Post by DM on Oct 18, 2014 12:57:29 GMT
Dragonfall War
Although the Time of Dragons is long forgotten, even among the most ancient of great wyrms, the ancient confl ict between Tiamat and Bahamut has continued, increasing and decreasing in intensity over time, gradually subsuming other races and cultures as well.
The last great era of confl ict between the Platinum Dragon and the Chromatic Dragon raged from –2087 DR to –1071 DR, during the fi rst millennium of the Untheric empire. Tiamat’s cult was brought to Faerûn (at least among humans) by the Mulan. The clergy of Enlil preached that Tiamat was the Nemesis of the Gods, and she was blamed by the god-kings for every setback Unther experienced as it rose to greatness and then decayed over the centuries. Tiamat battled an Untheric alias of Bahamut, known as Marduk the Justice Bringer, time and again, but neither wyrm could prevail.
In –1,071 DR, the Untheric pantheon marched to war against the deities of the orc pantheon in a cataclysmic confl ict that saw the death of many gods. During the fi nal Battle of the Gods, Tiamat launched a surprise attack against Gilgeam while he battled Ilneval. The ever-vigilant Marduk intervened, killing Tiamat before she could land a death blow against Gilgeam, but at the cost of his own life.
In the wake of the Battle of the Gods, the Platinum Dragon was reduced to the rank of celestial paragonBoED (with divine rank 1 if celestial paragons are considered demigods in your campaign), and the Chromatic Dragon was reduced to the rank of archfi endBoVD (with divine rank 1 if archfi ends are considered demigods in your campaign). Marduk’s church vanished entirely, his name remembered only as one of the Old Ones of Unther, but Tiamat’s cult survived after a fashion. As Gilgeam grew increasingly tyrannical, the people of Unther never forgot the Nemesis of the Gods and they increasingly turned to her in secret for succor.
Return of the Dragon Queen
In the Year of the Bloodbird (1346 DR), after centuries of silence from the Dragon Queen, the few remaining followers of the Nemesis of the Gods successfully summoned an aspect of Tiamat known as the Dark Lady to Unther, an event that had been heralded centuries before by Ochir Naal, prophet of Tiamat. Over the next dozen years, the Dark Lady secretly fomented rebellion throughout Unther, seeking to overthrow the hated Gilgeam, and the ranks of her followers swelled once again (elevating her to the rank of demigod).
Unknown to her followers in Unther, the Dragon Queen had her own reasons for fi nally answering their prayers. While the Church of Tiamat grew in opposition to the despotic rule of Gilgeam, the Dragon Queen turned her baleful gaze to Sammaster’s studies, in which she saw suggestions of mad genius. Through subtle hints and divinely inspired bursts of intuition, Tiamat helped Sammaster rediscover the secrets of the Dracorage mythal without revealing to him that his discoveries were shaped by the claws of a dark god. In time, roaming the Moonsea region and the Cold Lands in disguise, Sammaster discovered the existence of the Dracorage mythal and its secrets. As Tiamat had hoped, he set about harnessing the power of the Dracorage for his own ends.
Time of Troubles
In the Year of Shadows (1358 DR), the Avatar Crisis forced the gods of Toril to walk among their followers in mortal form, upsetting many divine machinations, including those of the Dragon Queen. During the Time of Troubles, Gilgeam destroyed Tiamat, seemingly ending her threat to his eternal rule. In truth, however, Tiamat’s essence was splintered among three powerful dragons in the region. The largest of the three, Tchazzar, consumed the other two, therefore meeting the conditions the Dragon Queen had laid down in advance. Tchazzar was thereby transformed into Tiamat anew.
The Fall of the Gods also returned Bahamut to the land in avatar form for the first time since the death of Marduk. During his sojourn on Faerûn, the Platinum Dragon caught wind of Tiamat’s brewing plots, which presaged a resumption of the Dragonfall War.
Rise of the Dragon King
In the Year of Serpent (1359 DR), Gareth Dragonsbane, future king of Damara, and his adventuring companions returned from an expedition to the Abyss, having stolen the Wand of Orcus, shattered it in the blood of an avatar of Tiamat (checking her plans once again), and returned to Damara with the blessing of Bahamut. Gareth brought with him the Tree-Gem, which, once planted, represented Bahamut’s covenant to protect Damara against the influence of demons as long as the kingdom of Damara allied itself with the forces of good. In so doing, Gareth brought to Damara a measure of peace and freedom from demonic meddling that the rest of the Demonlands has never experienced.
