Lore Spotlight: The Heroic Age - The White Dragon

In War and Aether, the Heroic Age was a time of great strife and surmounting changes across the lands of Zale. But no event during the early 6th century had a greater impact on the Western Reaches than the White Dragon. Read on to hear about the greatest calamity to ever befall the Grahtian Empire!

[The White Dragon storms a city of the Empire - Art generated using Adobe Firefly]

As the Dwarven Plague ravaged the lands, as great earthshakes changed the Underworld forever, as the Dwarven Kingdom fell to ruin, there was one event that would change the lives of the Reachmen forever. The White Dragon.

Dragons are extraordinarily rare, powerful, and largely docile creatures. They keep to their dens and live out their lives in solitude. Their scales take on the color of the environment they spend their youth in. The most common Dragon colors are green, grey, or golden scales; while red and blue scales are rare among them. But white, there has only ever been one white dragon. For centuries this white dragon stood as a neighbor to the Dragonguard, as a testament to a Dragon’s peaceful nature.

The Dragonguard is an organization of some of the greatest monster hunters in the world. They were organized for the duty to slay Mad Dragons as they crop up. However, they aren’t simply dragon slayers, but preservationists. When a Dragon rampages across the lands, they are known as “Mad Dragons”. As the Dragonguard proclaims, there is always a reason for a Dragon to go mad and act out against the innocent. Whether it is people that destroyed their eggs, killed another dragon, or simply attacked it without reason - when a Dragon is pushed far enough, it will push back. It is the duty of the Dragonguard, not just to slay Mad Dragons, but to protect Dragons from the common folk and prevent their ire to begin with. Unfortunately, the Dragonguard suddenly vanished in the early 6th century, allowing for the White Dragon’s devastation to reign unchallenged.

The White Dragon’s unprecedented attack was led by an Elf, by the name of Thanadis Vile. Thanadis led a group of Elven terrorists who longed for the old Elven kingdom to be restored. They were the Veyvorrin, and they regularly launched attacks against the Grahtian Empire in the hope of dismantling their government. While his methods remain unknown, Thanadis managed to tame, control, and ride the White Dragon - leading the beast on a rampage that destroyed entire cities across the Empire. While the army was called, their forces were no match against the might of the dragon and the strategic mind of Thanadis Vile combined. The White Dragon continued to destroy much of the Grahtian Empire and it’s innocent people, until a group of heroes managed to stop Thanadis and slay the beast.

Unfortunately, by that time the damage had been done. While the empire could rebuild their cities, resow their crops, and refill the ranks of the army, the people of the empire were forever changed. The Elves as a whole were blamed, and discrimination against them sharply rose. Between the Dwarven Plague, the Fall of Gobrakidum, and the Veyvorrin’s attack with the White Dragon, over the next centuries dwarven and elven population dramatically dropped. Some of the damage dealt could never be recovered, and the empire fell to mismanagement. The people began to starve, suffer, and blame whoever they could for their hardships; plunging the Western Reaches into a dark age…

We hope you enjoyed this week’s Lore Spotlight! If you could tame any animal, what would it be? Let us know in the comments!