The Age of Dragons

Ancient Dragons

Teoti Itza is the most sacred place of the Dragons, where some argue the first civilization this world has seen began long ago. Either from longstanding instinct predating the dragon’s ascension as sapient beings, or some element of its climate which make it suitable for such purposes, Teoti Itza served as a place where the disparate dragons of the world would meet every forty seasons. This T’saak Cauz, or Dragon’s Moot, as it is often translated, served several purposes for the dragons who attended. Its most fundamental function, and commonly believed to have been its first, was to allow the often instinctually territorial and competitive creatures an opportunity to mate with other dragons on equal ground. Indeed, such meetings were often the only times dragons would ever mate, as outside of the protection of of the site many scheming dragons would use the opportunity of close contact and vulnerability to slay a neighboring rival, before or after the act. Additionally, any matters deemed relevant to the continued success and survival of the draconic race could be brought forth during the T’saak Cauz. In those times, the matters discussed by the dragons rarely involved internal disputes between dragons, as a dragon too weak to press a claim by their own power garnered little sympathy among their peers. The third purpose was to allow some rudimentary trade among dragons. Originating in the practice of bower building (the careful construction of a display of treasures in order to attract a mate), dragons looking to improve their bowers at the last minute or those dragons who were unsuccessful in courtship would inspect the bowers of rivals, often leading to an exchange of items between the two parties.

The Bower War

As time passed, and the population of dragons grew larger, competition for mates grew fiercer at the T’saak Cauz. With more dragons leaving moots without success, bower building began to be re-contextualized in draconic society, becoming a potent status symbol and evolving away from a mere courtship practice. With its now greatly increased importance, bower craft began to transition from a basic practice to a complex and resource-hungry art form. In turn, this meant new methods began to be adopted and refined, as dragons desperate for an edge looked for new innovations.
The great equalizer of the T’saak Cauz was that every dragon had the mere duration of the moot to construct their bowers. Not only that, but any materials had to be carried with them to the meeting, or scavenged once they had arrived. The most powerful of the dragons devised an simple solution. Through might, connections, or other means, they seized the land around the meeting grounds. Though none would dare lay claw upon the grounds itself, nevertheless, territories and holdings sprung up around them. With their territory near to the land of the T’saak Cauz, landholding dragons could now work on their bowers for decades before the moot, and indeed they did. Temporary bowers could now become cyclopean monuments of excess, and many did became permanent structures. making it impossible for those who still had to travel to have any chance to compete. Those who still traveled voiced complaints at the T’saak Cauz, but the majority narrative, pushed by those who had holdings around the sacred grounds, was often the same: if the dragons wanted an advantage, they would have to seize it themselves before the next meeting. Disgusted by this injustice, some disgruntled dragons permanently and publicly forsook the T’saak Cauz, and their greedy kin, forming their own smaller communities or embracing solitude for the rest of their lifespans.
Among those unable to seize high value land, a second practice was pioneered. Just to the south of Teoti Itza, a great resource was identified by the most shrewd of the dragons. The Dwarves endemic to the area, before only rarely attacked by the dragons of the area searching for food or looking for amusement, were found to be a valuable source of precious metals and jewels. Dragons, once forced to burrow into mountain sides and sift valuables from worthless silt and rock, could now simply raid a dwarves hold and seize accumulated riches, many already crafted into pleasingly detailed forms exotic to the tastes of their kin.
These smaller, diverse collections of exotic valuables stood out from the grand excess of the landholding dragons, and finally it seemed their advantage had been nullified, as tastes and fashions shifted to favor this new type of bower. Now accustomed to their preeminence, the landholding dragons naively attempted to mimic this practice, yet the value of their holdings worked against them, for if they abandoned their bowers to raid the dwarves, neighboring rivals could lay waste to their hard work, or even seize the lands themselves. Some compensated with agreements with their fellow landholders, instituting a system where dragons would guard a raiding dragon’s territory while they were away, in exchange for a cut of the loot from the excursion. Ultimately such measures fell short, however, and many of the most powerful of the dragons despaired as their carefully curated influence faded as new peers rose. But not all allowed the new status quo to rise unchallenged.
One individual, Tarys the Meticulous, was a physically frail dragon who had spent centuries shrewdly and desperately trading favors, accumulating knowledge, and making deals in order to own a sliver of prime territory in Teoti Itza. Pragmatic and cold, Tarys was entirely unwilling to let all her hard work go to waste in the face of this new fashion, yet was far too weak to participate in any raids to the south. Frustrated, she disappeared into her modest lair, spending many seasons in isolation, and missing two whole moots before she triumphantly revealed her bower. It was imposing in size, enough to rival the greatest works of her landholding peers, yet was wrought with immaculate detail which seemed patently impossible for even the steadiest clawed dragons to accomplish, rivaling even the beauty of artifacts stolen from the dwarves. Furthermore, despite the monumental effort that the project must have taken, the frail Tarys was radiant and healthy, and in fact appeared to have gained weight over the seasons. Though her ascent in draconic society was now guaranteed, Tarys earned many enemies along the way, and in time, the secret to her success was revealed by her rivals.

