The surviving text of the Encylica Drakonica.
Encyclica Drakonica
Committed faithfully to ink by Rajeshwar, humble student of the illuminated scholar Alpanu, whose researches and words these are. May she find peace within the belly of the red wyvern of Castilloq, who devoured her before this book could be completed. Compiled this Year 410 of the Most Holy and Enlightened Empire of Montalvair, which is Year 19 of Empress Ramtha II, may she rule forever.
(Copied and annotated by the hand of the humble Jirran Sere, from the secret copy entrusted to the College of the Horned Moon, this Year 5871 of the Eternal Empire of Montalvair, during the reign of the Sublime Emperor Bertoldo. I warn my readers, and especially any scribes who may wish to copy this tome in the future, that this book is accursed. All copies save two have vanished, and with them have vanished -- or more generally, perished -- most beings who have owned and read them. It is said that some dragon, enraged at a lie -- or more likely a truth -- in these pages, has made it her life’s mission to hunt down and destroy every copy, as well as every set of eyes that have beheld the words to follow. This humble scholar is nearing the end of his life, scarred by encounters with dragonkin great and small. A quiet retirement upon the emperor’s vineyards was offered to me more than once, as a reward for sundry services to the crown of Montalvair and its allies. Two weeks sipping wine and watching the sun set over the Sea was enough to make me willing to risk whatever fate awaits those who dare to copy the words of the sage Alpanu and her student Rajeshwar. Come at me, whatsoever being you are! Jirran is ready, and fears nothing any longer.)
Esteemed scholar who reads these humble inquiries,
Far be it from I, Rajeshwar, to presume ääto instruct you in the elementary studies of dragons and their kin. It is thought unlikely that a beginning student should get her hands on this book. Many tomes presently exist for the edification and (sad to say) titillation of those just beginning their quest for draconic knowledge. Nonetheless, my teacher, the incomparable and much-mourned ALPANU, taught me to be thorough and to leave nothing up to assumptions. Therefore it is with a thousand apologies that I begin each entry within this Encyclica with facts and histories any schoolchild would know.
We begin, therefore, with the most fundamental distinctions between dragons and their kin. There are presently thought to be five lineages of dragonkin:
Drakes, wingless predators of the plains and forests, only rarely possessing the famed breath weapon of their more evolved kin. As such, they are the most readily tamed of all dragonkin. Rich nobles and parvenus alike employ guard drakes to shock and impress their guests; dragon-worshipping cultists of any description would consider themselves truly blessed to obtain a drake or two to ornament their ceremonies. Unbeknownst to those who flaunt drakes as a status symbol, there is some debate amongst the learned over whether drakes may be considered true dragonkin. If they are, surely they must be to the higher dragonkin what lemurs and the lower primates are to the multitude of humanoid races -- a distant and primitive relation.
Worms or wyrms, giant legless reptiles that may or may not possess wings. A puzzle for the student of natural history, worms seem to exist primarily in the realms of legend and tales told around the pub. The student may smile at the Skainish bard’s song of the World Snake. One might give more credence to the Ranga Ranga tradition that their realm once had a patron in the Rainbow Serpent, given the unparalleled antiquity of their oral histories, which stretch back 40000 years, but even Ranga Ranga scholars admit that no trace has been seen of their benefactor in many millennia. The dread purple worm that devastated the realm of Caavyak during the reign of Yasilipur IV, however, is undoubted fact. Alpanu herself was present during the defeat of the dread purple worm, and its draconic characteristics were undeniable. Rumors from the eastern deserts of the so-called death worm would have seemed laughable before the depredations of the dread purple worm. (Alas, they were not just rumors. -Jirran)
Pseudodragons or skints, tiny dragonkin with barbed stingers on their tails. The lack of breath weapon and the presence of a stinging tail show a close affinity to wyverns, though this is complicated by the fact that pseudo-dragons possess two pairs of limbs as well as wings, a feature of true dragons. Alpanu theorized that pseudodragons are an archaic type, representing an earlier stage in dragonkin evolution, before the split between the ancestors of wyverns and true dragons. Unlike either wyverns or true dragons, however, pseudodragons possess resistance to magical effects -- a fact that made Alpanu warn her students against employing pseudodragons as familiars. Some dark wizardry was behind this much-sought-after magical resistance, and wise students would avoid any such potential contamination. (A rare instance of utter nonsense from the esteemed Alpanu! My pseudodragon, Cuddlebug, is the sweetest being in the world, and the farthest indeed from dark wizardry. -Jirran)
Wyverns, possessing wings and hind legs but no forelegs, as well as a stinging tail. Fierce aerial hunters commonly found in plains, deserts, and mountains, wyverns are the dragonkin most frequently encountered by travelers and adventurers on the outskirts of civilization. (This is no longer true. Millennia of trophy hunts and organized campaigns of eradication have greatly diminished wyverns’ numbers. A scholar must now venture as far as Redrock or the pampas of Tesuggui to find wyverns in large numbers. -Jirran) Wyverns may be tamed with great care, provided they are obtained before they hatch. They make terrifying mounts for certain warlords and witch-queens. Many a career in world-domination, however, has been cut short by an ill-tempered wyvern reasserting its predatory instincts at inopportune times.
True dragons, immense and intelligent beings that have been great friends as well as great foes to smaller races. The most commonly accepted classification holds that there are two great groups of true dragons: metallic dragons, which largely tend to be friendly toward smaller intelligent races, and chromatic dragons, which tend to see us as prey, or at best as potential slaves. Such broad classifications are occasionally unfair and unreliable, as the survivors of Aurag the Golden’s reign of terror in Haikkenden (only lately lifted by the heroes under the Somber Banner) can attest. Likewise, consider the example of Virheä the Luxurious, a green dragon who became a great patron of arts and learning in the Forest of Jyvaaska (before being slain during the time of Emperor Pilennu). Such exceptions, however, seem to matter little to commoners, kings, and indeed to most scholars. Both groups of true dragons have been in pronounced decline since the Wars of Giants and Dragons some 2500 years ago, though chromatic dragons have been more dramatically affected, being the main targets of the giants’ wrath.
Metallic dragons have, alas, become quite rare indeed since the time of the earliest histories (see, for example, The Tale of Gorrudok, committed to ink by the illustrious Hazoyan). (This tale seems to have been lost; no copies are known to exist. Hazoyan, if he was real, seems to have been a scholar during the Re-Jinto period in Haikkenden, some 3000 years before Rajeshwar wrote this Encyclica, or some 8500 years before I transcribed it. I can attest, however, that metallic dragons seem to have if anything become rarer since the time of Rajeshwar and Alpanu. No golden dragon, for instance, has been seen since the lamented death of the Great Krysarkos, some 1700 years after the time of Rajeshwar’s writing. -Jirran) Metallic dragons are distinguished by their ability to assume, at will, the guise of a humanoid being and mingle undetected among humanoid society. Silver dragons, in particular, are noteworthy for immersing themselves in humanoid affairs, wearing a humanoid guise, though all metallic dragons have this ability. There are five known types of metallic dragons: gold, silver, copper, bronze, and brass. Each will be discussed in turn.
Chromatic dragons have declined precipitously since the days of the old tales, a fact for which many among the smaller races are thankful. Formidable heroes and entire armies can be slain by the mightiest of dragons, yet just as frequently heroes and armies succeed in wiping out yet another rapacious dragon from its lair. Draconic reproduction, famously slow, cannot keep pace with this systematic elimination, which of course began at the hands of the giants. (Their reproduction is not slow enough, if you ask this humble scholar. -Jirran) Rumors exist of chromatic dragons with the ability to assume humanoid guises, but Alpanu never found good evidence to support such fanciful assertions. There are six known types of chromatic dragons: black, blue, green, red, white, and the rarely seen dragon turtle. (Later scholarship rightly classifies the dragon turtle not as a chromatic dragon, but as a sixth lineage of dragonkin, closely related to true dragons but not numbered among them. -Jirran) Each will be discussed in turn.
Each type of dragon seems to have (or have had) an elder dragon, an ancient and nearly immortal being in some way ancestral to all surviving dragons of its type. How this relates to the dragons’ own creation tale, of the conflicts between Tiamat and Bahamut, is lost to the mists of time. The elder dragons are (or were) mere thousands or tens of thousands of years old; Tiamat and Bahamut, if they were real, waged their wars millions of years in the past, beyond even the recall of the most venerable elder dragon -- not that many scholars have survived to ask questions of them. Younger dragons, usually the descendents of these formidable ancients, would generally obey the will of their respective elder dragons, if only out of a prudent desire to avoid the jaws of their sires. There are many noteworthy instances of younger dragons rebelling against their forebears, however, such as the aforementioned Aurag, whose hunger and ambitions flouted the will of his mother, the elder dragon Krysarkos. The elder dragons of the chromatic types have seemingly all been destroyed or imprisoned by the giants during their wars; perhaps this is why the chromatic dragons have become so scarce.
