The History of Krynn: Vol I Read online

  The History of Krynn

  The Age of Dreams

  Volume 1

  All stories © 1984 TSR, Inc.

  © 2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC

  “Aurora’s Eggs” – First published in The Dragons at War 1996

  The Dragons – First published October 1996

  The Irda – First published June 1995

  Children of the Plains – First published September 2000

  Brother of the Dragon – First published August 2001

  Sister of the Sword – First published May 2002

  The Kagonesti – First published January 1995

  Cover and ebook design by Dead^Man

  Cover pictures used for this collection are from various sources around the net. Sorry, most sites do not credit the original artists. Thank you for the wonderful art, whomever you all may be.

  These ePub and Mobi/K8 editions v1.0 by Dead^Man December 2012

  First release December 2012

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  The Foundation (ca. 9000 PC - 5000 PC)

  Aurora’s Eggs

  The Dragons

  PART I

  The Irda

  The Dragons

  Part I (continued)

  The Time of Light (ca. 5000 PC - 2000 PC)

  Children of the Plains

  Brother of the Dragon

  Sister of the Sword

  The Kagonesti

  The Dragons

  Part I (continued)

  Introduction

  For almost thirty years our journeys to and research on the far off lands have led to the production of these works.

  Runes explored, artifacts examined, languages learned; volumes read and hundreds-of-thousands of scraps of paper searched through and repaired to find the bits and parts to reveal the incredible history of these unknown and new-found continents.

  For many decades there were attempts to reach the far away places where we thought the dragons went. The technology was not there to travel so far until our level of technology and magic improved and the great ships where created to support such a long journey. What was finally discovered will change the way we think and our course in history forever...

  According to many of the recovered texts, dragons frequently spoke and interacted with the lost-people; our “dragons” have never spoken a word to anyone, and have only kept to themselves for the most part. One hundred and ninety-eight years ago the events of the Big Destruction occurred here (we now know) due to the events that occurred on the far side of our world – events that led the first researchers to start the expeditions to those far off lands. One hundred and ninety-eight years ago dragon populations grew enormously – suddenly – and this was also the time when the dragons spoke for the first time to some villagers in the town of Katoon (please refer to your local map-room for location). The short conversations with these new, tired dragon refugees, revealed the far-away magical lands contained not only the homes of the dragons, but the homes of a great many new races as well. We, having only a few races on our continents, were again energized and increased our efforts to reach the lands and to attempt contact any surviving people. Although the dragons stated that none they knew (of the lower races) survived the “last cataclysm” – as they call it. One green mentioned that they “have not been everywhere though”. (refer to the texts of Hardon, Part III, The New Dragons for the complete transcripts of these events) The dragons stayed for only a short while to regain their strength, then flew off again to keep to themselves in the Great Range.

  Up until this time, our “side” of the world was fairly peaceful with only a few minor wars between clans and cities (in the last few centuries at any rate). The Big Destruction caused great upheavals in our lands – as is well known – raising the lands and leveling cities and towns and killing many hundreds-of-thousands of people (refer to any historical volume on these events). What caused this devastation is what drove the old researchers to search out across the oceans to look into what had happened, for they knew this time of horror was not caused locally. What was found was more than anyone would have believed without the discoveries that were returned.

  Here we attempt to put together a complete history of those far away lands. Tales and stories from many tellers have been studied and translated by the Nexus collages. Although all attempts to put the timelines in proper order have been done, there are many discrepancies in some of the tales that can lead to slightly incorrect dates and times. Some stories even tell of traveling to times from their future to their past! I tend to pass these off as simple bards-tales that were recorded by the listeners. The students from the collage insist they are actual events, and cannot be discarded as fables due to the the magical nature of the rest of the peoples of those lands. These tall-tales of fiction have been left in the time-area where the people claim to have started their respective adventures.

  Then there is Magic! Great, incredible magic they possessed. Either the truths of the story tellers has been greatly exaggerated, or they are simply far and beyond any of the minor-magics some of our own peoples can accomplish. For this reason I include the time-altering stories as – if they are to be believed – their magical talents just might possibly be more advanced than we can even comprehend.

  Professor Dee Emm

  Campus of Draem,

  Northern New Mount

  In the year 2219

  Notes

  The Age of Starbirth is referred to several times throughout the histories, but there are no known texts during the events of these times. The earliest texts start after this time period, which is where these volumes begin.

  Research is still being done on a certain story where a particular fellow flew off of the world on a boat and past the moons! Unbelievable, yes. Only texts remain of his time on the planet. If (doubtful) he did spend any time off-world, there are no texts to tell of what he may have experienced. This story, in the end, may be a confirmed fiction...

  Disturbing new research reveals shocking stories of the entire world having been taken away by a powerful deity from those lands! This has led our researchers to delve back into our histories for clues into these dramatic changes. Bringing to light also some old fables and bed time stories that now have the ring of truth to them (All volumes of Gramms Fables). The volumes containing these new stories will be released throughout the new year after the releases of the Ages of Dreams, Might and Despair. This new age is referred to as The Age of Mortals.

