This text is written in Common and is entitled The Origin Myths - A Treatise, written by Dunkelzahn of Candlekeep, dated 1354 DR. The book appears to be a survey of various origin myths as to the creation of the universe, Toril, and creaturely kinds across different cultures and species. A key passage reads as follows:
Perhaps surprisingly, there are very few origin myths that relate directly to dragons. One of the few is a tome known as the Book of the World. Only one copy of this book has ever been found—and that in the land of Asram, about 100 years ago. The language of the book is Thorass—more correctly, an even more archaic form of Thorass than most samples of this language—but the script used is a simplified runic form. (No doubt the selection of runic script was necessitated by the construction of the book: it consists of 300 sheets of thin, flexible metal onto which the runes have been scribed with great precision.)
This combination of language and script explains the difficulties and delays involved in translating the tome. From its content and the mythic forms used, it is obvious to scholars that the Book of the World is an example of holy literature—that is, it once was at the center of a body of religious beliefs. The nature of some of those beliefs can be inferred from the myths contained in the Book, but there is insufficient cultural context to confidently analyze the belief structure. (For example, it is not known whether the creation myths are symbolic or intended to be taken as absolute truth.)
The sheer volume of mythic material within the Book, and the relatively organized chronological and contextual structure used throughout, imply that it originated from a fairly sophisticated culture. This is paradoxical, since no cultures of sufficient sophistication apparently ever arose in Asram. The possibility cannot be overlooked that the Book was transported from elsewhere and abandoned in Asram, but that theory also has its problems. There is no modern culture that contains even the vaguest mythological or symbolic echoes of the Book's content. Judging from the oxidation of the Book's metal pages, the specimen under examination was probably no more than 500 years old. In that time, it seems unlikely that an entire religio-mythic tradition would vanish from Toril. But that seems to be the case here. (The wild speculations that the Book of the World did not arise in Tori1 at all are discounted by most reputable scholars.)
The Book provides a fascinating origin myth relating to dragonkind. From a close reading of the text, it becomes obvious that Asgorath the World-Shaper is a dragon. The implication—that a dragon created the universe, and that dragons were the first creatures to exist—is quite fascinating. A further point arises from the sentence that reads, "And so
Asgorath bent her form around the Crystal Sun, and touched her breath to it." In the original Thorass, the word "breath"—normally used as a singular or uncountable noun in this context—has been given a plural suffix ("breaths"). Is this meant to imply that Asgorath is a multi-headed dragon?
The text is clearer when it comes to the Spawn of Asgorath. There can be no doubt that these creatures are red dragons. The following sentences hint that this religion holds the red dragon as the most important species of dragon. All others would "later depart from . . . purity."
When the Renegade ("bahmat" in the original Thorass) duplicates the actions of Asgorath, the dragons that arise are not of the pure red, but rather "colored . . . like the unliving metals." The implication here is obvious: The Spawn of the Renegade are the metallic and primarily good-aligned-dragons, What the Book of the World contains is not only an origin myth of dragons—which makes it important enough in its own right but also one of the few surviving evil-oriented origin myths.
It is easy to speculate, based on this myth. The plural inflection of the word "breath" might be taken as implying multiple heads; the Thorass word for renegade is "bahmat." It seems almost too close a correlation—can Asgorath be Tiamat and the Renegade be Bahamut?
An interesting speculation has recently arisen. It has long been thought that the Book of the World represents a body of human, demihuman, or humanoid myth. Is this a short-sighted and humanocentric assumption? The key features of the origin myth—sacrifice, betrayal, and rebirth—are common to almost every humanoid ethos, but in all of those myth-bodies the central characters are anthropomorphic. In other words, humanoid myth-builders create gods in their own image. In the myth presented in the Book of the World, there is not a single humanoid character.
Might not the Book of the World present an origin myth that was originally developed by dragons—probably red dragons—themselves? At a later date, humanoids adopted the myth, and incorporated it into the Book—for the Book of the World is obviously a humanoid artifact.
Dragons have never been thought to be great mythographers. Does this statement tell us more about dragons or about the prejudices of researchers?