It is unknown why most surviving dragons of each type can trace their descent from the current (or last known) elder dragon. Questions of this nature have been rebuffed (at times violently) by all dragons queried on the topic. Dragons, as a universal rule, prefer to keep details of their reproduction private. Alpanu had been formulating a theory that dragons undergo reproduction cycles tens of millennia long, pointing to ancient tales of elder dragons being overthrown by their descendents, but alas, she met her end (and with her all the notes she was carrying at the time) long before she was able to develop this theory further. (It is unknown whether the continued decline of dragonkin populations refutes or supports this fragmentary theory. -Jirran)
The Wars of Giants and Dragons
Some 2000 years ago, before the founding of Montalvair, when even the elven and dwarven realms were new, the giants resolved to destroy all chromatic dragons. Giants and dragons had a long history of antagonism. Giant champions made their names by hunting dragons, dragons boasted in turn of killing and devouring the mightiest warriors of giantkind. Coloseums where giants fought captured dragons for the delight of spectators were fixtures in every giant city. Certain giants, such as storm giants and stone giants, begrudgingly respected the metallic dragons and generally left them alone, though other giants, such as fire giants and frost giants, held no such scruples. Chromatic dragons, by contrast, were loathed by giants of all kinds.
Each race of giant has its own tale of what provoked the final Wars. Each race, of course, highlights its own might and resourcefulness in these tales, and credits itself with the first blow against the hated chromatic dragons. Even hill giants, as Alpanu discovered during one memorable feast at the steading of Hron, style themselves as the heroes who could tolerate the villainy of chromatic dragons no further, marching upon the lair of the mighty black dragon Khalagan and tearing his jaws apart with their bare hands. The tale is best listened to with respectful awe; any personal doubts of its veracity were best left unsaid.
Through the long years of struggle, giants reluctantly accepted help from smaller (to them, lesser) races. Azers forged powerful weapons, including a collar said to subjugate any dragon to the will of a rider. It is known that the fire giant outlaw Biraz had one of these collars, and used it to control an adult red dragon named Lorkagganor, which she rode to fearsome effect on raids against humanoids and even other giants. She was killed (along with Lorkagganor) through the combined efforts of storm giants, dwarves, and some azers, who after the battle took the collar and disassembled it, so that its power could not be turned against the giants. The design of this collar, and the magic involved in its manufacture, have of course been lost. Perhaps the azers still know, though few now can claim to have encountered one.
The collar made to subdue and contain the Appalling Kyr, the elder red dragon, did not give its wielder the power to ride and control him, but the secret to forging this collar, too, has been concealed from history.
The primary difficulty with fighting dragons, a more formidable obstacle than even their breath weapons or their frightful gaze, is their ability to fly. All dragonkin that possess flight never hesitate to use it, making fast strikes against foes on the ground and sweeping up out of reach. All dragon lairs are chosen with these tactics in mind; a dragon hoard will always have plenty of room for aerial maneuvers above it. During the Wars, giants countered this ability by taming and riding rocs into battle, though rocs have followed giants in becoming scarce since the Wars. The giants’ humanoid allies rode into battle on anything from giant vultures to hippogriffs to enchanted carpets and broomsticks. Even today, the idle rich who hunt white dragons in the cold regions of the globe are assisted by aarakocra “beaters” who harass the small dragons down to ground level.
A further complication of fighting dragons is the fact that each true dragon is immune to the damage type dealt by their breath weapon. Red and gold dragons are immune to damage from fire, green dragons are immune to damage from poison, and so on.
The Wars lasted decades, and devastated both sides. The giants, of course, emerged the victors, but at a significant cost. Giant numbers have never recovered, and in fact only continued to dwindle in the absence of their hereditary enemies. No longer do the cities of giants resound with the roars of colosseum spectators. Giants roam the world now in small bands, keeping largely to themselves in what we smaller races would dub the wilderness.
Chromatic dragons were nearly wiped out, and their populations too continue to dwindle. Unexpectedly, populations of metallic dragons have also declined. Perhaps in the chaos of the Wars, certain giants, less concerned with the niceties of classification, struck at metallic dragon strongholds, with their hoards of treasure and artifacts. Perhaps metallic dragons -- often kindly toward us smaller races, yet fully possessed of the pride of all dragonkind -- have been too proud to admit how their own numbers suffered during the Wars. It would not surprise the current author if, someday, dragons were to become objects of pure academic speculation, rather than a day-to-day reality for the humanoid races. (In the time of this humble scholar, Rajeshwar’s prediction seems prescient. -Jirran)
Gold Dragons
The Great Krysarkos, Queen of the Morning Sun, is acknowledged by all humanoid races in the lands of Kwan, Shai Tei, Haikkenden, and La’thien -- a considerable portion of the globe -- as their protector and ultimate ruler. She does not meddle in mortal affairs, but her wisdom and guidance is sought in weighty matters, and her formidable might has more than once turned the tide of battle when hordes of undead or the workings of subterranean demigods have threatened the safety and tranquility of her realms. When her own son, Aurag the Golden, rose against her and established himself as a rapacious tyrant in the island kingdom of Haikkenden, however, Krysarkos could not bring herself to work his downfall. The Company of the Somber Banner vanquished Aurag in a battle that lasted a year and a day, and ever since, Krysarkos has withdrawn herself ever more from the mortal sphere. In recent years she has only emerged to commemorate the Midwinter Festival, the traditional time when her humanoid vassals would seek her guidance for the coming year. It is generally understood that she is heartbroken over her son’s betrayal and his terrible ruthlessness, but is equally devastated by his death at the hands of the Company.
Gold dragons possess two types of breath weapons, fire breath and a sort of weakening breath that can sap the strength from even the toughest enemies.
Gold dragons feed primarily upon pearls and gemstones, though they eat sparingly and never enough to impoverish the regions wherein they dwell. (One exception, of course, is Aurag the Golden, whose insatiable hunger for gold and gems could not be appeased by the enslavement of the realm of Haikkenden.) Gold dragons, like many metallic dragons, hoard artifacts made by smaller races; in particular, gold dragons have a tendency to hide away evil or harmful magical items to keep them out of the hands of weaker beings. Krysarkos’ hoard is said to contain accursed relics as old as, or older than, any of the humanoid races, as well as legendary artifacts and the phylacteries of several notorious liches, all safely contained and neutralized in her lair. Who knows how many millennia of horrors reside in the safekeeping of the Great Krysarkos?
With Aurag’s death, the number of gold dragons has been reduced to three: Krysarkos herself, and her two daughters, Jin and Qizil. None of the three will address whether others of their kind yet lurk beyond the knowledge of the humanoid races. (One of the world’s many tragedies: Those three golden dragons have perished since Rajeshwar wrote these words, and none have emerged to assume Krysarkos’ hoard of magical artifacts. For now, the emperors of Kwan keep all trespassers away from the Golden Mountain, but for how long will such mortal defenses hold until some terrible evildoer gains entry? Surely no scholar reading the venerable history of Alpanu would countenance such an atrocity! -Jirran)
Silver Dragons
Gumüsh the Untarnished, Bright Star of the Everlasting Snows, makes his home in the fabled Mountains of the Moon, west of the verdant Kingdom of Kisuka on the continent of Oma. (This realm is perhaps less well-known today than it was in the time of Alpanu and Rajeshwar. Pirates, sahuagin, and a reorganization of trade routes have all served to turn the nations of eastern Oma away from the Southern Sea. In Alpanu’s time, sailors and merchants from Kisuka and other Omanish nations were a common sight in the ports of the Western Rim; their trade in ivory, diamonds, and exquisite goldwork was much sought-after, and their scholars often traveled with trade vessels, compiling perhaps the most thorough geographic and magical knowledge base of their time. In these latter days, the rare Kisukan scholar who arrives in Montalvair is more likely to have arrived from the other direction, having traveled the width of Oma, the Eastern Sea, the mighty empires of Apalacha, and the vast wilderness of the Grass to reach our realm. -Jirran) Silver dragons are, generally speaking, fond of humanoids and other smaller races, and will often assume humanoid guises, far more frequently than any other metallic dragons. It is said that some silver dragons spend as much, if not more, time in their humanoid guises than in their draconic form. Cheerful wanderers who return to certain villages generation after generation, befriending the descendents of their long-ago companions, silver dragons can be an eccentric but benign fixture in many humanoid communities. (This too appears to be far less common in these latter days. -Jirran)
Silver dragons possess two types of breath weapons, cold breath and a paralyzing gas.