The Children of Tarys

Using her knowledge of magic and natural philosophy she had carefully honed through the years, Tarys had done the unprecedented. By stunting and twisting the growth of her own unfertilized eggs, bathing them in a foul mix of alchemical reagents, and finally expending her prodigious magical might, Tarys had engineered a race of diminutive beings. These ‘Kobolds’, (named by her for one of the reagents essential to their creation) were dexterous, loyal only to her, of weakened intellect, and most importantly, could reproduce among themselves. Armed with an extensive and self sustaining labor force, Tarys could now compete with the most preeminent of the dragons. Tarys’s innovation was wildly controversial once it was discovered. Reactions varied from disgust at her prideful corruption of noble dragon blood, to rampant jealously at her success. Nevertheless, Tarys now had more enemies than ever before, but through her legendary persistence and cunning, and her growing legions of servants (the method of their manufacture a closely guarded secret), managed to protect and expand her territories through the next few moots.

Rise of the Dragon Tyrants

Tarys’s rise to preeminence again upheaved the balance of power in Teoti Itza. Her bower, at first designed to purely suit the artistic tastes of her kin, quickly became a veritable fortress to repel the assaults of her rivals and critics. When it became clear that Tarys could not be so easily unseated, pragmatic dragons sought out her assistance, offering treasures in exchange for a loan of her new servants. Such dragons inevitably found greater success, but new servants required new treasures to barter with, and thus raiding upon the dwarves was redoubled. Those unfortunates in Tarys’s disfavor, many among them those who had sought to undermine her success, turned to desperate measures to compensate for their lack of servants, beginning to capture and enslave dwarves in their raids.
Dragons live a long time, and thus the schedule of their assaults were originally infrequent from the perspective of the dwarven span. They were certainly considered horrific and deeply unfortunate, yet to early dwarven civilization, such events happened about as often as other great calamities like earthquakes and storms, and were thus treated similarly. They were to be prepared for and trained for, but they were random things, difficult to feasibly repel, and best compensated for rather than fought against. Dwarves were taught to hide their valuables best they could, and get out of the way, for though a dragon was not above slaying scores of dwarves, they would not go out of their way to do so. Yet suddenly, in the wake of the societal changes wrought by Tarys’s innovations, everything changed for the dwarves. Holds were now frequently assaulted, stripped of everything, and worse, dwarves began to actively hunted down and killed, or taken by the dozens. Those few that managed to escape from Teoti Itza told unspeakable tales of their time in enslavement. To every dwarf, suddenly the dragons were not an unfortunate and rare calamity, they were invaders who threatened their very way of life. And so they adapted, methods for repelling draconic assaults were devised, architecture and defenses were adapted to fight their new foe, and lastly, a task long relegated to the realm of myth was broached, how to slay a dragon.
The details were unclear, and lengthily debated at that cycle’s T’saak Cauz. Yet the principal facts were clearly presented. Two powerful dragons, both healthy and well trained in the art of battle, had been slain on a raid against the dwarves. Many doubted that this could possibly occur, yet the freshly bleached skull of one of the fallen, daringly retrieved from a throne room by a young wisp of a drake and unmistakably marked with chips from dwarven weapons, silenced any naysayers. All presiding dragons were forced to admit that two of their kind had died at the hands of beings they had once considered entirely inferior. With that admission came a feeling unfamiliar to dragon kind, fear. By a near unanimous deliberation at the T’saak Cauz, all further raids were to be called off indefinitely, and all conflict among dragons in Teoti Itza proper were to temporarily cease. Extensive deliberation began among most powerful and influential of the dragons, while in the interim, many focused on fortifying their holdings and consolidating their power. Finally, a conclusion was reached. The raids would resume not cease, as such an act would be an admission of weakness. After their might had been proven, raiding was to be escalated to all out war, to put the now emboldened dwarves in their place. Yet the fear of death now ran cold and unfamiliar in the hearts of once brave dragons, so an command was extended to Tarys to aid in the war effort, through the creation of kobolds made ready for war. These kobolds would be commanded by the wisest and mightiest of the dragons, and would become the first true generals of dragon-kind (predictably, many of these dragons were chosen from the well connected landowning elite in Teoti Itza) Such a demand was seemingly reasonable, yet stipulated was the requirement that such beings would be made instinctually loyal to one of the generals to be, not herself, as all the others had been. Tarys tried to negotiate, proposing that instead she would command those by nature loyal to her to temporarily enter the service of another, as she had done before in exchange. This the presiding council refused, citing worries that she could easily seize absolute power by exploiting the new army’s absolute loyalty to her. Knowing that she could not stand alone against the combined and newly riled might of the rest of her kind, Tarys finally yielded to these demands, but managed to negotiate that she alone would be responsible for the creation of these new kobolds loyal to other dragons, so that the secret of the making would remain in her hands. The council assented, and Tarys, with samples given to her from the dragon-generals to be, made new legions of kobolds by the score, and passed them on to be trained and naturally breed until they had reached a sustainable population.
In the wake of the death of two dragons, many among the dwarves hoped that the raiding were over. Many hoped to return to their old way of life, and the tight administrative grip which had been instituted by dwarven kings during the attacks was challenged. Some lords assented to a return to the way things were, but the oldest and wisest of their number and those familiar with the temperament of dragonkind yielded not an inch, convinced that their return was inevitable. Such fears were unfortunately well founded, as the dragons returned in unprecedented numbers. Now not merely raiding, the devastation wrought on unprepared holds was rampant, though dragons who once would slice through scores of men now tended to hold back, letting their new warriors fight their battles. This new tactic was initially effective, but Tarys’s kobolds were not designed for war. Far smaller than their dwarven opponents, they were crafty, but dim witted, and often had to be very carefully managed by their generals to be effective. Failures on several critical fronts due to the failings of their kobolds frustrated dragon generals, and when one such failing led to another death of a dragon, the war council once again called Tarys to answer.

Type

Record, Historical