Dragons: Spirit beings called into existence during ancient times by the strength of the widespread belief of ancient humans in "guiding spirits".
The spirits/dragons bond with a young human when they first are called into being and mature over the following 10-40 years. This bonding and maturation cycle result in the spirit's characteristics and strongest influences being the same as those of the human they were bonded to... ie if the human they were bonded to lived life as an intelligent but amoral person that was personally greedy, then those were the traits that the spirit emphasized and had the most influence over in its "guiding" of humanity.
Dragons typically guide humanity through the use of visions and dreams in the humans most susceptible to their particular influence. They became known as dragons due to the content (ravening armored beasts ravaging the surrounding countryside that had to be eliminated for the common good) of some of these visions and dreams they gave over the centuries.
As humanity's population exploded and spread out, new spirit beings were less and less commonly called into being due to the combination of 1) less strength of belief and 2) the sheer mass of conflicting beliefs counteracting that strength. The weaker the belief that called it into being, the weaker the resulting spirit/dragon is and the longer the bonding and maturation cycle has to be. During the maturation cycle, the spirit being can only influence their bonded human and those individuals that their bonded human comes into direct contact with. After the maturation process is finished, the spirit being/dragon separates from their bonded human and can influence anyone within a certain range of those whose characteristics are closely matched to the areas of the dragon's influence. The strength of their influence is directly proportional to the strength of the dragon.
The dragons only end up existing and influencing humanity for a period of three times the length of their bonding cycle. So for those dragons who were called very strongly into existence and had a short bonding cycle (10 years), they can only influence/"guide" humanity for 30 years but their influence is very very strongly felt. On the other end of the scale, the very weakest of the dragon spirits would be able to influence/"guide" humanity for over 100 years but their influence would be very subtle. Conversely, due to length of time they have to influence humanity, their influence could end up very widespread indeed and could have much greater overall impact in humanity's actions.
Only the bonded humans are aware of the dragons' actual existence but the bond itself prevents them from telling about it even after the dragon fully matures and separates from their human. The bonding does give the human additional physical strength and stamina as well as charisma. Their primary traits and characteristics tend to be magnified while they are bonded as well (for example, intelligence... if the bonded human was very intelligent, say an IQ of 130, then the bonding would make them a genius with an IQ of over 160).
If the bonded human dies before the dragon is fully matured and can separate, then the dragon dies as well. This has happened frequently through the years especially as the dragons became weaker and needed longer maturation cycles due to the weaker beliefs that called them into being. Once the dragons became so weak that the resulting maturation cycle became longer than the human lifespan, no dragon has been able to survive to provide guidance to the human race. The end result for the last several centuries has been a series of bonded humans that have had lots of localized influence, but no overall guiding influence for the mass of humanity.
That is until one day that a bonded human about to die discovers a way to transfer their bond to another thereby allowing the dragon the time needed to fully mature....
Results: A new bond that consists of a dragon with already developed characteristics/influences occupying a human that has different characteristics. Do those characteristic conflicts cause problems either mentally, emotionally, socially, physically, etc? Does this mean that the dragon would develop a wider range of influences or would his initial characteristics be replaced with those of his new bond mate? Typically in a bond, the pair "grow up" together which results in very few internal conflicts between the two... but with this new bond, what is the result? Also, once this dragon is fully mature it would end up existing and influencing humanity for the longest period of time ever and as a result its influence would, in the long run, have the greatest impact....but what would that impact be?
Does anyone care to take up the challenge?