  The collage heads have also stated the original texts will be released (in copied form of course; the originals have been protected) as they state the originating writers of the tales. They will be released shortly after the release of each collection of encyclopædia. The smaller stories we will collect into appropriately themed books, one Master calls Anthologies.

  Aurora’s Eggs

  (ca. 9000 PC)

  In an age when stars were born and dreams began, the gods of light and darkness gave to the world their children, the first dragons. These regal serpents soared in the skies over Krynn, numbering but ten in all – five favored daughters of Paladine, and five more bold sons of Takhisis.

  The dragons of the Platinum Father were creatures of light and goodness, formed of the metals that brightened and gave strength to the world. They were gold and silver, brass and bronze and copper. Females all, the quintet of serpentine sisters made their lairs in the west of Ansalon and dwelled there for countless eons, singing praises of Paladine among the vast swath of peaks that would one day be called Kharolis.

  Arrayed against them were the five sons of the Dark Queen, wyrms of implacable evil arrayed in the colors of their matriarch: red, blue, black, green and wh
ite. They spread wickedness and destruction in the name of Takhisis, each serpent a blight of chaos and waste upon a great section of the world. Ultimately, like the daughters of Paladine, these chromatic dragons settled, making their lairs in the great mountains of central Ansalon. This smoldering, volcanic region would later be known as the Khalkist.

  For the better part of an era, the number of the ten dragons remained constant. ancient beings, they did not age beyond their full maturity, but neither did they procreate. Naturally, Paladine and Takhisis each wished for wyrmlings born of their mighty offspring, that all Krynn might be populated with dragonkind.

  But for the timeless millennia of prehistory these godly efforts failed, until at last the world came to a cusp of growing history, and ogres and elves came forth upon the land. Each of these folk laid claim to realms, allying with the mighty wyrms or taking them as foes. They worshiped the Platinum father and the Dark Queen, but called them by new names – Paladine was E’li to the elves, and the ogres knew Takhisis as Darklady.

  Ultimately, with the aid of mortal sacrifice and cosmic sorcery, Paladine and Takhisis both discerned the secret of spawning – the creation of eggs. Each of the gods bred with the offspring dragons; their efforts brought forth a clutch from the Dark Queen herself, and a smaller nest from each of Paladine’s daughters.

  At last the Dark Queen had hope for her ultimate domination – the answer to her schemes would be war! A trumpet call of fury rang through the skies of Krynn, summoning the chromatic dragons to their task. Her foe’s descendants would be slain, and evil would rule the world.

  In those days the ogres were mighty, and with their help the dragons of Takhisis struck with swift lethality. In short order, the wyrms of silver, bronze, brass and copper were surprised, ambushed, and slain. Knowing that but one of her enemies remained, Takhisis planned for her ultimate mastery....

  *

  Everywhere black smoke spewed into the air, dozens of billowing plumes rising from a shattered landscape to form a forest of vaporous, impossibly lofty trees. Tortured, churning trunks merged into glowering overcast, an oppressive blanket shrouding the breadth of Krynn.

  At least, across that portion of the world within Furyion’s vision. The red dragon flew high, skimming the underside of the heavy stratus, banking easily around the pillars of ash and smoke, riding the expulsive updrafts of heat. The volcanic mountains of central Ansalon were the source of the massive black columns. From his soaring vantage Furyion could see a hundred peaks spewing their fiery guts into the sky.

  Deep chasms and canyons scarred the ground. In some of these raged the white ribbons marking turbulent streams, while others glowed dangerously with the crimson fire of flowing, liquid rock. Steep cones rose from lifeless bedrock to form a jagged skyline of dark-stone peaks, often clustering in a massif of six or eight well-defined summits, spewing smoke, lava, and steam from an assortment of craters. Other mountains rose far above their neighbors, pyramids of hardened magma surrounding calderas many miles across.

  Furyion flew past one such massive summit, skirting the rim of the high crater. With detached interest he admired a gridwork of fiery cracks amid darkened slabs of cooler lava, the pattern that crisscrossed the floor of the vast caldera. In moments the dragon’s flight carried him beyond the sight, great strokes of his scarlet wings pressing downward in a slow, measured cadence. Updrafts of scalding heat that would have seared the scales off of Akis, the white dragon, merely lifted the mighty red higher, saving him the straining of his mighty wings.

  Now the greatest of mountains came into view, the massive peak dwarfing even the mightiest among the lesser summits. Rising as a cone of massive, primordial rock, this was a volcanic matriarch that could obliterate the entire range if she should unleash her might against the world. Black along the lower slopes, where cliffs plunged into shadowed gorges on all sides, the mighty peak’s color merged toward a rusty red on the higher elevations. A series of jagged ledges jutted like shoulders from the massif, barren outcrops on an otherwise sweeping expanse of steep mountainside.

  Despite the mountain’s great size, the crater at the summit was uncharacteristically small, giving the peak the appearance of a sharp point that nearly grazed the underside of the black stratus. Unlike many of the volcanoes, the crater spewed neither ash, smoke, steam, nor fire from the deep shaft. Yet heat glowed there, the crimson glow of fundamental fire forming a circle of light against the clouds.

