate and must therefore have accompanied a dragon to Earth, Esca Moor cast one final curse on dragonkind, and this remains unproven: in the event that dragons ever do break free from their tomb of banishment and return to Earth, at the moment they breathe the air of our atmosphere, they will appear as us. That is, they will become human physically, thus nullifying many of their most terrifying and fearsome abilities and strengths.

Earth’s prosperity, however wonderful for humanity, was equally painful for those dragons that remained on Slate. Earth was still visible from the black moon, and the dragon’s telepathic rapports remained strong between Earth and Slate as the dragons of Earth were all hunted down and slaughtered. The Clan struggled to find a way to reverse the enchantment, but could not. Slate was doomed to hover beyond Earth’s dimension, fixated by an invisible umbilical that ensured the black moon’s invisible impotence. The dragon’s hatred grew, year by year, century by century, millennium by millennium.

On The Wash
Millennia passed and the spell remained. Humanity forgot that dragons had ever existed or had ever dominated the Earth except in legend and myth.

But on Slate the heated rush to nullify what became known as the “Ultimate Curse” remained intense. And there came a time when there was finally perceived a way, not to undo the curse, but to circumvent it.

Two thousand years ago, a powerful set of magicks were unleashed, and an explosion occurred of the like the Earth has never before experienced. It is theorized of course that a similar explosion must have occurred on Slate, which must have shaken the tiny moon on its axis. It is believed that the explosion caused a tear, or rift, in the fabric of reality which separates Earth from Slate, effectively opening a portal of sorts between the two. The exact location of this portal is unknown, although it is believed to be in the far arctic north; an expedition is being planned at this time to venture into the north in an attempt to find it. It is unknown if any dragons have come through it, although it is very unlikely that they could have survived even if they did; it is theorized that the portal is within a mountain of ice and that any entry would destroy the dragon immediately.

What is known of the portal is that it has allowed an exchange of energies between Earth and Slate, and this energy which flows into Earth’s atmosphere is what has come to be known as “the Wash.” Very few people know of the presence of the Wash, fewer still understand its subtleties. The basics are thus: The energy flows from north (the source) to south. They exit the Earth somewhere in the vicinity of the South Pole. The Wash does not cover the Earth like a blanket, but rather it spreads like an expanding series of rivers, from the mouth (the source) to culmination at which point they all rejoin. Within these rivers of energy flow the mystic energies of Slate itself. Magic, which had been nonexistent for millennia upon millennia, became once again possible; to a lesser degree even outside of the Wash.

When in the Wash distances fold on themselves; to travel from London to Liverpool might take two days’ journey outside of the Wash by horse, but find a path within the Wash and it takes only a few hours to walk. Flintlock weaponry is unusable inside the Wash, as fire burns with mystic energies rather than combustible energies such as we are used to. Age is no longer a concern when in the Wash; while it is true a knife to the heart will kill you just the same as in Earth air, the regular advancement of time seems to be altered. It is conceivable that one could live all eternity if they remain always within the Wash (This is likely the basis for the theory of the Fountain of Youth, but that is another essay). To enter or exit the Wash one must adhere to the proper locations of established entrances and exits. To mistakenly attempt to exit without benefit of an actual exit place, a person would die, their body mummifying, to be preserved for all to witness to their folly. It is not possible to enter the Wash without first finding an entrance place. It is possible to pass through the Wash without ever being truly in the Wash. i.e. When exiting, you might double back and pass through the same “space” that you’d just exited, only to find that you are not within the Wash, if you didn’t enter properly.

In conclusion, the Wash is the equivalent of having an entire separate world built right inside of the one we all now occupy, and we must be ever diligent in our efforts to ensure that dragons never return or the days of humanity’s dominance over the planet will undoubtedly cease.