As Bahamut had hoped, the planting of the Tree-Gem sparked renewed interest in his teachings among the nondragon races. In the years that followed, good-aligned mortals across Faerûn heard the Call of Bahamut, and many pledged themselves to the service of the Platinum Dragon. The elite became platinum knights or vassals of Bahamut. Some of those who were called by Bahamut chose to undergo the Rite of Rebirth, transforming themselves into a long-forgotten race known as the dragonborn.
As the ranks of his followers swelled, Bahamut rose in power, assuming the rank of lesser deity once again, while Tiamat did the same.
The planting of Bahamut’s Tree-Gem also drew the attention of the Dragon Queen. In response, Tiamat dispatched an avatar to Castle Perilous in the cold wastelands of Vaasa. Scores of chromatic dragons heeded her call and descended on the ruined fortress. With their participation, the Dragon Queen initiated a massive breeding program, creating all manner of spawn of Tiamat, horrifying monstrosities that had not been seen in Toril since the Battle of the Gods. The spawn of Tiamat then spread far and wide.
Year of Rogue Dragons
In the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR), Sammaster’s destruction while trying to turn Tiamat into a dracolich scuppered both her and his plans.However, the effect was to magnify the power of the Dracorage Mythal.
Only dracoliches would remain unaffected by Sammaster’s endless, ever-intensifying Dracorage, and wyrms of every species would have to ally themselves with the Cult and accept transformation into the form of a Sacred One, or suffer permanent madness. As the Rage of Dragons spread and worsened, chromatic dragons across Faerûn either succumbed to its effects and turned on whoever crossed their path or desperately embraced the Dragon Cult’s remnants as an alternative. Rampaging wyrms wreaked great destruction across Faerûn, from As’arem to Calimport and from Asavir’s Channel to the Tannath Mountains, but the Dragon Cult and Tiamat’s guiding hand focused their destruction on Damara, Impiltur, Narfell, Sossal, Vaasa, and the Cold Lands north of the Moonsea. Communities such as Bloodstone Pass, the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, Uluvin, and Ylraphon were destroyed or nearly so by dragons who succumbed to madness, and other groups, such as the Thousand Fists orc tribe of the Nether Mountains and the navies of Cimbar and Soorenar, were decimated by the dragons’ wrath.
Lareth, sovereign of the gold dragons, called for a great council in the Galena Mountains, where he unveiled his plan for all the metallic dragons to enter a magical slumber until the Dracorage subsided, as his kind had done time and again. (While many elder metallic dragons had the magical ability to flee to another plane, due to long-standing draconic traditions regarding territorial claims, they did not do so, fearing the effect of “abandoning” territory on the Material Plane to their hated chromatic cousins.)Although many wyrms agreed with the King of Justice, a few rebels rejected this approach, maintaining (thanks to subtle hints from the Lord of the North Wind) that this episode of Dracorage was like no other and would last forever. Displaying the first tinges of madness, Lareth threatened to use his minions to coerce or destroy any dragon who resisted. In time, the great gold wyrm Tamarand, second only to Lareth, was forced to destroy the King of Justice, but he refused the mantle of royalty.
Only the gem dragons largely escaped the effects of the Dracorage, for they had the power (and the willingness) to flee to the Inner Planes for however long it lasted. However, a few waited too long and succumbed to the effects of the Dracorage as well.
Turning of the Great Cycle
In the wake of Sammaster’s Rage of Dragons, Faerûn’s wyrms returned to their lairs, greatly reduced in number. Many had died unleashing orgies of destruction on the lesser races of Faerûn. Others had embraced dracolichdom, and some now found themselves magically beholden to the Dragon Cult’s Wearers of Purple. Few among the dragonkind races realized that Tiamat had set in motion the events that led to the destruction of the Dracorage mythal, but word quickly spread that Sammaster and the Cult were behind the most recent rage (thanks to skilled rumormongering by both the Harpers and the Church of Tiamat). Even fewer realized the end of the Dracorage marked the Turning of the Great Cycle, the long-foretold resumption of religious fervor among dragonkind.
In the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) Faerûn was beset by great lightning strikes the length and breadth of the continent. At least some of those lightning strikes marked the impact points of an unusual year-long rain of meteors. In a series of visions, Bahamut and Tiamat instructed their respective followers to seek out such sites, for each contained some form of draconic egg within. In the months that followed, the Church of Tiamat recovered more than half of the eggs of the latest Tearfall and brought them back to the Altar of Scales in Unthalass in preparation for the looming war. The rest were lost, hatched on their own, or recovered by followers of Bahamut.
Now, with Faerûn still reeling from the aftereffects of Sammaster’s rage, the Dragonfall War threatens to erupt anew, pitting the followers of Bahamut and Tiamat against each other in an ancient holy war last fought centuries ago, while the Church of Tiamat and the Wearers of Purple struggle for control of Sammaster’s legacy.