  Once before, Furyion had actually flown above the great crater to confirm this fact. So intense had been the blistering emanations of raging heat that the ancient red dragon had been forced to veer away at the very edge of the caldera, knowing he would certainly have perished if he flew any farther into the searing updrafts. Yet even in that quick glance he had seen enough to know that this mountain plunged an unimaginable depth toward the heart of Krynn.

  Furyion’s eyes gleamed as he lighted on a lofty ledge, one of the highest on the cracked and barren mountainside. He spread his jaws, extending a scarlet-scaled neck to its full length before bellowing a great cloud of flame into the sky. Wisps of oily fire scorched the mountainside, hissing and burning with a sound like thunder as the mighty red made bold announcement of his arrival.

  The sharp crack exploded from a nearby ledge, a perch only slightly lower than Furyion’s, and a bolt of lightning speared the sky. Arkan, the ancient blue, uncoiled from his own vantage and dipped his head in acknowledgement of his red brother’s arrival. Furyion bowed too, his yellow eyes bright. Jealously, the crimson wyrm eyed the necklace of silver scales gleaming on Arkan’s blue neck. It was a trophy, symbol of the blue dragon’s triumph over Paladine’s dragon of silver.

  The stink of noxious gas stung Furyion’s nostrils and he looked down to see a greenish-yellow cloud drift along the sloping mountainside. Korril, the wyrm of emerald green, raised his head to regard Furyion. Leathery lids hooded the green’s dark, deceptively gentle eyes, and wisps of poisonous breath still rose from the twin gaping nostrils as the green glared impassively at the two higher serpents.

  Furyion was further inflamed to see brass scales dangling in a chain around Korril’s neck. So the green, too, had met with success in the war against Paladine’s daughters.

  Turning his eyes to the sky, Furyion sought signs of other arrivals. Next to fly into sight was black Corrozus, gliding around the shoulder of the great volcano to come to rest on a well-scoured outcrop of rock. The black dragon announced his presence with a spew of dark acid, spitting a river of the burning, sizzling liquid that spilled far down the slope of the peak, until at last the churning, corrosive flowage dissolved itself into the porous rock. Even from his much higher perch, Furyion noted that a circlet of copper scales ringed Corrozus’s snakelike neck.

  Finally Akis, the massive white, came into view, soaring as far as possible from the flaming peaks. As he approached his own ledge, farther down on the mountainside, Akis blew a great cloud across the rocks, leaving them frost-lined and cool. Only then did the colorless serpent settle to his perch. Raising the wedge of his head, Akis blasted another cloud of frost into the air, let the sweep of the breeze carry the chill back across himself.

  Bitterly Furyion saw that even the swift-flying Akis, whose discomfort in these hot regions was well known to his cousins, bore a symbol of triumph. His throat was surrounded by an array of bronze scales, proof of another kill.

  “Be comfortable, my brother,” urged Furyion, more than a hint of mockery in his voice as he addressed the drooping white.

  “Bah!” sneered Akis. “The heart of the Khalkists lies too far from realms of ice and snow. You would not speak so —”

  “Silence!” barked Arkan, the command echoing across the mountainside. Furyion whirled upon the insolent blue, enraged by the interruption, but the azure wyrm hissed a more compelling warning. “Our mistress speaks!”

  The mighty red fell silent, poised to listen and heed as rumbling within the mountain grew to a palpable shuddering in the bedrock.
The vibration forced Furyion to grip the outcrop of his perch with powerful talons lest he be shaken from the ledge. Rocks broke free, tumbling from the summit and slopes, but the thrones of the five dragons had been chosen with care. Landslides spilled and roared past each, but none of the rubble flew far enough outward to strike any of the five sons of the Queen.

  Smoke and ash abruptly exploded from the crater, billowing into the sky, swirling downward to encircle the serpents nearest the summit. Tongues of fire lashed through the enclosing murk, and bits of fiery lava spattered onto the rocks, hissing and spitting with infernal fire. Again pale Akis spewed his cloud of frost, miserably trying to hold the heat at bay. The other dragons simply squinted against the mild assaults, knowing by the size of the eruption that the summons of their mistress Queen was of tremendous importance.

  For a long time Furyion huddled in the haze of ash and smoke, feeling the stinging burn in his nostrils, blinking his leathery eyelids over flakes of powdered rock. He thought with amusement of Akis, knowing that the white must be suffering tremendously – despite the fact that his low perch marked his lesser status, but also allowed him to avoid the worst of the Queen’s vented fury.

  Finally the ash and smoke gave way to pure fire, a blossom of blue flame shooting straight upward from the volcano’s maw. The pillar burned away the clouds, boring a passageway straight through to pale sky, sending waves of shimmering heat rising relentlessly to the heavens. The cloaking overcast surrounded the gap, like a cylinder of murk enclosing a heat-scoured chimney.

  The Dark Queen’s glory cleansed with its killing heat, sweeping the ash and debris away, raising a mighty wind across the face of the mountain. Still Furyion and his brothers clung to their perches, turning faces away from the stinging gale, looking upward to witness the glory of their mighty mistress.