Dec 20, 2023 5:52 pm
In days of old long ago, an extended family of men befriended a dragon and arranged a mutual-assistance treaty between them. they built an edifice to commemorate the event and for future meetings; they called it Drake Hall. The man who arranged this treaty was honored by the family. The dragon who made the treaty became fat and wealthy from all the tributes he was paid. Together they intimidated and coerced various other groups to submit to their rule, and the kingdom of Drakall was born. Drakall's human leaders established a royal line, and as the kingdom grew, the dragon convinced others to join it in alliance with the descendants of the humans who treated it so well. So over the human generations, Drakall grew, expanding across the region, and prospered. Drakall became an economic force as well as a military one, and great was the knowledge that the wizards of Drakall gleaned in their coexistence with the dragons. Other nations grew envious or afraid of Drakall, and attempted to subdue it through force. For two human generations, the kings and dragons of Drakall defended its borders from various attacks and invasions. But then the grandson of the first human king who defended the realm decided that the only way to stop these offenses was to attack and subjugate the nearby aggressors. Thus was the empire of Drakall born.
The Drakall Empire grew to encompass most of the continent, all the land between the eastern sea and the vast western forests, from the vast tundra to the north to the southern jungles. Various regional centers developed; some of them were former capitol cities of lands that had been conquered or absorbed into the Empire. So it continued for centuries: long enough to even span the generations of dragons.
But then, one of the elder dragons died, and the human Emperor who had bonded to that dragon died not long after. He left no heirs, and had not bonded with another dragon who could give its weight to the question of succession. This led to civil war in the Drakall Empire, as two cousins made competing claims for the Imperial throne, each with a dragon of their own.
One cousin, bonded with a red dragon, led an army whose colors were red and white. The other cousin, his enemy, paired with a blue dragon, and commanded an army whose colors were blue and green. Officials, nobles, knights, merchants, writers, admirals, artists, and wizards: all took opposing sides in the conflict, and soon enough the entire Empire was embroiled in the struggle for control. This became known as the War of Imperial Succession. Some generals of the Imperial army refused to take sides or fight their fellow citizens, and attempted to remain aloof from the budding conflict. These generals and the armies faithful to them became known as "The Grays," for they would not choose to support one color over another. Rather they eschewed such internecine warfare, declaring that no Imperial citizen should lift a hand against another, lest the Empire destroy itself or external threats emerge unopposed.
But there were many other generals and admirals who were willing to commit their forces to one side or the other. The red & white armies grew ever larger; so, too, did the blue & green host. The Gray Generals realized that they would eventually be drawn into the war, even if was just because some faction or another decided to attack them to eliminate their threat. Rather than stay and risk compromising their principles, the Grays fled the war of Empire vs Empire, heading away from settled Imperial lands and eventually reaching the elvish kingdom of Ser'Alun in the vast forests of the west. After much entreating of the elves, these refugees were granted a bit of land at the border of the elven territory in a harbor on the shores of the western ocean called The Great Sea. There the generals and their followers settled and tried to eke a living out of the wilderness. Their settlement quickly came to be known as "Grayhaven," the refuge not only for the followers of the Grays, but also anyone who wished to not take sides and escape the war. Grayhaven grew and prospered as the Empire collapsed.
Some time after the war had shattered the Empire into smaller but still-powerful city-states, the Elder Dragons not beholden to Drakall decided that the world needed direction, and they began to remake the world into their conception of perfection. But the Dragons did not agree as to what perfection meant, and they too began to fight amongst themselves, each one striving to enact their vision for the world. This began the Dragon War, a larger and vastly more terrible conflict than the War of Imperial Succession. The creatures of the world and its peoples cried out, and the dragons saw what devastation they had wrought. They formed the Dragon Council and ended the war, assigning different regions of the world to the different dragons.
Now, thousands of years after the War of Imperial Succession, the ancient city of Mara remains as one of the last vestiges of the Drakall Empire. Mara was a regional hub for the far west of the empire. But Drakall fell ages ago, and the provinces that survived dissolved into separate kingdoms, and in the intervening centuries, most of those kingdoms fell apart, leaving only a few city states with myths and legends of the Empire that was. Mara, decrepit, hedonistic, and corrupt, remains, its citizens addled with drugs and sybaritic pursuits, convinced that they remain the greatest city in the world.
