The Lost Armies of the Dragons

Adding stories to my world to flesh it out? - it must be Folklore Friday!

Good day and salutations to you, my readers, and welcome back to the bit where I offer you weirdly cryptic lore about my world without the same context as my party has!¹

Any of you who have been reading my posts for a while will know that I have a hobby of writing short, skyrim-esque books for my campaign, into which I pour lore, information, misinformation, myth, and some humour. My most recent work on this is a book called “The Ancient and the Lost”, which the party picked up when looking for information on the history of the area, including looking for information about a couple of relics which they carry - a wooden idol which seems to be coveted by the BBEG, who keeps sending zombie minions after them, and a rune-carved hagstone which has led the paladin down a series of quests in his dreams to prove himself a hero at the behest of an elf who claims to be guarding the power of the stone.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

This book contains several stories about and information on:

• The lost armies of the Dragons

• The Old Kingdom

• The Dream Seeds

• The Distant Tower

• The Red Water Springs

• The Sentinel of Aren

• Wrath of the Gods

• The Coming and Going of Frost

• A Thousand Floors Below

And will have a couple more which I am still polishing up.

For today, we’ll start with the beginning - The Lost Armies of the Dragons, an informative piece which explains where the Dinosaurs came from, and relates to the fact that Birds in Arenstar have 4 legs - because they evolved from Dragons, not from Dinosaurs.²

The Lost Armies of the Dragons

When the first person took their first steps upon this world, when the gods themselves were young, even then, there were times which were so long past as to be considered ancient. In those times - the Godless times, when the world was raw - there emerged Dragons. They say that the first mind looked upon the world and saw that it was savage and powerful, and it was from this first thought that the Dragons were born. These were not the dragons which were lost to the world today - the wise and the strong, protectors of the weak and defenders of knowledge. These were the greatest and first of the savage and primordial beasts which came before - titanic and bestial, their roars could shatter mountains, their claws could carve valleys in the earth, and the sweep of their tail could level forests. What they saw was weak, they dominated; what they saw as strong, they claimed.

The primordial creatures they shared the world with were equally titanic and wrath - the wurms which coiled through the heart of the world, so large as to be seen by many as the source of the great expanse which lies below, known as the Underdark; the rocs which cast their shadows across continents, and the krakens which churned the fathomless oceans to their will. Great and powerful as the dragons were, their most powerful strength was not in might, but in Magic. Believed to be the first beings to wield Magic with intent, the Dragons sought dominion over the world, and with the magic that they possessed, they forged armies - creations made in their image, each wielding an aspect of their power; wings, or strength, or quick intellect, but never the three combined; born to war and destined for death - known now as Dinosaurs. For these creatures, they formed weaponry and armour from the metals of the earth, and then they sent them to war with the other primordials. Millions of their creations fell, but one by one, so too did the other Primordials, until the Dragons had dominion over the world.

To share the world was not enough for the Dragons, for in their pursuit of knowledge of the world beneath them, they had discovered something which they coveted; a metal which they collected with single-minded tenacity and guarded with unbridled ferocity - Gold. To claim this prize, the Primordial Dragons went to war with one another - sending their armies to fight each other, and to destroy their rivals. It was this which began the downfall of the Primordial Dragons, and the beginning of the end of the Godless Era.

The first Dragon which fell to the ancient armies heralded the end of the arms-race of the Dragons, and began their demise. Their armies were sentient beings - the first to exist, beyond the Primordials - and it is believed that they realised that, if they can slay a Primordial which their cruel masters have sent them to assail, then they can slay the Primordial who has sent them into war, and claim their freedom. The great armies of the Dragons banded together, and began a campaign to destroy their Primordial dragon masters.

For tens of thousands of years, they fought and spread, their kinship with the Dragons that made them lending them glimmers of magic, keen intellect, and great strength. At the end of the first war against the Dragons, there were but 6 of the Primordials left. Five Of these had banded together, and sought to fight the armies to their extinction, swearing eternal vengeance on their subservient creations which dared to turn against their creators. The One other sought to reconcile with them - to share an existence, and share the power that it commanded, to find a peaceful coexistence. These two factions were themselves in conflict, for how could they not? The Five sought to beat back the world, fighting as one to destroy the creatures which had turned against them, and the one sought to protect those same creatures with his might, and to coexist as their ruler and protector; one which the Armies would choose, not be forced to follow.

Change came slowly; the war carried on, and the One Primordial sought ever for peace, and the Five sought ever to destroy their foes and reclaim total domination. Over time, the One grew a following, and bent its power to shaping the world; creating beautiful forests and rivers in which the Dinosaurs could live. Conversely, the Five exerted their power to turn the land hostile; volcanic mountains were thrown up to the sky, rivers of lava and foul fumes suffused the land all around their lair. Ever the Five clashed with the One, and their battles were so fierce that the very sky would ring with it for days to follow.

The world changed. The land of the Five became desolate and barren, and the land of the One became lush and fruitful. The Dinosaurs which had spread so widely across the world revered the One as their protector, and feared the Five as their destroyer. The Dragons, it is said, were born of opinion, and it was this opinion which reshaped them; the Five becoming ever more destructive and wicked, and the One becoming more benevolent and kind, and became strong enough to hold the Five at bay.

It isn’t known exactly what cataclysm was brought down on the dinosaurs, but it is believed that it was something unleashed upon the world by the Five - a world-burning inferno which stripped the land of life and verdancy, leaving behind ash, dust, washed by the Tears of the One. These tears nourished the land, blossoming beneath them and returning it slowly to life, but the Dinosaurs were all but destroyed.

The evidence of these armies are scattered beneath the ground - twisted fossils of ancient warriors, dragonesque of face and claw, oft found with remnants of weapons of ancient design, and draped in such ragged remnants of armour as time would allow to survive, crushed and flattened beneath the relentless passing of time. The museums of Orsilath - the wooden mountain - in Alu Ath Shantir - the Sea of Trees - contain several exquisitely preserved specimens of these warrior beasts - not with weapons or armour, but with colourful clothes, jewellery - signs of lives lived with art and music and skilled craft; singed and blackened, the last throes of the cataclysm which swept them from Arenstar. They say that the Wooden Mountain itself grew from the tears of the One, and that deep beneath its roots, there is a spring of these tears still, nourishing the mountain.

After the destruction of the dinosaurs, the world was rent into two realms - that of the Five, and that of the One. The One is said to have created a power sufficient to combat the Five, and then they fought in a great battle which saw the Five banished from this plane forever. The One then laid down to sleep, wearied from war and grief and loss, to let the world heal, and the era of the primordial dragons ended.

They say that the lands where the Five laid claim before their fall were forever tainted with malice. The world there grew wild, and dangerous. Meanwhile, the lands where the One had reigned grew fertile and strong, and life there thrived - new life, laid down by young gods, seeded the world. Dragons remained, though the influence of their forebears continued to drive them - where the Five had once been in command, the Dragons were fierce and tyrannical, cruel masters of any beings who they could subjugate, and terrible vanquishers of those they could not. Where the One had dominion, the dragons were benevolent protectors of the people, and sought to maintain balance within and across their lands.

Thankyou all for reading! If you have questions, then ask them! I find answering questions significantly more effective than trying to create lore from nothing!

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1. or “TBWIOYWCLAMWWTSCAMPH” for short, which happens to be the scientific name for nothing.

2. It also may or may not be related to the party’s cleric being a worshipper of Bahamut.