Silver dragons tend to hoard objects from history, such as piles of ancient coins, relics of art and literature, monuments and monoliths rescued from forgotten ruins, crown jewels of bygone empires, even the remains of deceased rulers and heroes. Anything with a palpable stamp of history attracts the notice of a silver dragon. Gumüsh’s hoard is known to include a vast library, carefully preserved and curated, featuring volumes long since lost to mortal eyes. A certain traveling scholar, the wise Ru Kigiba, attests that he has visited the Untarnished Library, and touched with his own hands a tome rescued from the Lost Kingdom of Aaguwé, which sank beneath the waves of the Eastern Sea some 10000 years ago. Its words, though in an unfamiliar script, were clear and legible. This volume was but one of the thousands hoarded by the Bright Star Gumüsh.
Silver dragons believe in living lives of virtue, of doing good deeds and causing no undeserved harm, though unlike golden dragons, they seldom take it upon themselves to root out evil. They hoard items not to remove their evil from humanoid hands, but to preserve them and to savor the richness of their history.
(Gumüsh the Untarnished is thought to be still alive at the time of this humble scholar, though like all metallic dragons, silver dragons have withdrawn somewhat from the world of lesser beings. It is unknown how many silver dragons presently exist, though it is certain to be far fewer than there were in the time of Alpanu. -Jirran)
Copper Dragons
Cuprak the Resilient, Guide of the Seven Winds, is the survivor of the only documented attempt of one dragon to overthrow its elder. (It is more difficult, for obvious reasons, to ascertain the internal politics of chromatic dragons. Not only were all their elders destroyed or imprisoned by the giants 2500 years ago, but even at the height of their power, individual chromatic dragons were as often as not known to humanoids by reputation and by fragmentary information. For instance, a name from the ancient Northland Chronicle, the elder white dragon known as the Ghastly Quppuluq, is identified as much by her size as by anything else, and could well be a different “Quppuluq” than the one whose lair was infiltrated much later by the frost giant Jarnkul during the Wars. Only metallic dragons and, to a lesser extent, green dragons have permitted humanoid company to the extent that the overthrow of an elder could reliably be documented.) Dwelling far to the south of the Western Rim, beyond even the realms of tabaxi and yuan-ti, in the harsh deserts of Chinchor, Cuprak often plays host to the few humanoids who venture into his realm. Copper dragons treasure tales, riddles, jokes, and performances, and adventurous bards will occasionally risk the hazards of the desert trek to entertain Cuprak in his lair. The bard Sven Ringfinger, accompanied by his band of adventurers, was present in that capacity when Krut’a, a copper dragon said to be Cuprak’s granddaughter, arrived with an army of clay golems. The battle that followed claimed the lives of many of Sven’s companions, but in the end Krut’a was defeated -- and Sven was told, politely but firmly, to never perform for a copper dragon again.
Copper dragons possess two types of breath attack, acid breath and a sort of slowing breath that can blunt the speed and the reflexes of even the most hardened enemies. They are immune to damage from acid.
While not inclined toward evil actions, copper dragons are often tricksters who become annoyed with any creature that doesn’t laugh at its jokes or accept its pranks with good humor. When copper dragons assume a humanoid guise, it is more often than not as a wandering bard in search of adventure. Companionship can, in some cases, be a sort of treasure that a copper dragon hoards. A more typical hoard for a copper dragon includes metals and precious stones drawn from the earth.
(It is presently unknown who, if anyone, is the elder copper dragon. Cuprak is believed to have perished when he was persuaded, by a particularly beguiling bard, to assist with a quest to rid the world of Das, the blue dracolich who still haunts the no-man’s-land northeast of Beyha. To date no one has come forward to claim Cuprak’s lair or the title of elder copper dragon. In the absence of an elder, a surplus of younger copper dragons pester the smaller races of the world with their jests, as my own dealings with Zobheda the Witty can attest. In light of this, it is wisest not to trust wandering bards, and especially wise not to join up with one for companionship upon a perilous journey. -Jirran)
Bronze Dragons
Apa the Bold, Vanquisher of the Waves, makes her home upon the dead volcano of Ulolu, in the midst of the O’opeha archipelago. Bronze dragons are fierce warriors and stalwart enemies of tyranny. Apa’s patrols keep the sea routes open between the sprawling ocean realm of O’opeha and the rest of the world. (Apa, sadly, could not vanquish the kraken, Great Kolo, which claimed her life and destroyed much of the O’opehan capital, A’alale, during the reign of Empress Jabherra VII. Her sacrifice emboldened the remnants of O’opeha’s war fleet, which was able to destroy the Great Kolo once and for all. As with the copper dragons, bronze dragons are still known to exist, though none has claimed Apa’s Coral Seat or her title as elder dragon. O’opeha’s war fleet, justly renowned, now serves to keep their sea routes clear for trade and travel. -Jirran) Bronze dragons are powerful swimmers who eat fish and aquatic plants. They are eternally curious about ships and humanoid incursions upon the sea. There have been many instances of bronze dragons assuming the guise of novice sailors in order to embark upon oceangoing vessels. More commonly, bronze dragons will assume the shapes of dolphins or sea gulls to follow ships, polymorphing into rats in order to skitter into the hold and satisfy its curiosity about what treasures the captain may be transporting. If anything catches the dragon’s interest, bargaining may ensue.
Bronze dragons are almost equally fascinated by humanoid warfare, and can at times be persuaded to join in on the side of a just cause. They will ask for a nominal payment for their assistance, often in the form of a ceremonial token of the alliance or a collection of books on military history and tactics. Spoils of a defeated enemy, such as a weapon or magical item deemed too dangerous to be left in lesser hands, may also find their way into a bronze dragon’s hoard. The primary source of a bronze dragon’s hoard, however, is shipwrecks. Bronze dragons will search reefs and vast expanses of sea floor in order to locate sunken treasure, as well as gorgeous specimens of coral and prodigious pearls.. The O’opehan scholar-queen Ka’malalo, invited to visit the Coral Seat by Apa, documented the presence of prows of ships mightier than any recorded in our histories, dating to some unknown age of the deep past.
Bronze dragons have a greenish tinge to their scales when they are young, maturing to a deeper, richer bronze tone as they age. This has led to some confusion among the ignorant, who either conflate the two species or imagine some ancestral relationship between the two. Green dragons and bronze dragons seldom if ever cross paths, living in such widely divergent environments as they do. As we shall see, however, the world is large, and many strange things can occur.
Bronze dragons possess two types of breath weapons, lightning breath and a sort of repulsion blast, which appears to be more than merely the force of the exhalation. Even redoubtable creatures can be pushed far away from a mature bronze dragon upon the battlefield.
Brass Dragons
Guulin the Loquacious, Sage of the Burning Land, dwells in the great Desert of Aq’, in the north of the continent of Oma. His lair has more in common with the court of a gadabout prince or the parlor of a socialite philosopher, full of novelty and diversion, than with the solemnity and grandeur one might expect from an elder metallic dragon. Newcomers to the brass dragon’s domain might be startled to encounter sphinxes, lamia, riddle-masters, genies bound and free, even fiends specially invited for their charming tongues. Conversation and information are treasure to a brass dragon, and woe unto the guest who attempts to take her leave before the dragon has had his fill of talk!
Brass dragons possess two types of breath weapon, fire breath and a sort of sleep gas exhalation.
(Rajeshwar neglects to mention the major failing of the brass dragon, its tendency to be far too trusting of its interlocutors. About 900 years after Rajeshwar’s writing, Guulin was famously destroyed after a night held under the spell of a mummy lord’s conversation, his guests likewise dispatched by the lord’s undead servants. This Night of the Spilled Wine, as it has been passed down to us in history, marked the final downfall of brass dragons. Never numerous even before the Giant Wars, brass dragons seem to have vanished as utterly as golden dragons from mortal knowledge. -Jirran)
Black Dragons
No one now alive (save, perhaps, for the very eldest of giants, and none venture to their halls to question them on dragons) has seen a black dragon. Vile and vicious creatures, black dragons were slain with especial pleasure by the storm giants during the Wars of Giants and Dragons. Even the smallest black wyrmlings were hunted down in the most remote wildernesses after the fall of Akhamen the Prodigious, elder of the black dragons.
