The Cinder King & the Chroma Conclave

Disaster / Destruction

The Cinder King   After many generations of peaceful rule within the city of Emon, there spread word of a shadow in the South that threatened outlying townships skirting the edges of the Council’s influence. Trade caravans that hail from the Rifenmist Peninsula began to vanish, while the autonomous villages south of the Verdant Expanse sent for aid and armed protection against a “nightmare of fire and malice.” Sovereign Odellan Tal’Dorei felt that the economic cost of sending a regiment that far south to outsider communities without confirmation of threat was a misuse of resources. It wasn’t until two years later when reports of a powerful red dragon reached the ears of the Council of Tal’Dorei that the seriousness of the situation was considered. By then, much of the vibrant fields covering the Mornset Countryside were turned to ash, and the Outerfolk of the region bent to slavery under this new and terrible threat. Calling himself Thordak the Cinder King, red dragon tyrant was thought slain nearly two centuries before over the Ozmit Sea by the vengeful military powers that protect the desert continent of Marquet. The beast claimed dominion over the southern lands, expanding his influence through fear and tyranny. With the martial forces of the capital city of Emon unleashed out of Fort Daxio, a terrible struggle erupted south of the Stormcrest Mountains, leaving many a good soldier reduced to bone and ember. It wasn’t until a band of renowned adventurers entered the fray, led by the Emon-allied arcanist, Allura Vysoren, that a lasting victory over the Cinder King was won, sealing the unstoppable wyrm within the Elemental Plane of Fire forever. Or so they thought.   The Chroma Conclave   Sixteen years after the sealing of Thordak, daily life in the region had long returned to the normal quarrels over trade pricing and kobold infestations. It was during those sixteen years that an old and unexpected ally of Thordak’s, a green dragon called Raishan, established communication from between the planes and plotted the red dragon’s return. Mysteriously diseased in her later life and seeking answers to this riddle, Raishan received a promise from Thordak. Thordak would cure Raishan’s malaise, should she discover how to break the red dragon’s bindings, and aid in conquering all of Tal’Dorei. She formed a plan and amassed unlikely allies in three other chromatic dragons: Umbrasyl the Hope Devourer, Brimscythe the Iron Storm, and Vorugal the Frigid Doom. After infiltrating the Pyrah Ashari for nearly five years, Raishan finally unlocked the seal between the planes that bound Thordak and set him free, allowing the entire circle of ancient dragons, now called the Chroma Conclave, to unleash an assault of catastrophic proportions on the great city of Emon, and the Tal’Dorei countryside. Nearly three centuries of Tal’Dorei rule in the realm ended under the rule of Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei II, his life cut short when much of Emon was reduced to rubble. The attack not only killed the Sovereign Uriel, but also scattered the Council of Tal’Dorei, throwing the realm into chaos. Thordak the Cinder King, now swollen with elemental energy, claimed all Tal’Dorei as the Conclave’s domain. The remnants of the civilized lands were divided up and taken as trophies by the Conclave, while the capital Emon was ruled by the Cinder King himself, with Raishan secretly pulling the strings from the shadows to bend the momentum of these events in her favor. One by one, the members of the Conclave fell to the might and cleverness of a band of misfit warriors known as Vox Machina. These heroes eventually gathered their allies and stormed the capital of Emon, slaying Thordak the Cinder King and freeing the people. Upon discovering the machinations of the real mastermind Raishan the Diseased Deceiver, with whom Vox Machina had held a tenuous alliance, they gave chase and finally slew this last standing member of the Chroma Conclave, ending dragon reign over the land and restoring rule once more to the Council of Tal’Dorei.