Sorcerers

Lingering scions of dragonkind, unwitting victims of their own ancestry, those deemed "Wurmborn" within human lands face persecution and execution through no direct fault of their own. Whether living in hiding or lashing out with hatred at those who would destroy them, sorcerers face the horrible consequences of a war long past.

This article covers "sorcerers" as an in-world term. For information on the Sorcerer character class, see Races and Classes - Rules

Origin

The term "sorcerer" refers to humans who have been gifted magical abilities through the presence of dragon ancestry in their bloodline. The source of that ancestry dates back to the Age of High Magic, a time when Dragons were one of the dominant species of the world. An inherently magical species, Dragons do not procreate as mortals do. Instead, they would imbue a fragment of their power into the birth of offspring. They could also use this same ability to create lesser species - bestow gifts upon mortals while enthralling them to servitude.
One such "gift" was capturing humans and imbuing them with the dragons' own magical essence. This transformed the human from one of purely free will into one magically bound to the blood of the dragon that created them. These humans would maintain their memories from before their transformation, but would be devoted to their "parent". After being released from their imprisonment they would find themselves able to infiltrate human society - whether small villages or eventually Imperial cities. There, they would lay in wait, living their lives.
This gift would lay in the blood of the human sorcerer, being passed on to their children and beyond. In this way, human settlements would have ever-growing threads of hidden power within their walls. The sorcerers would sometimes allow their magic abilities to manifest, gaining positions of honor and power within their cities, but most often would simply lay hidden, passing on their knowledge and worship to their children.

The Dragonscourge

In time, Dragonkind would come to the decision that the rise of mortals - weak individually but extremely strong in number - was becoming a threat to their existence. They chose to launch a war of extermination against the mortals, humans in particular, and the sorcerers were a key component to that war. Striking from within, burning and destroying, sorcerers would awaken from their hidden lives and launch attacks upon the very societies that they had been living within for generations. They would serve as magic support for the Dragons' armies and as spies, entire families spreading out to cause havoc and destruction.
The dragons would lose this war in time, but not until cataclysmic upheaval had been wrought upon the world. A trio of sorcerers featured prominently in one of the last events of the war, causing the crashing destruction of every remaining floating Elven city - part of the events that led to the creation of The Desolation.
After the war, humans would seek out and exterminate whatever "Wurmborn" they could find. Any human that showed any sign of magical ability was executed - no matter their age. Periodic panics would sweep through human settlements that arose from the rubble of the war; entire families murdered on mere suspicion of sorcery. This fear would remain throughout the decades after the war, even after the arrival of the Mages within the City-States Region showed that there was a non-draconic way to practice Magic.

Legacy

Today, the curse of the dragons' blood still lingers within humankind. Many humans carry a small trace of draconic blood within their family trees, some ancestor long ago having been born from one such line. In almost all cases, there is absolutely no manifestation of ability, and they are able to live normal lives. From time to time, however, a child is born with the right concentration of lingering magic. These unfortunate souls will, one day, cause untold terror upon their families.
Sorcerers today no longer exist in thrall to dragons - no dragons exist to worship, nor to command them. Those who find themselves cursed with the magic of sorcery instead find themselves outcast from their societies, knowing that their existence is an affront to the people they grew up with. Those lucky few who are not executed as children (sometimes along with their families) either live in exile or hide within society. The bitterness of knowing the hatred that people hold for them, however, frequently leads to their lashing out against their homes. It is not unheard of for a sorcerer to take such mistreatment as cause to declare humanity as their enemy - setting up in seclusion as a "dragonlord" themselves, seeking followers to some day rise up and cause the destruction of those that hate them.

The Wurmborn

1. No Wurmborn shall be suffered to live.

-The Lasair Compact

The magic of the wurmborn within a given sorcerer will manifest in different ways, at different stages of life. For some, they are infants when strange effects begin to happen - strange fires without seeming cause, or objects levitating across rooms. Others find their abilities first appearing during moments of adolescent stress. In almost all cases, the first powerful manifestation of magic creates chaos and fear - both in those around them and within the mind of the newly-exposed sorcerer.
If those around the sorcerer are able to easily identify them as the source, the next events are invariably violent. All citizens of the City-States Region are taught from birth about the danger of the sorcerers - the very first law of the Lasair Compact is that the Wurmborn shall not be suffered to live. As such, their reaction to wild and uncontrolled magic within their midst is to attack the cause - in this case, the frightened and confused young sorcerer. The result is either the swift killing (or capture and execution) of the sorcerer - or their violent escape. When the magic manifests in an infant or a young child, the outcome is just as tragic, but almost always resulting in the death of the child.
Depending on the location of the sorcerer's secret becoming known, they may not be the only one punished for their existence. In major cities Mages are often easy to find, and they will often assist with investigating the sorcerer's past. Their knowledge allows them to understand that the birth of a sorcerer is not the fault of their parents, that the manifestation is often random. In more remote settlements, though, where people tend to be more superstitious or distrustful, the presence of a sorcerer is taken as an indictment of an entire family. Lashing out with anger and fear and hatred, more than one village has brutally murdered the parents, siblings, even grandparents and cousins, of a sorcerer.
In extremely rare instances parents may recognize their child for what they are - perhaps they witnessed a small magical outburst - and are able to help teach the child to control and to hide their magic. They do this out of an understandable compassion and love for their offspring, and in some cases they are able to help their child lead a moderately normal life to a certain age. As life progresses, however, it becomes more and more difficult for a sorcerer to control the curse that they bear. In these cases the adolescent sorcerer will often leave their home behind, going into the world to hide as best they can.

Who Knows This?

An Intelligence (History) skill check will bring to mind the following depending on the character's roll:

• DC 5 (Common knowledge):
  "Magic-users sometimes lose control. They're dangerous if not taught control. Like the first law says, if they're not a Mage or Priest, they should be killed."
• DC 10 (Could hear it from travelers):
  Sorcerers go bad because of their blood - they carry a curse.
• DC 15 (Education covered it):
  Sorcerers - or the Wurmborn - are a lingering effect of the Dragonscourge and they are hunted to prevent dragons coming back.
• DC 20 (Learned Historian):
  The Sorcerers were created by the Dragons to infiltrate human settlements
• DC 25 (Subject Matter Expert):
  The first law of the Compact, regarding sorcerers, is enforced by the Mages with a ruthless efficiency. A school within the order is dedicated to the detection and hunting of sorcerers.
• DC 30 (Directly Acquired Knowledge):
  An extremely lucky few sorcerers that have managed to escape human lands are harbored by remote Orcs tribes in the Savage Lands. In addition, rumors exist of a secret network that helps sorcerers escape to Mina'Satie Bay , where they are spirited away across the sea - presumably to lands where sorcerers are not looked upon with such fear.