Although the Time of Dragons is long forgotten, even among the most ancient of great wyrms, the ancient confl ict between Tiamat and Bahamut has continued, increasing and decreasing in intensity over time, gradually subsuming other races and cultures as well.
The last great era of confl ict between the Platinum Dragon and the Chromatic Dragon raged from –2087 DR to –1071 DR, during the fi rst millennium of the Untheric empire. Tiamat’s cult was brought to Faerûn (at least among humans) by the Mulan. The clergy of Enlil preached that Tiamat was the Nemesis of the Gods, and she was blamed by the god-kings for every setback Unther experienced as it rose to greatness and then decayed over the centuries. Tiamat battled an Untheric alias of Bahamut, known as Marduk the Justice Bringer, time and again, but neither wyrm could prevail.
In –1,071 DR, the Untheric pantheon marched to war against the deities of the orc pantheon in a cataclysmic confl ict that saw the death of many gods. During the fi nal Battle of the Gods, Tiamat launched a surprise attack against Gilgeam while he battled Ilneval. The ever-vigilant Marduk intervened, killing Tiamat before she could land a death blow against Gilgeam, but at the cost of his own life.
In the wake of the Battle of the Gods, the Platinum Dragon was reduced to the rank of celestial paragonBoED (with divine rank 1 if celestial paragons are considered demigods in your campaign), and the Chromatic Dragon was reduced to the rank of archfi endBoVD (with divine rank 1 if archfi ends are considered demigods in your campaign). Marduk’s church vanished entirely, his name remembered only as one of the Old Ones of Unther, but Tiamat’s cult survived after a fashion. As Gilgeam grew increasingly tyrannical, the people of Unther never forgot the Nemesis of the Gods and they increasingly turned to her in secret for succor.
Return of the Dragon Queen
In the Year of the Bloodbird (1346 DR), after centuries of silence from the Dragon Queen, the few remaining followers of the Nemesis of the Gods successfully summoned an aspect of Tiamat known as the Dark Lady to Unther, an event that had been heralded centuries before by Ochir Naal, prophet of Tiamat. Over the next dozen years, the Dark Lady secretly fomented rebellion throughout Unther, seeking to overthrow the hated Gilgeam, and the ranks of her followers swelled once again (elevating her to the rank of demigod).
Unknown to her followers in Unther, the Dragon Queen had her own reasons for fi nally answering their prayers. While the Church of Tiamat grew in opposition to the despotic rule of Gilgeam, the Dragon Queen turned her baleful gaze to Sammaster’s studies, in which she saw suggestions of mad genius. Through subtle hints and divinely inspired bursts of intuition, Tiamat helped Sammaster rediscover the secrets of the Dracorage mythal without revealing to him that his discoveries were shaped by the claws of a dark god. In time, roaming the Moonsea region and the Cold Lands in disguise, Sammaster discovered the existence of the Dracorage mythal and its secrets. As Tiamat had hoped, he set about harnessing the power of the Dracorage for his own ends.
Time of Troubles
In the Year of Shadows (1358 DR), the Avatar Crisis forced the gods of Toril to walk among their followers in mortal form, upsetting many divine machinations, including those of the Dragon Queen. During the Time of Troubles, Gilgeam destroyed Tiamat, seemingly ending her threat to his eternal rule. In truth, however, Tiamat’s essence was splintered among three powerful dragons in the region. The largest of the three, Tchazzar, consumed the other two, therefore meeting the conditions the Dragon Queen had laid down in advance. Tchazzar was thereby transformed into Tiamat anew.
The Fall of the Gods also returned Bahamut to the land in avatar form for the first time since the death of Marduk. During his sojourn on Faerûn, the Platinum Dragon caught wind of Tiamat’s brewing plots, which presaged a resumption of the Dragonfall War.
Rise of the Dragon King
In the Year of Serpent (1359 DR), Gareth Dragonsbane, future king of Damara, and his adventuring companions returned from an expedition to the Abyss, having stolen the Wand of Orcus, shattered it in the blood of an avatar of Tiamat (checking her plans once again), and returned to Damara with the blessing of Bahamut. Gareth brought with him the Tree-Gem, which, once planted, represented Bahamut’s covenant to protect Damara against the influence of demons as long as the kingdom of Damara allied itself with the forces of good. In so doing, Gareth brought to Damara a measure of peace and freedom from demonic meddling that the rest of the Demonlands has never experienced.
