Tp-!think ye know Dragons? Read on !

“Run Away” image used with permission Copyright © Anne Stokes

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By Richard Lee Byers

or my money, dragons, particularly as presented in D&D and the Forgotten

Realms, are as fascinating as any creatures in fantasy. They’re beautiful and
terrible. Wise and savage. They possess prodigious strength, astonishing magical
powers, and come in a diversity of species, each with its own unique abilities and
habits, each variously inclined to nobility or wickedness, order, chaos, or the
ideal of balance. Best of all, each is an individual, inhuman but with a personality
as fully developed and multifaceted as any of ours, with its own particular goals,
attitudes, and quirks. What more could a storyteller ask?

My advice to storytellers, be they fiction writers or DMs, is to bear this individuality in mind. A
generic, anonymous dragon that simply runs around killing and eating victims and stealing
treasure until the heroes slay it in its turn is a cliché, and, worse, a waste of an opportunity to
bring some genuine awe and wonder into your tale.

Instead, give your drake a name, a history, and a chance to talk. Consider the possibility that it
might have an agenda above and beyond filling its belly and amassing a hoard. Or, even if it
doesn’t, whether it might pursue the typical goals of dragon-kind via unconventional means. And
when the moment comes for it to fight, let it do so in a way that reflects its cunning and the full
range of its capabilities.

In short, make sure your dragon is a person first and a monster second.

The articles that follow will help you do that. Enjoy!

Read of the current Realms-shattering event in The Year of Rogue Dragons Trilogy.

Book I – The Rage

Book II – The Rite
Book III – The Ruin
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By Brian R. James

The mighty dragons seldom speak of their past. When they do speak, their histories are often
filled with exaggeration and half-truths. Herein, revealed for the first time, is the true history of
dragonkind on Abeir-Toril

+!+!+!+!

The Dawn Age These were The Days of Thunder, the time of
the fabled Creator Races3. By this time, circa
“And so Asgorath bent her form around the -31,000 DR, the batrachi4 had ruled land and
Crystal Sun, and touched her breath to it. sea for not quite twenty-five hundred years,
And the Crystal Sun burst into fragments that but their empire was in decline.
pierced the flesh of Asgorath, and her blood
fell on the World.” Batrachi-Jotunbrud War
– Excerpted from The Origin Myths – A -31,100 to -31,000 DR
Treatise by Dunkelzahn of Candlekeep,
1354 DR For the preceding century, the amphibious
batrachi had fought great wars against the
ome thirty-two thousand jotunbrud5. The prize was control of the
years ago, the topography abundant lands amongst the four vast Inner
of Abeir-Toril was much Seas. Decade after decade they battled,
different than it is today. In neither side gaining advantage.
this ancient time before The
Sundering1, the lands which The batrachi were unequaled in their mastery
would one day be identified of summoning magic. Thousands of conjured
as Faerûn, Kara-Tur, Maztica, and Zakhara creatures lost their lives defending the
were each but one part of a much larger batrachi against the titans. One such
super-continent named Merrouroboros2. summoned monstrosity, the krakentua6,
stood as tall as a titan with the head of a
The collective lands of Merrouroboros kraken; its grisly visage sprouting several
measured more than ninety-five hundred tentacles nearly twenty feet in length. Not
miles from east to west and fifty-five hundred until the coming of Tarrasque would a more
miles from north to south. voracious and destructive creature roam
Toril. Still, the krakentua were not enough to
None of the dozen or so common races which turn the tide of the war.
populate the world today existed in this
distant era. Merrouroboros knew none of the The batrachi returned to their summoning.
civilized folk – elves, dwarves, halflings, or They needed something even bigger,
gnomes. Nor did the savage peoples – something truly terrifying. After months of
goblins, orcs, ogres and their kin – inhabit
the land. Though humans did exist during 3
Five progenitor races native to Abeir-Toril, which include the sarrukh,
this ancient age, they were primitive and the batrachi, the aearee, the fey, and humans.
ape-like, using only simple tools. 4
One of the five creator races. Also known as amphibioids, the
batrachi were the creators of the bullywugs, doppelgangers, kopru, kuo-
toa, locothah, sivs, tako, and other shapeshifting, amphibious, or piscine
races.
1 5
A time of elven pride and folly, when High Magic sundered the great The name by which the giant races call themselves.
continent, killing tens of thousands of innocents. 6
Originally found in module OA7 – Test of the Samurai (1989, Rick
2
Land of the World Serpent in the language of the Sarrukh. Swan)
preparation, they succeeded, but were utterly Tearfall
unprepared for the entity that stepped -31,000 DR
through the gate.
Never subtle, Asgorath desired to make her
Asgorath the World Shaper presence felt on Toril in dramatic fashion.

Before them stood a manifestation of In the Sea of Night above Abeir-Toril, two
Asgorath7 the World Shaper, a dragon of celestial bodies shone down upon world. The
colossal size. Dragons were unknown on larger of the two moons was known as
Toril in this long ago age, and when Asgorath Ssharstrune8, the smaller named Zotha9 the
extended her mighty wings and roared her Crystal Sun10.
indignation, the batrachi knew they had made
a terrible mistake. Asgorath stretched her colossal form around
the Crystal Sun. Summoning forth great
The fast-thinking magic, The World
batrachi quickly Shaper exhaled
fell to their knees the emergent
in homage, magic as a great
pleading for blast of dragon
mercy. Moments fire. The small
passed, and the moon sundered
mighty wyrm did under the
not attack. To assault, covering
their great relief Asgorath with
and surprise, thousands of deep
Asgorath asked the wounds.
conjurers to stand
and account for Though shattered,
their actions. several large
masses of the ice
Hesitant at first, moon remained.
though growing Asgorath then cast
calmer with each the largest
breath, the fragment at Toril,
batrachi mages unerringly toward
explained their Lanaxis, the realm
conflict against the of the titans.
giants and their need to summon minions to
fight on their behalf. At Asgorath’s This chunk of the ice moon, still the size of a
insistence, they described their civilization large mountain, struck deep at the heartlands
and the history of the batrachi race. Then of Merrouroboros, carving a gorge so deep
the dragon asked questions about their faith between the Inner Seas that they merged
and gods. together to form the Sea of Fallen Stars11.
Throughout the following days, many smaller,
At last, a pact was forged. In exchange for though still devastating, impacts occurred
granting her children a domain on this world, throughout the continent.
Asgorath agreed to aid the batrachi in their
fight against the titans.
8
Named after the sarrukh goddess of magic, creator of darkness and
light. Known today as the moon Selûne.
9
Named after the sarrukh goddess of fire and ice. Its remnants are
known today as the Tears of Selûne.
10
Unlike the moon Ssharstrûne, Zotha was an ice world, consisting
7 primarily of iron and frozen water.
Creator of dragonkind on Abeir-Toril. Leader of the draconic
11
pantheon. Known as Serôs to its underwater inhabitants.