Dragons

Civilization and Culture

History

The draconic species was spawned eons ago, before the memory of any being living. The creatures accredited as the progenitors of the draconic race are Bahamut, Tiamat, and Varahosst. Whether this is true or not is known only to them, however. Bahamut is the patron god of the metallic dragons: brass, bronze, copper, gold, and silver dragons. Bahamut himself is a platinum dragon; unique among his kind. Tiamat is the patron goddess of the chromatic dragons who bear her colors upon their scales: black, blue, green, red, and white dragons. Tiamat's physical form is that of a five-headed dragon. Her body and center head are red in color. Her four other heads are, in order from left to right, blue, white, black, and green. Varahosst is the patron god of the chromatic dragons who bear his colors upon their scales: brown, gray, orange, purple, and yellow. Like his sister, Tiamat, he is a five-headed dragon. His central head and body are purple in color. In order from left to right, his remaining heads are gray, yellow, orange, and brown.
Thousands of years ago, the goddess Tiamat slew her brother, Varahosst, in his sleep. After initially being allies, the two grew apart as they were opposites. Tiamat reveled in chaos, lawlessness, and disorder, whereas Varahosst was a being of logic, law, and order. This divide eventually resulted in animosity. After Varahosst's death, Tiamat ordered her worshippers to slaughter all of Varahosst's worshippers. Despite the surprise advantage of the dragons of Tiamat, a select few of the dragons of Varahosst were able to escape the decimation of their people by fleeing to the Lands Below. These dragons grew old and bitter while preserving their species as well as their servant races; those being the dragonborn and kobolds of their color. After ten thousand years underground, the adventuring party that would come to be known as Varahosst's Host stumbled upon them and decided to champion their cause. They broke the earth and clawed their way up to the surface to wage war on Tiamat, who had previously been summoned to the material plane, as well as her kin. The first step to even the playing field was to resurrect Varahosst; a feat achieved by Varahosst's Host. After Varahosst's resurrection, the spawn of Varahosst liberated the Draakhorn and tinkered with it so that it would call only certain dragons. Finally, their struggle culminated in an epic final battle that was fought in the Ashlands. The Draakhorn was sounded and a number of beings answered its call. Tiamat, five great chromatic wyrms, and an army of chromatic dragonborn arrived to destroy Varahosst's Host as well as the great wyrms of Varahosst. Two golden great wyrms made an appearance but were swiftly slain. The Ghost King also joined the fray, though he was mostly interested in going to the Draakhorn. Tiamat fled after the deaths of her great wyrms but was pursued back to her palace in the Chromatic Vale where her avatar was destroyed by Simon Mockwell after his casting of the spell Mockwell's Magic Missile Swarm.
The metallic dragons are known for their generally good-natured dispositions. Like their god, they strive to preserve goodness and uphold justice. Unlike the metallic dragons, the chromatic dragons are known to be evil and cruel. The chromatic dragons of Tiamat are untrustworthy at best, with chaos naturally in their personalities. The chromatic dragons of Varahosst, while still evil, are known to be honorable and orderly.
The metallic dragons are capable of manifesting two different breath weapons. One is an elemental attack, either acid, flames, frost, or lightning depending on the type of dragon, and the other is a debilitating physical effect, either a paralytic gas, a repulsing blast, a sleeping gas, a slowing gas, or a weakening gas. The chromatic dragons are capable of manifesting one breath weapon if they are of Tiamat, or potentially multiple if they are of Varahosst. The dragons of Tiamat are only capable of manifesting elemental breath weapons, though they are more devastating than the breath weapons of the metallic dragons. The dragons are capable of manifesting acid, fire, frost, lightning, or poison depending on their color. The dragons of Varahosst are quite varied in their breath attacks. The brown dragons are capable only of breathing acid, though their acid is so excruciatingly painful that it affects their opponent's ability to strike and defend themselves. The gray dragons are also only capable of manifesting one breath weapon, this being a blast of freezing cold, though their breath weapon is able to paralyze its victims temporarily. The orange dragons breathe an oily solution that is protected by a thin layer of saliva. Once the saliva evaporates, the oily solution explodes. Purple dragons are capable of three different effects with their breath weapons. They may shoot a blast of force energy, blind their foes, or create blades made of focused force energy to attack with. Finally, the yellow dragons are capable of breathing salt at their foes. This salt not only lacerates and burns them, but it also can thickly coat them, causing their victims to be immobilized in a pillar of salt.
A strange outlier of the draconic race, plant dragons are dragon-like creatures composed entirely of plant matter. It is unknown whether they once had a god dedicated to them, though it is entirely possible that there was once a plant dragon deity who was slain during the Rage of the Dragon Gods. They were only revealed to exist still after Driggag Vokalen liberated a plant dragon egg from the Dark Druid's prison. Once the egg had hatched, Driggag provided food for the new creature, raising it with love and care. To this day, that plant dragon dutifully serves its savior and father figure. The Crimson Dragons also discovered that the Hearts of the Forest are actually the hearts of mighty plant dragons that have taken residence in an area and caused a forest to grow around them.
One distinctive offshoot of the plant dragon species is the marijuana dragon. The marijuana dragon subspecies is extremely rare but also many times more powerful than it's regular predecessor. They share the same history and general traits as their normal cousins with a few added twists. Marijuana dragons also have a resistance to psychic damage alongside poison damage. The first marijuana dragon was born of a corrupted druidic grove that had been taken over by a toxic smoke elemental. The grove had been overgrown with an illicit substance. An interesting historical note is that Driggag Vokalen had almost accidentally manifested the apotheosis of a weed dragon by nearly summoning a ton of weed for his party, the Crimson Dragons.

Historical Figures

Deities

Bahamut, god of justice and metallic dragons.

Khrainos, god of time

Tiamat, goddess of conquest and chromatic dragons.

Varahosst, god of law and chromatic dragons.

Mortals

The Ghost King, a red dracolich who hails from another world entirely and has been empowered by the shadow magics of the Shadowfell as well as a mysterious crystal embedded in his skull

Gorlanthor, purple great wyrm and general of the invasion force from the Lands Below

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Dragons generally view themselves as above all other races, though metallic dragons are known to be much more tolerant than their chromatic cousins.
Between the types of dragons, the metallic dragons and chromatic dragons hold great animosity for each other. There is also a schism between the two groups of chromatic dragons. The chromatic dragons descended from Tiamat and the chromatic dragons descended from Varahosst have great hatred for each other because of the genocide ordered by Tiamat after she slaughtered Varahosst in his sleep.