The Dragon Empire

I am envisioning an ancient, global empire, ruled by the Platinum Dragon, Bahamut. After the wars between the Gods and the Primordials, Bahamut and Tiamat retreated briefly to their own realms to lick their wounds, then returned to The World intending to claim temporal dominion over it and its people.

The Dragon Age

This inagurated the Dragon Age, during which the humans of the world were ruled over by various dragons. At first, various regions were carved up into feudal domains, each ruled by a particular dragon, with all owing fealty to either Bahamut or Tiamat. Those who owed fealty to Bahamut promoted virtues such as honor, loyalty, thrift, compassion, courage, and justice in an attempt to strengthen the peoples over whom they ruled in the long term. Those who owed fealty to Tiamat focused more on gathering the resources to fight the final battle more quickly, creating avaricious and often overtly violent regimes, with the most prosperous among their human followers being those most capable of imitating the ways of their overlords.

Most of the dragons simply ruled their domains using their overwhelming personal power. Bahamut's royal domain was a different matter. He adopted a policy of mixing a part of his own essence into that of his strongest human servents, thus creating the Dragonborn, who served as soldiers and enforcers in his own domain.

There were six basic varieties of dragons, each corrosponding to a given metal: gold, silver, bronze, copper, iron, and mithril dragons. Those that served Bahamut were blessed with protection from scalar corrosion, while those that served Tiamat were allowed to corrode to duller colors. The benevolently sociable silver dragons would corrode into the most antisocial of dragons: the black dragons. The inquisitive and adventurous bronze dragons would corrode into the piratical blue dragons. The playful but restrained mischief of the copper dragon became the green dragon's cat-like delight in stalking and attacking (and then playing with if the creature is weak enough to risk it) the unwary. The militant iron dragons would corrode into the powerfully violent red dragons. The mithril dragons, most difficult to corrupt, became the nearly mindless white dragons. Gold dragons were seemingly incorruptable, but served Bahamut in a more direct capacity.

For a time, the more aggressive policies of the forces of Tiamat resulted in Bahamut's forces suffering losses; however, the world was simply too large for short term tactics of that nature to win in the end. The more economically productive domains of Bahamut's vassals were coming into their own just as Tiamat's vassals' domains were falling apart. It was at this point that the Dragon Wars began in earnest.

The Dragon Wars

Coordinated attacks by Bahamut's dragons eliminated Tiamat's dragons in droves. Dragonborn soldiers occupied and administered captured territories, abolishing the human regimes in place and freeing masses of slaves and serfs, who flourished under the mostly benevolent administration of the Dragonborn. The Bahamutic advancement rolled back Tiamatic resistance, until Bahamut himself faced Tiamat at Mount Drakkenkreig.

The battle that ensued devastated half the world, as deific energies were released in the torrential conflict. It didn't last long, however, as Bahamut realized that further battle would ruin the lives of more of his subjects, while Tiamat feared the conflict would attract the attention of the Primordials, who she could not hold off in her weakened condition. Both took their battle to the Astral Sea, while their dragons continued their conflict in the world. The battle ended conclusively in the world, with the Metallic Dragons driving the few surviving chromatic dragons into hiding in the blasted lands. Bahamut and Tiamat's battle was less conclusive, with each of them ending the battle exhausted and wounded, mutually agreeing never to return to the world to rule directly again.


Non-Humans During the Dragon Age

During the Dragon Age, dwarves, elves and eladrin, and halflings, being under the direct protection of other gods (Moradin, Correlon Larethian, and Avandhra) enjoyed a considerably greater autonomy, particularly in the domains ruled by the followers of Bahamut. It is during this age that they fully developed their well known craft specialties, prospering in certain roles within the Dragon Empires. If anything, dwarven and elvish craft have suffered since the fall of the Empire, as they have been required to develop other skills for which they once relied upon humans for, and must now draw upon in their own communities.

Gnomes had not yet migrated in any appreciable numbers from the Feywild, and goliaths and shifters were mostly unknown barbarians living in cooler areas beyond the reach of the empires. Orcs and Goblins having not yet arrived in the world, half-orcs did not yet exist. Bal Turath was not yet founded, thus there were no Tieflings.