Akhamen once made her lair in the Great Swamp of Okef, south of what we now call the realms of Apalacha. Black dragons were creatures of rot and swamp who savored the fall of civilizations. It is thought that once, far beyond even the legends of elves and dwarves, a humanoid people built mighty cities and a flourishing empire in the coastal lands of what is now the Swamp of Okef. Akhamen dwelled within their ruins, blackening the stone with her acid breath, collecting treasures and wreckage from collapsed nations for her hoard.
Her defeat and death marked the true turning point of the Wars of Giants and Dragons, which until then had been a terrible and fatal struggle for even the most redoubtable champions among the giants. Her death at the hands of the storm giant twins, Ganske and Kyedelig, bolstered the resolve of the storm giants and their allies the cloud giants, and convinced their wavering kin among the frost and fire giants to throw themselves into the cause.
Black dragons once possessed acid breath, capable of corroding and dissolving armor and flesh.
Blue Dragons
The last of the blue dragons was also the most formidable: Das the Repulsive, the feared dracolich of the eastern wastes. The giant army sent to destroy her late in the War believed her killed, but unbeknownst to them, Das had taken steps to become the first known lich in all of history. Her phylactery resided with Cuprak the Resilient, who believed it merely to be a bauble of sapphire, quite pleasing to the eye. Das rose again after centuries spent biding her time, laying waste to the lands of Beyha and Redrock. Das was not finally defeated until armies marching behind the Heroes of the Halberd braved her tomb in the eastern deserts, having sent her phylactery to Krysarkos for safekeeping.
(Das, of course, was NOT finally defeated that day, or indeed on any day since then. The “phylactery” sent to Krysarkos, the one that had resided so long unnoticed in the deserts of Chinchor, turned out to be an enchanted rock, a forgery so skilled that for many centuries it fooled even the elder golden dragon herself. Her true phylactery has never yet been found. Such are the devious and deep-rooted plans of this, the last of the great and terrible elder chromatic dragons. At present Das is safely entombed in her lair, its precise location kept secret to hide it away from rash heroes, who might otherwise break the seals and set her loose upon the world again. -Jirran)
Blue dragons once possessed lightning breath. Their most coveted treasure was esteem and a sense of superiority, often expressed in the accumulation of powerful and important servants: assassins, renowned adventurers, deadly monsters, mages, bards, scholars, all rewarded handsomely for their services, but all bound irrevocably to the dragon’s service. Even in lichdom, Das surrounded herself with rare and powerful servants, from the tlincalli who guarded the approaches to her tomb, to the magical craftsmen who labored on her forged phylacteries, to the medusae and minotaurs who guarded her innermost sanctum.
[The section on green dragons was ripped out and destroyed by the Lady Viriel, a.k.a. Virin Boilblood, an ancient green dragon.]
Red Dragons
Kyr! The very name still has the power to instill fear, some 2000 years after his imprisonment within the Mountain of Golgarath. (Now, some 7500 years after Kyr’s imprisonment, the name is much less feared, having been forgotten by all but the elves. No one quakes now at the thought of Kyr, except perhaps certain aging dragonologists puttering around a vineyard when an unseasonable north wind blows. -Jirran) The Appalling Kyr! The only living elder dragon the giants themselves could not wholly defeat. Kyr, the eternally imprisoned! Woe unto the world should you ever wake.
The giants took elaborate care that Kyr should never escape his prison. An unbreakable collar had been forged around his neck by the most skilled fire giants and azer smiths, imbued with spells of sleep and of containment. The mightiest champion of the fire giants, Fossfor, as renowned a warrior as he is a canny metal-crafter, was given the honor of guarding Kyr within the lava chamber of Golgarath itself. The mightiest champion of the stone giants, Hornfel, was entrusted to guard the entrance to the mountain, using his skill with stonework to maintain the sigils and the spells keeping the mountain sealed, from both inside and out. The mightiest champion of the storm giants, Graupel, ascended from her physical form to become the living storm that shields the mountain night and day, striking down with her lightning any who dare to trespass. (Some nights, the only thought that allows this humble scholar to sleep is the knowledge that those three giant champions are still at their posts, even though the rest of their kind never recovered from the Giant War and are seldom seen in the world today. -Jirran)
Unlike the tomb of Das, which remains a closely guarded secret, any schoolchild could point to the location of Golgarath on a map -- such is the importance of Kyr’s continued imprisonment to the safety of the humanoid world! Nonetheless, the illustrious Alpanu taught me to never assume that any knowledge, no matter how basic, was “common” knowledge. (And a lucky thing for posterity this was! -Jirran) The Mountain of Golgarath rises in the heart of the Ikenpak Range in the far Northland. It is the tallest and most prominent peak of that range, rising some 25000 feet above the frigid tundra. Only goliaths and aarakocra dwell near the place, and even they subsist in the lower elevations of the range, far from the living storm of Graupel, whom some tribes already worship as a god. An outsider may, with the application of appropriate monetary considerations, approach within eyeshot of the storm, but no closer. The mountain itself is, of course, invisible within the fury of the storm.
The nearest human tribes would be the caribou herders and rock-oil wizards of the Auluqik and Ryrkish, who inhabit the tundra plains north and south of the range but rarely venture close except to trade with the goliaths and aarakocra.
Several red dragons survived the defeat and imprisonment of their elder, but thankfully, the giants made their eradication a priority. Occasionally a red wyrmling or a young dragon will appear from remote mountain ranges, aiming to surprise and despoil and exert their control over the countryside, but these have all been quickly dealt with, and no large red dragons have been seen since the War. (No red dragons of any size have been seen in several millennia, may we all thank the gods. -Jirran)
Red dragons covet wealth above all else, and seek to be absolute tyrants over any lesser beings within their power. Their breath weapon is, of course, fire. They seem to have a natural affinity for elemental creatures from the Plane of Fire. The lesser red dragons seen in recent times have been known to consort with magmins and salamanders, and during the height of his power, the Appalling Kyr enslaved even efreet, using their wishes to devastating effect.
White Dragons
Vicious but stupid, white dragons are perhaps the most numerous of chromatic dragons remaining at the time of this writing. Their elder, the Ghastly Quppuluq, was the first elder dragon slain during the Wars of Giants and Dragons, defeated by the frost giant Helja and the cloud giant Strakos when they caught her outside her lair in the glacier of Tukluk, the vast island far to the north in the Eastern Sea. White dragons seem able to breed more rapidly than other true dragons, and while large individuals have not been seen since the Wars, white wyrmlings and young dragons are a common pest in the colder regions of the globe. (This is less true in these latter days. To my knowledge, no white dragon of any size has been seen in three centuries, though of course this does not mean that white dragons have disappeared for good. It’s a pity. -Jirran)
Essentially reduced to a nuisance species, white dragons seem more fitting subjects for a hunter’s guidebook than a volume of dragonology -- so far have they fallen in the world. Rich tourists have been known to leave the comforts of the parlor to brave the arctic wastes to hunt white dragons, which can be supplied by local trappers should the wilderness prove too inconvenient. Less scrupulous trackers might simply paint a captive drake white and call it a day. This may confuse the issue about whether white dragons still exist in any appreciable numbers.
The breath weapon of the white dragons is, of course, cold breath.
Dragon Turtles
Dragon turtles were rarely encountered even before the Wars of Giants and Dragons, and celebrated songs of the storm giants suggest that the Wars made them scarcer still. The last confirmed sighting of a dragon turtle was a century ago, during the reign of the Empress Teth. A large dragon turtle attacked a diplomatic fleet leaving from Ayalar, close enough to shore for spectators to witness it from the seaward walls of the city. After sinking the consular ship, the dragon turtle slipped away into the depths, never to be sighted again. Workings of dark magic are to be suspected. (In the millennia since Rajeshwar’s writing, there have been three other sightings of dragon turtles. The most recent was reported by the survivors of a floating halfling village far out to Sea, who were rescued by the buccaneer hero Shireen Swiftdagger. This occurred during the reign of the Emperor Zerrendar VI, in the year 5209. Recent scholarship has moved away from Alpanu’s classification of dragon turtles among the chromatic dragons, though little enough is known about dragon turtles that they may be discussed here as readily as anywhere else. -Jirran)
The breath weapon of dragon turtles is a blast of superheated steam, which boils up with enough force to wreck both ship and sailor alike. Here in Montalvair, we only know of dragon turtle sightings within our Western Sea. Whether this reflects a real lack of dragon turtles within the Southern, Eastern, and Northern Seas, or merely a lack of information, cannot be determined at this time.