As Bahamut had hoped, the planting of the Tree-Gem sparked renewed interest in his teachings among the nondragon races. In the years that followed, good-aligned mortals across Faerûn heard the Call of Bahamut, and many pledged themselves to the service of the Platinum Dragon. The elite became platinum knights or vassals of Bahamut. Some of those who were called by Bahamut chose to undergo the Rite of Rebirth, transforming themselves into a long-forgotten race known as the dragonborn.
As the ranks of his followers swelled, Bahamut rose in power, assuming the rank of lesser deity once again, while Tiamat did the same.
The planting of Bahamut’s Tree-Gem also drew the attention of the Dragon Queen. In response, Tiamat dispatched an avatar to Castle Perilous in the cold wastelands of Vaasa. Scores of chromatic dragons heeded her call and descended on the ruined fortress. With their participation, the Dragon Queen initiated a massive breeding program, creating all manner of spawn of Tiamat, horrifying monstrosities that had not been seen in Toril since the Battle of the Gods. The spawn of Tiamat then spread far and wide.
Year of Rogue Dragons
In the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR), Sammaster’s destruction while trying to turn Tiamat into a dracolich scuppered both her and his plans.However, the effect was to magnify the power of the Dracorage Mythal.
Only dracoliches would remain unaffected by Sammaster’s endless, ever-intensifying Dracorage, and wyrms of every species would have to ally themselves with the Cult and accept transformation into the form of a Sacred One, or suffer permanent madness. As the Rage of Dragons spread and worsened, chromatic dragons across Faerûn either succumbed to its effects and turned on whoever crossed their path or desperately embraced the Dragon Cult’s remnants as an alternative. Rampaging wyrms wreaked great destruction across Faerûn, from As’arem to Calimport and from Asavir’s Channel to the Tannath Mountains, but the Dragon Cult and Tiamat’s guiding hand focused their destruction on Damara, Impiltur, Narfell, Sossal, Vaasa, and the Cold Lands north of the Moonsea. Communities such as Bloodstone Pass, the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, Uluvin, and Ylraphon were destroyed or nearly so by dragons who succumbed to madness, and other groups, such as the Thousand Fists orc tribe of the Nether Mountains and the navies of Cimbar and Soorenar, were decimated by the dragons’ wrath.
Lareth, sovereign of the gold dragons, called for a great council in the Galena Mountains, where he unveiled his plan for all the metallic dragons to enter a magical slumber until the Dracorage subsided, as his kind had done time and again. (While many elder metallic dragons had the magical ability to flee to another plane, due to long-standing draconic traditions regarding territorial claims, they did not do so, fearing the effect of “abandoning” territory on the Material Plane to their hated chromatic cousins.)Although many wyrms agreed with the King of Justice, a few rebels rejected this approach, maintaining (thanks to subtle hints from the Lord of the North Wind) that this episode of Dracorage was like no other and would last forever. Displaying the first tinges of madness, Lareth threatened to use his minions to coerce or destroy any dragon who resisted. In time, the great gold wyrm Tamarand, second only to Lareth, was forced to destroy the King of Justice, but he refused the mantle of royalty.
Only the gem dragons largely escaped the effects of the Dracorage, for they had the power (and the willingness) to flee to the Inner Planes for however long it lasted. However, a few waited too long and succumbed to the effects of the Dracorage as well.
Turning of the Great Cycle
In the wake of Sammaster’s Rage of Dragons, Faerûn’s wyrms returned to their lairs, greatly reduced in number. Many had died unleashing orgies of destruction on the lesser races of Faerûn. Others had embraced dracolichdom, and some now found themselves magically beholden to the Dragon Cult’s Wearers of Purple. Few among the dragonkind races realized that Tiamat had set in motion the events that led to the destruction of the Dracorage mythal, but word quickly spread that Sammaster and the Cult were behind the most recent rage (thanks to skilled rumormongering by both the Harpers and the Church of Tiamat). Even fewer realized the end of the Dracorage marked the Turning of the Great Cycle, the long-foretold resumption of religious fervor among dragonkind.
In the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) Faerûn was beset by great lightning strikes the length and breadth of the continent. At least some of those lightning strikes marked the impact points of an unusual year-long rain of meteors. In a series of visions, Bahamut and Tiamat instructed their respective followers to seek out such sites, for each contained some form of draconic egg within. In the months that followed, the Church of Tiamat recovered more than half of the eggs of the latest Tearfall and brought them back to the Altar of Scales in Unthalass in preparation for the looming war. The rest were lost, hatched on their own, or recovered by followers of Bahamut.
Now, with Faerûn still reeling from the aftereffects of Sammaster’s rage, the Dragonfall War threatens to erupt anew, pitting the followers of Bahamut and Tiamat against each other in an ancient holy war last fought centuries ago, while the Church of Tiamat and the Wearers of Purple struggle for control of Sammaster’s legacy.