You know better.
You were raised in or around Mara, and have long dreamed of going to someplace else, a place of opportunity: opportunity for change, opportunity for wealth, opportunity for social advancement, opportunity for learning, opportunity for adventure, opportunity for discovery. All of these things are possible elsewhere, you believe, and none of them seem possible in Mara.
The Drakall Empire grew to encompass most of the continent, all the land between the eastern sea and the vast western forests, from the vast tundra to the north to the southern jungles. Various regional centers developed; some of them were former capitol cities of lands that had been conquered or absorbed into the Empire. So it continued for centuries: long enough to even span the generations of dragons.
But then, one of the elder dragons died, and the human Emperor who had bonded to that dragon died not long after. He left no heirs, and had not bonded with another dragon who could give its weight to the question of succession. This led to civil war in the Drakall Empire, as two cousins made competing claims for the Imperial throne, each with a dragon of their own.
One cousin, bonded with a red dragon, led an army whose colors were red and white. The other cousin, his enemy, paired with a blue dragon, and commanded an army whose colors were blue and green. Officials, nobles, knights, merchants, writers, admirals, artists, and wizards: all took opposing sides in the conflict, and soon enough the entire Empire was embroiled in the struggle for control. This became known as the War of Imperial Succession. Some generals of the Imperial army refused to take sides or fight their fellow citizens, and attempted to remain aloof from the budding conflict. These generals and the armies faithful to them became known as "The Grays," for they would not choose to support one color over another. Rather they eschewed such internecine warfare, declaring that no Imperial citizen should lift a hand against another, lest the Empire destroy itself or external threats emerge unopposed.
But there were many other generals and admirals who were willing to commit their forces to one side or the other. The red & white armies grew ever larger; so, too, did the blue & green host. The Gray Generals realized that they would eventually be drawn into the war, even if was just because some faction or another decided to attack them to eliminate their threat. Rather than stay and risk compromising their principles, the Grays fled the war of Empire vs Empire, heading away from settled Imperial lands and eventually reaching the elvish kingdom of Ser'Alun in the vast forests of the west. After much entreating of the elves, these refugees were granted a bit of land at the border of the elven territory in a harbor on the shores of the western ocean called The Great Sea. There the generals and their followers settled and tried to eke a living out of the wilderness. Their settlement quickly came to be known as "Grayhaven," the refuge not only for the followers of the Grays, but also anyone who wished to not take sides and escape the war. Grayhaven grew and prospered as the Empire collapsed.
Some time after the war had shattered the Empire into smaller but still-powerful city-states, the Elder Dragons not beholden to Drakall decided that the world needed direction, and they began to remake the world into their conception of perfection. But the Dragons did not agree as to what perfection meant, and they too began to fight amongst themselves, each one striving to enact their vision for the world. This began the Dragon War, a larger and vastly more terrible conflict than the War of Imperial Succession. The creatures of the world and its peoples cried out, and the dragons saw what devastation they had wrought. They formed the Dragon Council and ended the war, assigning different regions of the world to the different dragons.
Now, thousands of years after the War of Imperial Succession, the ancient city of Mara remains as one of the last vestiges of the Drakall Empire. Mara was a regional hub for the far west of the empire. But Drakall fell ages ago, and the provinces that survived dissolved into separate kingdoms, and in the intervening centuries, most of those kingdoms fell apart, leaving only a few city states with myths and legends of the Empire that was. Mara, decrepit, hedonistic, and corrupt, remains, its citizens addled with drugs and sybaritic pursuits, convinced that they remain the greatest city in the world.
You know better.
You were raised in or around Mara, and have long dreamed of going to someplace else, a place of opportunity: opportunity for change, opportunity for wealth, opportunity for social advancement, opportunity for learning, opportunity for adventure, opportunity for discovery. All of these things are possible elsewhere, you believe, and none of them seem possible in Mara.