Committed faithfully to ink by Rajeshwar, humble student of the illuminated scholar Alpanu, whose researches and words these are. May she find peace within the belly of the red wyvern of Castilloq, who devoured her before this book could be completed. Compiled this Year 410 of the Most Holy and Enlightened Empire of Montalvair, which is Year 19 of Empress Ramtha II, may she rule forever.
(Copied and annotated by the hand of the humble Jirran Sere, from the secret copy entrusted to the College of the Horned Moon, this Year 5871 of the Eternal Empire of Montalvair, during the reign of the Sublime Emperor Bertoldo. I warn my readers, and especially any scribes who may wish to copy this tome in the future, that this book is accursed. All copies save two have vanished, and with them have vanished -- or more generally, perished -- most beings who have owned and read them. It is said that some dragon, enraged at a lie -- or more likely a truth -- in these pages, has made it her life’s mission to hunt down and destroy every copy, as well as every set of eyes that have beheld the words to follow. This humble scholar is nearing the end of his life, scarred by encounters with dragonkin great and small. A quiet retirement upon the emperor’s vineyards was offered to me more than once, as a reward for sundry services to the crown of Montalvair and its allies. Two weeks sipping wine and watching the sun set over the Sea was enough to make me willing to risk whatever fate awaits those who dare to copy the words of the sage Alpanu and her student Rajeshwar. Come at me, whatsoever being you are! Jirran is ready, and fears nothing any longer.)
Esteemed scholar who reads these humble inquiries,
Far be it from I, Rajeshwar, to presume ääto instruct you in the elementary studies of dragons and their kin. It is thought unlikely that a beginning student should get her hands on this book. Many tomes presently exist for the edification and (sad to say) titillation of those just beginning their quest for draconic knowledge. Nonetheless, my teacher, the incomparable and much-mourned ALPANU, taught me to be thorough and to leave nothing up to assumptions. Therefore it is with a thousand apologies that I begin each entry within this Encyclica with facts and histories any schoolchild would know.
We begin, therefore, with the most fundamental distinctions between dragons and their kin. There are presently thought to be five lineages of dragonkin:
Drakes, wingless predators of the plains and forests, only rarely possessing the famed breath weapon of their more evolved kin. As such, they are the most readily tamed of all dragonkin. Rich nobles and parvenus alike employ guard drakes to shock and impress their guests; dragon-worshipping cultists of any description would consider themselves truly blessed to obtain a drake or two to ornament their ceremonies. Unbeknownst to those who flaunt drakes as a status symbol, there is some debate amongst the learned over whether drakes may be considered true dragonkin. If they are, surely they must be to the higher dragonkin what lemurs and the lower primates are to the multitude of humanoid races -- a distant and primitive relation.
Worms or wyrms, giant legless reptiles that may or may not possess wings. A puzzle for the student of natural history, worms seem to exist primarily in the realms of legend and tales told around the pub. The student may smile at the Skainish bard’s song of the World Snake. One might give more credence to the Ranga Ranga tradition that their realm once had a patron in the Rainbow Serpent, given the unparalleled antiquity of their oral histories, which stretch back 40000 years, but even Ranga Ranga scholars admit that no trace has been seen of their benefactor in many millennia. The dread purple worm that devastated the realm of Caavyak during the reign of Yasilipur IV, however, is undoubted fact. Alpanu herself was present during the defeat of the dread purple worm, and its draconic characteristics were undeniable. Rumors from the eastern deserts of the so-called death worm would have seemed laughable before the depredations of the dread purple worm. (Alas, they were not just rumors. -Jirran)
Pseudodragons or skints, tiny dragonkin with barbed stingers on their tails. The lack of breath weapon and the presence of a stinging tail show a close affinity to wyverns, though this is complicated by the fact that pseudo-dragons possess two pairs of limbs as well as wings, a feature of true dragons. Alpanu theorized that pseudodragons are an archaic type, representing an earlier stage in dragonkin evolution, before the split between the ancestors of wyverns and true dragons. Unlike either wyverns or true dragons, however, pseudodragons possess resistance to magical effects -- a fact that made Alpanu warn her students against employing pseudodragons as familiars. Some dark wizardry was behind this much-sought-after magical resistance, and wise students would avoid any such potential contamination. (A rare instance of utter nonsense from the esteemed Alpanu! My pseudodragon, Cuddlebug, is the sweetest being in the world, and the farthest indeed from dark wizardry. -Jirran)
Wyverns, possessing wings and hind legs but no forelegs, as well as a stinging tail. Fierce aerial hunters commonly found in plains, deserts, and mountains, wyverns are the dragonkin most frequently encountered by travelers and adventurers on the outskirts of civilization. (This is no longer true. Millennia of trophy hunts and organized campaigns of eradication have greatly diminished wyverns’ numbers. A scholar must now venture as far as Redrock or the pampas of Tesuggui to find wyverns in large numbers. -Jirran) Wyverns may be tamed with great care, provided they are obtained before they hatch. They make terrifying mounts for certain warlords and witch-queens. Many a career in world-domination, however, has been cut short by an ill-tempered wyvern reasserting its predatory instincts at inopportune times.
True dragons, immense and intelligent beings that have been great friends as well as great foes to smaller races. The most commonly accepted classification holds that there are two great groups of true dragons: metallic dragons, which largely tend to be friendly toward smaller intelligent races, and chromatic dragons, which tend to see us as prey, or at best as potential slaves. Such broad classifications are occasionally unfair and unreliable, as the survivors of Aurag the Golden’s reign of terror in Haikkenden (only lately lifted by the heroes under the Somber Banner) can attest. Likewise, consider the example of Virheä the Luxurious, a green dragon who became a great patron of arts and learning in the Forest of Jyvaaska (before being slain during the time of Emperor Pilennu). Such exceptions, however, seem to matter little to commoners, kings, and indeed to most scholars. Both groups of true dragons have been in pronounced decline since the Wars of Giants and Dragons some 2500 years ago, though chromatic dragons have been more dramatically affected, being the main targets of the giants’ wrath.
Metallic dragons have, alas, become quite rare indeed since the time of the earliest histories (see, for example, The Tale of Gorrudok, committed to ink by the illustrious Hazoyan). (This tale seems to have been lost; no copies are known to exist. Hazoyan, if he was real, seems to have been a scholar during the Re-Jinto period in Haikkenden, some 3000 years before Rajeshwar wrote this Encyclica, or some 8500 years before I transcribed it. I can attest, however, that metallic dragons seem to have if anything become rarer since the time of Rajeshwar and Alpanu. No golden dragon, for instance, has been seen since the lamented death of the Great Krysarkos, some 1700 years after the time of Rajeshwar’s writing. -Jirran) Metallic dragons are distinguished by their ability to assume, at will, the guise of a humanoid being and mingle undetected among humanoid society. Silver dragons, in particular, are noteworthy for immersing themselves in humanoid affairs, wearing a humanoid guise, though all metallic dragons have this ability. There are five known types of metallic dragons: gold, silver, copper, bronze, and brass. Each will be discussed in turn.
Chromatic dragons have declined precipitously since the days of the old tales, a fact for which many among the smaller races are thankful. Formidable heroes and entire armies can be slain by the mightiest of dragons, yet just as frequently heroes and armies succeed in wiping out yet another rapacious dragon from its lair. Draconic reproduction, famously slow, cannot keep pace with this systematic elimination, which of course began at the hands of the giants. (Their reproduction is not slow enough, if you ask this humble scholar. -Jirran) Rumors exist of chromatic dragons with the ability to assume humanoid guises, but Alpanu never found good evidence to support such fanciful assertions. There are six known types of chromatic dragons: black, blue, green, red, white, and the rarely seen dragon turtle. (Later scholarship rightly classifies the dragon turtle not as a chromatic dragon, but as a sixth lineage of dragonkin, closely related to true dragons but not numbered among them. -Jirran) Each will be discussed in turn.
Each type of dragon seems to have (or have had) an elder dragon, an ancient and nearly immortal being in some way ancestral to all surviving dragons of its type. How this relates to the dragons’ own creation tale, of the conflicts between Tiamat and Bahamut, is lost to the mists of time. The elder dragons are (or were) mere thousands or tens of thousands of years old; Tiamat and Bahamut, if they were real, waged their wars millions of years in the past, beyond even the recall of the most venerable elder dragon -- not that many scholars have survived to ask questions of them. Younger dragons, usually the descendents of these formidable ancients, would generally obey the will of their respective elder dragons, if only out of a prudent desire to avoid the jaws of their sires. There are many noteworthy instances of younger dragons rebelling against their forebears, however, such as the aforementioned Aurag, whose hunger and ambitions flouted the will of his mother, the elder dragon Krysarkos. The elder dragons of the chromatic types have seemingly all been destroyed or imprisoned by the giants during their wars; perhaps this is why the chromatic dragons have become so scarce.
