Emperor Drakus Coaltongue
The Old Dragon, some call him, since he seems immortal, and he only grows more cunning and powerful with age.
Decades ago, a warlord arose among the human tribes of what is now the Imperial Seat of Acheron. Drakus Coaltongue, son of a human noblewoman and a Jonoi tribesman, brought a level of patience and political cunning rarely seen among the savage humans of the Jonoi. He united many tribes, slew a gold dragon and took its child as a prize, and prepared his people for glory. And then, to everyone’s surprise, he did not sweep into human lands for a bloody but ultimately short-lived rampage. Instead, Coaltongue allied with various poor human nations, helping them drive back the predations of the strongest country in the region, Morrus. Coaltongue even gained the aid of the insular elves of Shining Land of Shahalesti, until finally he was ready to lead a coalition army against Morrus.
For this great assault, Coaltongue revealed a devastatingly powerful artifact that would lead him to victory, the Torch of the Burning Sky. The power of the Torch was to call down fire from the sky, and to carry Coaltongue’s army hundreds of miles in an instant, plucking them up with one pillar of flame, and depositing them with another. Coaltongue and his allies easily defeated Morrus, and from the nation’s burning remains, Coaltongue created a new empire for himself and his followers, Acheron.
For a time Coaltongue and his allies coexisted in relative peace. Coaltongue was content with his new homeland, and did not want to jeopardize it by reaching too far and falling before the might of many nations, as Morrus had fallen before him. But slowly, the Acheron Empire expanded its borders. It took years for events to play out, and always in a way that Acheron’s imperialism was justified, either in response to enemy attacks, or to aid another nation that was being threatened. With the benefit of hindsight, many suspect that somehow Coaltongue provoked these conflicts. Finally, when Coaltongue was far older than any human had right to be, all the lands that had once belonged to his allies were his.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
For years, wealthy noble families throughout the region, especially in the Province of Sindaire, suffered under Emperor Coaltongue’s rule. In the summer of 999, Lord Pietr Gorquith organized this disapproval into an outright rebellion. The rebellious nobles were smart enough to realize, however, that Coaltongue’s military might surpassed anything they could field, so instead of warring outright, they fought with subterfuge and politics. Shipments were delayed or rerouted from military garrisons to disgruntled peasants, threats were made to Coaltongue’s supporters, and pledges were made to stand together when the time came; soon even the Exarch – the provincial leader installed by Coaltongue’s orders – feared that she could no longer tell whom he could trust.
The Old Dragon’s foes assumed his only strength was in martial warfare, but in truth he was also cunning: he decreed that every noble family would offer up a son or daughter to serve in the armies of Acheron's heartland, far from the safety of Sindaire. The loyal noble families readily complied, whereas many among the rebellion hesitated or balked. Confident he had weeded out enough of his opponents, the emperor ordered his garrisons to arrest the rebels. Some tried to fight, and they fled in force to the highly defensible Castle Korstull in the badlands of central Sindaire, which had itself once served as a Acheron fortress when Coaltongue first attacked Sindaire sixty years ago, before the nation pledged fealty to the Acheron Empire.
On a morning in late fall, Emperor Coaltongue called together his loyal First Army and mustered the ten thousand men and their many beasts of war on a broad field outside the Acheron capital. With him he had brought the son of one of the Sindairese rebels, shackled and held fast in the clawed grip of two armored inquisitors. Holding aloft the Torch of the Burning Sky, the emperor roared to his men that they would put down this challenge to their authority, this insult to their invincible might. The tip of the Torch began to flicker with fire, and then, with a strike that caved in the skull of the rebel son, the flames flared to blinding brilliance.
The sky roared, and an inferno descended upon the army, engulfing them and carrying them through the burning sky to the gates of Castle Korstull. Emperor Coaltongue dined that evening in the castle’s throne room.
That evening, however, as the emperor slept soundly with the satisfaction of his victory, a trio of assassins struck. Avoiding or striking down every guard, defeating every magical and mundane defense that protected Coaltongue, the assassins managed to reach the emperor’s bedchambers, located behind the throne room. Vile poison struck down Darius, one of his inquisitor bodyguards, but not before Darius sounded an alarm. The assassins slew the emperor before he woke, and then, bearing the emperor’s body and the Torch, they battled their way to within sight of the open sky and activated the Torch, teleporting away.
But somehow the assassins sabotaged the Torch’s power: when they vanished, they left behind a rift in the fabric of reality, crossing the Astral Plane, the Plane of Elemental Fire and the Negative Energy Plane. Within moments the castle and miles around it were engulfed in flames, and all those slain by the blaze were infused with necromantic energy, soon to rise as undead. Only Darius survived, protected by the wards on Coaltongue’s throne room, but the assassins’ poison seared his mind as the rift incinerated his comrades, and he lay in a nightmare-wracked fever for days. Now he survives in the emperor’s chambers, barely aware of who he is, or that he alone holds the secret to the Torch’s fate.
Now, the firestorm created by the rift drifts for miles in every direction, raining liquid flame upon the land, turning anything it slays into undead. In the months since Coaltongue’s defeat, many have tried to reach the heart of the firestorm, where a burning pillar ascends into the heavens, but none have emerged.
Meanwhile, within the castle, a strange hierarchy has emerged. Though most of the undead retain only the faintest sliver of a mind, they still obey the commands of those creatures whose spirits were strong enough to survive their deaths. Now the castle is commanded by Inquisitor Griiat, once one of Coaltongue’s bodyguards. Since his death he has learned to draw divine magic from the power of the planar rift, and views it as his maker, almost his god, which he calls the Dark Pyre. Griiat is cursed, however, to remain in the castle until he is released from his duty, which he failed when he allowed the emperor to die, and so without the intervention of those from the outside, the spectral inquisitor and all his undead minions will remain in the castle for eternity.
Relationships
Alignment
Lawful evil
Species
Ethnicity
Date of Birth
October 4, 843
Date of Death
November 15, 999
Life
843
999
156 years old
Circumstances of Death
Assassinated in Castle Korstull in the Province of Sindaire
Birthplace
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Gender
Male
Hair
Greying, thick with a bit of curl
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Tanned, rugged
Aligned Organization
Other Affiliations
Ruled Locations
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