The Rise of the Dragons

The Blood of Khyber: For untold millennia, the dragons were the sole lords of Eberron, the Material Realm known as the Age of Dragons. Then a new threat emerged some ten million years before the founding of the Kingdom of Galifar. The Dragon Below was bound in the depths of Eberron, the Material Realm, but this did not eliminate the dark Progenitor’s power. In time, a host of horrors spawned in the depths. Rakshasas, night hags, and other demonic terrors emerged to lay claim to the world above. The greatest were the Na-Vakhti, the Overlords of the Dragon, who were fiends of such power that they possessed strength easily equivalent to that of minor gods. At this time, the dragons of Argonessen were organized into simple clans called flights, which fought with one another as often as not. Scattered and wild, they were no match for the sudden onslaught of the Overlords of Khyber and their legions of flying, crawling, and shrieking fiends.
The Draconic Prophecy: After the mighty fiends consolidated their hold on the surface world, they ruled over a nightmare kingdom for millions of years. The once-proud dragons were forced into slavery and servitude. The fiendish dominion might have continued until the end of time, if not for the couatl Hezcalipa and a blue dragon named Ourelonastrix. Working together over the course of centuries, these two visionaries studied the sky and stars and compared their findings with mysterious patterns that appeared on the surface of the world. They became convinced that such study could reveal a map of the future, an outline of the myriad paths history might follow. Ourelonastrix believed it to be the wisdom of the Progenitors, a blueprint for the shape of reality. He called it the draconic Prophecy, authored by the Dragon and Siberys themselves in the form of the raw Prophecy marks that appeared in the bedrock of the world.
The Great War Between Dragons and Fiends: The draconic Prophecy gave Ourelonastrix insights into the weaknesses of the fiendish overlords. Even more, it gave the dragon and his kin a sense of hope, the belief that dragons were part of something greater and grander than their own petty interests and problems. Following the path of the Prophecy, Ourelonastrix and Hezcalipa rallied their peoples against the children of the Dragon, setting in motion a war that would continue for thousands of years. Despite their raw power—or perhaps, because of it—the Overlords and their followers were scattered and overconfident. This allowed the combined might of the dragon–couatl alliance to defeat them one by one. Despite this advantage, the war against the fiends seemed hopeless. The Overlords were truly immortal. The defeat of an Overlord was only temporary at best since their forms were reborn in less than a day after their destruction in the depths of Khyber and no simple spell could bind them. The fiends also had access to powerful weapons that could be used to devastating effect against the dragons. The most powerful of the Overlords, Tiamat, the Daughter of Khyber, created the Orbs of Dragonkind, artifacts that allowed the user to channel Tiamat’s infernal power to bind dragons to his will. Whatever the truth of this legend, these artifacts are both despised and desperately prized by the dragons of Argonnessen, who are determined to keep them out of the hands of mortal and fiend alike. It is believed that seven of the Orbs are currently held in the hoards of the mightiest elder wyrms ofArgonnessen; the remaining are currently unaccounted for. Several other Orbs are known to have been created by other races, perhaps with fiendish aid. The giants of Xen’drik, for example, are known to have fashioned two Orbs of Dragonkind before their own conflict with the dragons. Then the couatl Hezcalipa’s studies uncovered a path to victory. Indeed, the outcome appeared foreordained in the Prophecy. Still, the cost was terrible. Led by Hezcalipa, the couatl sacrificed almost their entire race, using a powerful magical ritual to forge their immortal essence into a pure divine force for righteous good later called the Silver Flame. Once unleashed, this divine force could hold the Overlords and their dire followers within arcane prisons in the depths of the Dragon Below. Some fiends escaped this imprisonment and fled to the Demon Wastes on the northwestern corner of the continent of Khorvaire. There they formed an organization known as the lords of Dust dedicated to restoring the rule of the fiends over the world, but the war was won. Although the dragons fought fiercely, some scholars believe that they abandoned the couatls at the end, refusing to share the cost of the final sacrifice of binding the fiends in the darkness of the Dragon. It is possible that this abandonment was a matter of fear, although that seems unlikely in a race as powerful as that of the dragons. It might be that, being mortal, the dragons simply did not have the same spiritual energy required to bind the fiends as did the couatls. The feathered serpents had been born from the more pure essence of the Siberys and thus were immortal celestial creatures just as the children of the Dragon were fiends born from the dark essence of the Dragon Below. Perhaps the dragons’ survival was a calculated decision. Whatever the truth, the self-sacrifice of the couatls removed both celestials and fiends from the day-to-day life of Eberron, the Material Realm, leaving the dragons as masters of the Prophecy and the most powerful beings in the world.
Draconic Expansion and Withdrawal: The Great War against the fiends united the dragons as never before. It forced them to set aside their petty rivalries and to master the arcane powers that had long lain dormant within them. The surviving dragons were more powerful than ever before, but their population had been devastated by the long battle. Following the defeat of the Overlords, most of the surviving dragons retreated to the sanctuary of Argonnessen. The elder wyrms gathered in the first great Draconic Conclave of Argonessen and laid the foundation of the draconic culture that remains in place to this day. The survivors spent tens of thousands of years nursing their wounds, rebuilding their flights, identifying and studying the signs of the Prophecy, and honing the magical gifts they had developed during the war. In time, some began to look beyond Argonnessen and to explore the lands they rediscovered. Sixty thousand years ago, the dragons began spreading across Eberron, the Material Realm again. They found dozens of growing humanoid civilizations—kingdoms of giants and their titan forebears in Xen’drik, primitive clans of dwarves on the arctic continent of the Frostfell north of Khorvaire, nomadic groups of shifters and humans in Sarlona, and the nascent goblin and orc races in Khorvaire. Some merely wished to study the lesser creatures. A few came as mentors, foremost among them the descendants of Ourelonastrix. These dragons shared the secrets of arcane magic with the giants, curious to see what innovations these promising creatures might develop. But the bulk of the dragons chose the path of conquest. Flights of dragons carved out new dominions across the world. For most of the dragons, it began as a game—one with a high cost in life among non-dragons. In time, however, the struggle turned dragon against dragon. Friendly rivalries became bitter. The blood of dragons flowed. And as the troubles spread, the Daughter of the Dragon, Tiamat, stirred in the Pit of Five Sorrows. Hundreds of dragons fell under her sway, and the spawn of Tiamat rose from tainted broods. Given time to spread, this infernal corruption could have destroyed Argonnessen. Fortunately for the dragons, the watchful Eyes of Chronepsis, the draconic guardians of the law, we're able to identify the tainted dragons, and the militant Light of Siberys, the dragons’ military force, brought an end to the corruption. Unfortunately, some of the corrupted Dragons survived going on to create the genetic lines of the lesser-Dragons. The Conclave gathered at a massive natural aerie in the heart of Argonnessen. There the students of the draconic Prophecy presented their findings. To this day, the records of this gathering remain privileged information even within Argonnessen, shared only with the most respected and powerful elder wyrms. Most dragons believe that the seers linked Tiamat’s rising power to the spread of draconic activity across the globe—opining that the influence of the dragon lords, in turn, empowered the Daughter of the Dragon and weakened her prison. One fact is known: Following the council, the Conclave called on the scattered dragons to return to Argonnessen. The age of draconic expansion across Eberron, the Material Realm was at an end. Outside of Argonessen, the world would now be inherited by the “lesser races.” what is this.