It is unknown why most surviving dragons of each type can trace their descent from the current (or last known) elder dragon. Questions of this nature have been rebuffed (at times violently) by all dragons queried on the topic. Dragons, as a universal rule, prefer to keep details of their reproduction private. Alpanu had been formulating a theory that dragons undergo reproduction cycles tens of millennia long, pointing to ancient tales of elder dragons being overthrown by their descendents, but alas, she met her end (and with her all the notes she was carrying at the time) long before she was able to develop this theory further. (It is unknown whether the continued decline of dragonkin populations refutes or supports this fragmentary theory. -Jirran)
The Wars of Giants and Dragons
Some 2000 years ago, before the founding of Montalvair, when even the elven and dwarven realms were new, the giants resolved to destroy all chromatic dragons. Giants and dragons had a long history of antagonism. Giant champions made their names by hunting dragons, dragons boasted in turn of killing and devouring the mightiest warriors of giantkind. Coloseums where giants fought captured dragons for the delight of spectators were fixtures in every giant city. Certain giants, such as storm giants and stone giants, begrudgingly respected the metallic dragons and generally left them alone, though other giants, such as fire giants and frost giants, held no such scruples. Chromatic dragons, by contrast, were loathed by giants of all kinds.
Each race of giant has its own tale of what provoked the final Wars. Each race, of course, highlights its own might and resourcefulness in these tales, and credits itself with the first blow against the hated chromatic dragons. Even hill giants, as Alpanu discovered during one memorable feast at the steading of Hron, style themselves as the heroes who could tolerate the villainy of chromatic dragons no further, marching upon the lair of the mighty black dragon Khalagan and tearing his jaws apart with their bare hands. The tale is best listened to with respectful awe; any personal doubts of its veracity were best left unsaid.
Through the long years of struggle, giants reluctantly accepted help from smaller (to them, lesser) races. Azers forged powerful weapons, including a collar said to subjugate any dragon to the will of a rider. It is known that the fire giant outlaw Biraz had one of these collars, and used it to control an adult red dragon named Lorkagganor, which she rode to fearsome effect on raids against humanoids and even other giants. She was killed (along with Lorkagganor) through the combined efforts of storm giants, dwarves, and some azers, who after the battle took the collar and disassembled it, so that its power could not be turned against the giants. The design of this collar, and the magic involved in its manufacture, have of course been lost. Perhaps the azers still know, though few now can claim to have encountered one.
The collar made to subdue and contain the Appalling Kyr, the elder red dragon, did not give its wielder the power to ride and control him, but the secret to forging this collar, too, has been concealed from history.
The primary difficulty with fighting dragons, a more formidable obstacle than even their breath weapons or their frightful gaze, is their ability to fly. All dragonkin that possess flight never hesitate to use it, making fast strikes against foes on the ground and sweeping up out of reach. All dragon lairs are chosen with these tactics in mind; a dragon hoard will always have plenty of room for aerial maneuvers above it. During the Wars, giants countered this ability by taming and riding rocs into battle, though rocs have followed giants in becoming scarce since the Wars. The giants’ humanoid allies rode into battle on anything from giant vultures to hippogriffs to enchanted carpets and broomsticks. Even today, the idle rich who hunt white dragons in the cold regions of the globe are assisted by aarakocra “beaters” who harass the small dragons down to ground level.
A further complication of fighting dragons is the fact that each true dragon is immune to the damage type dealt by their breath weapon. Red and gold dragons are immune to damage from fire, green dragons are immune to damage from poison, and so on.
The Wars lasted decades, and devastated both sides. The giants, of course, emerged the victors, but at a significant cost. Giant numbers have never recovered, and in fact only continued to dwindle in the absence of their hereditary enemies. No longer do the cities of giants resound with the roars of colosseum spectators. Giants roam the world now in small bands, keeping largely to themselves in what we smaller races would dub the wilderness.
Chromatic dragons were nearly wiped out, and their populations too continue to dwindle. Unexpectedly, populations of metallic dragons have also declined. Perhaps in the chaos of the Wars, certain giants, less concerned with the niceties of classification, struck at metallic dragon strongholds, with their hoards of treasure and artifacts. Perhaps metallic dragons -- often kindly toward us smaller races, yet fully possessed of the pride of all dragonkind -- have been too proud to admit how their own numbers suffered during the Wars. It would not surprise the current author if, someday, dragons were to become objects of pure academic speculation, rather than a day-to-day reality for the humanoid races. (In the time of this humble scholar, Rajeshwar’s prediction seems prescient. -Jirran)
Gold Dragons
The Great Krysarkos, Queen of the Morning Sun, is acknowledged by all humanoid races in the lands of Kwan, Shai Tei, Haikkenden, and La’thien -- a considerable portion of the globe -- as their protector and ultimate ruler. She does not meddle in mortal affairs, but her wisdom and guidance is sought in weighty matters, and her formidable might has more than once turned the tide of battle when hordes of undead or the workings of subterranean demigods have threatened the safety and tranquility of her realms. When her own son, Aurag the Golden, rose against her and established himself as a rapacious tyrant in the island kingdom of Haikkenden, however, Krysarkos could not bring herself to work his downfall. The Company of the Somber Banner vanquished Aurag in a battle that lasted a year and a day, and ever since, Krysarkos has withdrawn herself ever more from the mortal sphere. In recent years she has only emerged to commemorate the Midwinter Festival, the traditional time when her humanoid vassals would seek her guidance for the coming year. It is generally understood that she is heartbroken over her son’s betrayal and his terrible ruthlessness, but is equally devastated by his death at the hands of the Company.
Gold dragons possess two types of breath weapons, fire breath and a sort of weakening breath that can sap the strength from even the toughest enemies.
Gold dragons feed primarily upon pearls and gemstones, though they eat sparingly and never enough to impoverish the regions wherein they dwell. (One exception, of course, is Aurag the Golden, whose insatiable hunger for gold and gems could not be appeased by the enslavement of the realm of Haikkenden.) Gold dragons, like many metallic dragons, hoard artifacts made by smaller races; in particular, gold dragons have a tendency to hide away evil or harmful magical items to keep them out of the hands of weaker beings. Krysarkos’ hoard is said to contain accursed relics as old as, or older than, any of the humanoid races, as well as legendary artifacts and the phylacteries of several notorious liches, all safely contained and neutralized in her lair. Who knows how many millennia of horrors reside in the safekeeping of the Great Krysarkos?
With Aurag’s death, the number of gold dragons has been reduced to three: Krysarkos herself, and her two daughters, Jin and Qizil. None of the three will address whether others of their kind yet lurk beyond the knowledge of the humanoid races. (One of the world’s many tragedies: Those three golden dragons have perished since Rajeshwar wrote these words, and none have emerged to assume Krysarkos’ hoard of magical artifacts. For now, the emperors of Kwan keep all trespassers away from the Golden Mountain, but for how long will such mortal defenses hold until some terrible evildoer gains entry? Surely no scholar reading the venerable history of Alpanu would countenance such an atrocity! -Jirran)
Silver Dragons
Gumüsh the Untarnished, Bright Star of the Everlasting Snows, makes his home in the fabled Mountains of the Moon, west of the verdant Kingdom of Kisuka on the continent of Oma. (This realm is perhaps less well-known today than it was in the time of Alpanu and Rajeshwar. Pirates, sahuagin, and a reorganization of trade routes have all served to turn the nations of eastern Oma away from the Southern Sea. In Alpanu’s time, sailors and merchants from Kisuka and other Omanish nations were a common sight in the ports of the Western Rim; their trade in ivory, diamonds, and exquisite goldwork was much sought-after, and their scholars often traveled with trade vessels, compiling perhaps the most thorough geographic and magical knowledge base of their time. In these latter days, the rare Kisukan scholar who arrives in Montalvair is more likely to have arrived from the other direction, having traveled the width of Oma, the Eastern Sea, the mighty empires of Apalacha, and the vast wilderness of the Grass to reach our realm. -Jirran) Silver dragons are, generally speaking, fond of humanoids and other smaller races, and will often assume humanoid guises, far more frequently than any other metallic dragons. It is said that some silver dragons spend as much, if not more, time in their humanoid guises than in their draconic form. Cheerful wanderers who return to certain villages generation after generation, befriending the descendents of their long-ago companions, silver dragons can be an eccentric but benign fixture in many humanoid communities. (This too appears to be far less common in these latter days. -Jirran)
Silver dragons possess two types of breath weapons, cold breath and a paralyzing gas.
Silver dragons tend to hoard objects from history, such as piles of ancient coins, relics of art and literature, monuments and monoliths rescued from forgotten ruins, crown jewels of bygone empires, even the remains of deceased rulers and heroes. Anything with a palpable stamp of history attracts the notice of a silver dragon. Gumüsh’s hoard is known to include a vast library, carefully preserved and curated, featuring volumes long since lost to mortal eyes. A certain traveling scholar, the wise Ru Kigiba, attests that he has visited the Untarnished Library, and touched with his own hands a tome rescued from the Lost Kingdom of Aaguwé, which sank beneath the waves of the Eastern Sea some 10000 years ago. Its words, though in an unfamiliar script, were clear and legible. This volume was but one of the thousands hoarded by the Bright Star Gumüsh.
Silver dragons believe in living lives of virtue, of doing good deeds and causing no undeserved harm, though unlike golden dragons, they seldom take it upon themselves to root out evil. They hoard items not to remove their evil from humanoid hands, but to preserve them and to savor the richness of their history.
(Gumüsh the Untarnished is thought to be still alive at the time of this humble scholar, though like all metallic dragons, silver dragons have withdrawn somewhat from the world of lesser beings. It is unknown how many silver dragons presently exist, though it is certain to be far fewer than there were in the time of Alpanu. -Jirran)
Copper Dragons
Cuprak the Resilient, Guide of the Seven Winds, is the survivor of the only documented attempt of one dragon to overthrow its elder. (It is more difficult, for obvious reasons, to ascertain the internal politics of chromatic dragons. Not only were all their elders destroyed or imprisoned by the giants 2500 years ago, but even at the height of their power, individual chromatic dragons were as often as not known to humanoids by reputation and by fragmentary information. For instance, a name from the ancient Northland Chronicle, the elder white dragon known as the Ghastly Quppuluq, is identified as much by her size as by anything else, and could well be a different “Quppuluq” than the one whose lair was infiltrated much later by the frost giant Jarnkul during the Wars. Only metallic dragons and, to a lesser extent, green dragons have permitted humanoid company to the extent that the overthrow of an elder could reliably be documented.) Dwelling far to the south of the Western Rim, beyond even the realms of tabaxi and yuan-ti, in the harsh deserts of Chinchor, Cuprak often plays host to the few humanoids who venture into his realm. Copper dragons treasure tales, riddles, jokes, and performances, and adventurous bards will occasionally risk the hazards of the desert trek to entertain Cuprak in his lair. The bard Sven Ringfinger, accompanied by his band of adventurers, was present in that capacity when Krut’a, a copper dragon said to be Cuprak’s granddaughter, arrived with an army of clay golems. The battle that followed claimed the lives of many of Sven’s companions, but in the end Krut’a was defeated -- and Sven was told, politely but firmly, to never perform for a copper dragon again.
Copper dragons possess two types of breath attack, acid breath and a sort of slowing breath that can blunt the speed and the reflexes of even the most hardened enemies. They are immune to damage from acid.
While not inclined toward evil actions, copper dragons are often tricksters who become annoyed with any creature that doesn’t laugh at its jokes or accept its pranks with good humor. When copper dragons assume a humanoid guise, it is more often than not as a wandering bard in search of adventure. Companionship can, in some cases, be a sort of treasure that a copper dragon hoards. A more typical hoard for a copper dragon includes metals and precious stones drawn from the earth.
(It is presently unknown who, if anyone, is the elder copper dragon. Cuprak is believed to have perished when he was persuaded, by a particularly beguiling bard, to assist with a quest to rid the world of Das, the blue dracolich who still haunts the no-man’s-land northeast of Beyha. To date no one has come forward to claim Cuprak’s lair or the title of elder copper dragon. In the absence of an elder, a surplus of younger copper dragons pester the smaller races of the world with their jests, as my own dealings with Zobheda the Witty can attest. In light of this, it is wisest not to trust wandering bards, and especially wise not to join up with one for companionship upon a perilous journey. -Jirran)
Bronze Dragons
Apa the Bold, Vanquisher of the Waves, makes her home upon the dead volcano of Ulolu, in the midst of the O’opeha archipelago. Bronze dragons are fierce warriors and stalwart enemies of tyranny. Apa’s patrols keep the sea routes open between the sprawling ocean realm of O’opeha and the rest of the world. (Apa, sadly, could not vanquish the kraken, Great Kolo, which claimed her life and destroyed much of the O’opehan capital, A’alale, during the reign of Empress Jabherra VII. Her sacrifice emboldened the remnants of O’opeha’s war fleet, which was able to destroy the Great Kolo once and for all. As with the copper dragons, bronze dragons are still known to exist, though none has claimed Apa’s Coral Seat or her title as elder dragon. O’opeha’s war fleet, justly renowned, now serves to keep their sea routes clear for trade and travel. -Jirran) Bronze dragons are powerful swimmers who eat fish and aquatic plants. They are eternally curious about ships and humanoid incursions upon the sea. There have been many instances of bronze dragons assuming the guise of novice sailors in order to embark upon oceangoing vessels. More commonly, bronze dragons will assume the shapes of dolphins or sea gulls to follow ships, polymorphing into rats in order to skitter into the hold and satisfy its curiosity about what treasures the captain may be transporting. If anything catches the dragon’s interest, bargaining may ensue.
Bronze dragons are almost equally fascinated by humanoid warfare, and can at times be persuaded to join in on the side of a just cause. They will ask for a nominal payment for their assistance, often in the form of a ceremonial token of the alliance or a collection of books on military history and tactics. Spoils of a defeated enemy, such as a weapon or magical item deemed too dangerous to be left in lesser hands, may also find their way into a bronze dragon’s hoard. The primary source of a bronze dragon’s hoard, however, is shipwrecks. Bronze dragons will search reefs and vast expanses of sea floor in order to locate sunken treasure, as well as gorgeous specimens of coral and prodigious pearls.. The O’opehan scholar-queen Ka’malalo, invited to visit the Coral Seat by Apa, documented the presence of prows of ships mightier than any recorded in our histories, dating to some unknown age of the deep past.
Bronze dragons have a greenish tinge to their scales when they are young, maturing to a deeper, richer bronze tone as they age. This has led to some confusion among the ignorant, who either conflate the two species or imagine some ancestral relationship between the two. Green dragons and bronze dragons seldom if ever cross paths, living in such widely divergent environments as they do. As we shall see, however, the world is large, and many strange things can occur.
Bronze dragons possess two types of breath weapons, lightning breath and a sort of repulsion blast, which appears to be more than merely the force of the exhalation. Even redoubtable creatures can be pushed far away from a mature bronze dragon upon the battlefield.
Brass Dragons
Guulin the Loquacious, Sage of the Burning Land, dwells in the great Desert of Aq’, in the north of the continent of Oma. His lair has more in common with the court of a gadabout prince or the parlor of a socialite philosopher, full of novelty and diversion, than with the solemnity and grandeur one might expect from an elder metallic dragon. Newcomers to the brass dragon’s domain might be startled to encounter sphinxes, lamia, riddle-masters, genies bound and free, even fiends specially invited for their charming tongues. Conversation and information are treasure to a brass dragon, and woe unto the guest who attempts to take her leave before the dragon has had his fill of talk!
Brass dragons possess two types of breath weapon, fire breath and a sort of sleep gas exhalation.
(Rajeshwar neglects to mention the major failing of the brass dragon, its tendency to be far too trusting of its interlocutors. About 900 years after Rajeshwar’s writing, Guulin was famously destroyed after a night held under the spell of a mummy lord’s conversation, his guests likewise dispatched by the lord’s undead servants. This Night of the Spilled Wine, as it has been passed down to us in history, marked the final downfall of brass dragons. Never numerous even before the Giant Wars, brass dragons seem to have vanished as utterly as golden dragons from mortal knowledge. -Jirran)
Black Dragons
No one now alive (save, perhaps, for the very eldest of giants, and none venture to their halls to question them on dragons) has seen a black dragon. Vile and vicious creatures, black dragons were slain with especial pleasure by the storm giants during the Wars of Giants and Dragons. Even the smallest black wyrmlings were hunted down in the most remote wildernesses after the fall of Akhamen the Prodigious, elder of the black dragons.
Akhamen once made her lair in the Great Swamp of Okef, south of what we now call the realms of Apalacha. Black dragons were creatures of rot and swamp who savored the fall of civilizations. It is thought that once, far beyond even the legends of elves and dwarves, a humanoid people built mighty cities and a flourishing empire in the coastal lands of what is now the Swamp of Okef. Akhamen dwelled within their ruins, blackening the stone with her acid breath, collecting treasures and wreckage from collapsed nations for her hoard.
Her defeat and death marked the true turning point of the Wars of Giants and Dragons, which until then had been a terrible and fatal struggle for even the most redoubtable champions among the giants. Her death at the hands of the storm giant twins, Ganske and Kyedelig, bolstered the resolve of the storm giants and their allies the cloud giants, and convinced their wavering kin among the frost and fire giants to throw themselves into the cause.
Black dragons once possessed acid breath, capable of corroding and dissolving armor and flesh.
Blue Dragons
The last of the blue dragons was also the most formidable: Das the Repulsive, the feared dracolich of the eastern wastes. The giant army sent to destroy her late in the War believed her killed, but unbeknownst to them, Das had taken steps to become the first known lich in all of history. Her phylactery resided with Cuprak the Resilient, who believed it merely to be a bauble of sapphire, quite pleasing to the eye. Das rose again after centuries spent biding her time, laying waste to the lands of Beyha and Redrock. Das was not finally defeated until armies marching behind the Heroes of the Halberd braved her tomb in the eastern deserts, having sent her phylactery to Krysarkos for safekeeping.
(Das, of course, was NOT finally defeated that day, or indeed on any day since then. The “phylactery” sent to Krysarkos, the one that had resided so long unnoticed in the deserts of Chinchor, turned out to be an enchanted rock, a forgery so skilled that for many centuries it fooled even the elder golden dragon herself. Her true phylactery has never yet been found. Such are the devious and deep-rooted plans of this, the last of the great and terrible elder chromatic dragons. At present Das is safely entombed in her lair, its precise location kept secret to hide it away from rash heroes, who might otherwise break the seals and set her loose upon the world again. -Jirran)
Blue dragons once possessed lightning breath. Their most coveted treasure was esteem and a sense of superiority, often expressed in the accumulation of powerful and important servants: assassins, renowned adventurers, deadly monsters, mages, bards, scholars, all rewarded handsomely for their services, but all bound irrevocably to the dragon’s service. Even in lichdom, Das surrounded herself with rare and powerful servants, from the tlincalli who guarded the approaches to her tomb, to the magical craftsmen who labored on her forged phylacteries, to the medusae and minotaurs who guarded her innermost sanctum.
[The section on green dragons was ripped out and destroyed by the Lady Viriel, a.k.a. Virin Boilblood, an ancient green dragon.]
Red Dragons
Kyr! The very name still has the power to instill fear, some 2000 years after his imprisonment within the Mountain of Golgarath. (Now, some 7500 years after Kyr’s imprisonment, the name is much less feared, having been forgotten by all but the elves. No one quakes now at the thought of Kyr, except perhaps certain aging dragonologists puttering around a vineyard when an unseasonable north wind blows. -Jirran) The Appalling Kyr! The only living elder dragon the giants themselves could not wholly defeat. Kyr, the eternally imprisoned! Woe unto the world should you ever wake.
The giants took elaborate care that Kyr should never escape his prison. An unbreakable collar had been forged around his neck by the most skilled fire giants and azer smiths, imbued with spells of sleep and of containment. The mightiest champion of the fire giants, Fossfor, as renowned a warrior as he is a canny metal-crafter, was given the honor of guarding Kyr within the lava chamber of Golgarath itself. The mightiest champion of the stone giants, Hornfel, was entrusted to guard the entrance to the mountain, using his skill with stonework to maintain the sigils and the spells keeping the mountain sealed, from both inside and out. The mightiest champion of the storm giants, Graupel, ascended from her physical form to become the living storm that shields the mountain night and day, striking down with her lightning any who dare to trespass. (Some nights, the only thought that allows this humble scholar to sleep is the knowledge that those three giant champions are still at their posts, even though the rest of their kind never recovered from the Giant War and are seldom seen in the world today. -Jirran)
Unlike the tomb of Das, which remains a closely guarded secret, any schoolchild could point to the location of Golgarath on a map -- such is the importance of Kyr’s continued imprisonment to the safety of the humanoid world! Nonetheless, the illustrious Alpanu taught me to never assume that any knowledge, no matter how basic, was “common” knowledge. (And a lucky thing for posterity this was! -Jirran) The Mountain of Golgarath rises in the heart of the Ikenpak Range in the far Northland. It is the tallest and most prominent peak of that range, rising some 25000 feet above the frigid tundra. Only goliaths and aarakocra dwell near the place, and even they subsist in the lower elevations of the range, far from the living storm of Graupel, whom some tribes already worship as a god. An outsider may, with the application of appropriate monetary considerations, approach within eyeshot of the storm, but no closer. The mountain itself is, of course, invisible within the fury of the storm.
The nearest human tribes would be the caribou herders and rock-oil wizards of the Auluqik and Ryrkish, who inhabit the tundra plains north and south of the range but rarely venture close except to trade with the goliaths and aarakocra.
Several red dragons survived the defeat and imprisonment of their elder, but thankfully, the giants made their eradication a priority. Occasionally a red wyrmling or a young dragon will appear from remote mountain ranges, aiming to surprise and despoil and exert their control over the countryside, but these have all been quickly dealt with, and no large red dragons have been seen since the War. (No red dragons of any size have been seen in several millennia, may we all thank the gods. -Jirran)
Red dragons covet wealth above all else, and seek to be absolute tyrants over any lesser beings within their power. Their breath weapon is, of course, fire. They seem to have a natural affinity for elemental creatures from the Plane of Fire. The lesser red dragons seen in recent times have been known to consort with magmins and salamanders, and during the height of his power, the Appalling Kyr enslaved even efreet, using their wishes to devastating effect.
White Dragons
Vicious but stupid, white dragons are perhaps the most numerous of chromatic dragons remaining at the time of this writing. Their elder, the Ghastly Quppuluq, was the first elder dragon slain during the Wars of Giants and Dragons, defeated by the frost giant Helja and the cloud giant Strakos when they caught her outside her lair in the glacier of Tukluk, the vast island far to the north in the Eastern Sea. White dragons seem able to breed more rapidly than other true dragons, and while large individuals have not been seen since the Wars, white wyrmlings and young dragons are a common pest in the colder regions of the globe. (This is less true in these latter days. To my knowledge, no white dragon of any size has been seen in three centuries, though of course this does not mean that white dragons have disappeared for good. It’s a pity. -Jirran)
Essentially reduced to a nuisance species, white dragons seem more fitting subjects for a hunter’s guidebook than a volume of dragonology -- so far have they fallen in the world. Rich tourists have been known to leave the comforts of the parlor to brave the arctic wastes to hunt white dragons, which can be supplied by local trappers should the wilderness prove too inconvenient. Less scrupulous trackers might simply paint a captive drake white and call it a day. This may confuse the issue about whether white dragons still exist in any appreciable numbers.
The breath weapon of the white dragons is, of course, cold breath.
Dragon Turtles
Dragon turtles were rarely encountered even before the Wars of Giants and Dragons, and celebrated songs of the storm giants suggest that the Wars made them scarcer still. The last confirmed sighting of a dragon turtle was a century ago, during the reign of the Empress Teth. A large dragon turtle attacked a diplomatic fleet leaving from Ayalar, close enough to shore for spectators to witness it from the seaward walls of the city. After sinking the consular ship, the dragon turtle slipped away into the depths, never to be sighted again. Workings of dark magic are to be suspected. (In the millennia since Rajeshwar’s writing, there have been three other sightings of dragon turtles. The most recent was reported by the survivors of a floating halfling village far out to Sea, who were rescued by the buccaneer hero Shireen Swiftdagger. This occurred during the reign of the Emperor Zerrendar VI, in the year 5209. Recent scholarship has moved away from Alpanu’s classification of dragon turtles among the chromatic dragons, though little enough is known about dragon turtles that they may be discussed here as readily as anywhere else. -Jirran)
The breath weapon of dragon turtles is a blast of superheated steam, which boils up with enough force to wreck both ship and sailor alike. Here in Montalvair, we only know of dragon turtle sightings within our Western Sea. Whether this reflects a real lack of dragon turtles within the Southern, Eastern, and Northern Seas, or merely a lack of information, cannot be determined at this time.
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