Thatavor
"The white scaled ones were watching, always watching even as they went about their inscrutable business. Not one of them spoke, to me or to eachother. This was a city of thousands of their kind, yet the city was dead. We got what we wanted, but we're never going back to that place."
A minor realm in the north of the continent, Thatavor is remarkable for being the one draconic realm that currently has peace with its neighbors. Ruled by the white dragon Avorikat, Thatavor is considered a strange hermit realm by most, as even after the younger dragon's accession, the white dragonthralls of the northern kingdom have few dealings with their neighbors.
Structure
Though Thatavor is more open than any of the other dragonrealms, its inner workings are still largely a mystery. The dragon king Avorikat appears to hold absolute, undivided power in the realm. The white dragonthralls do his bidding, and though Avorikat does have adjutants that wield authority in his name, how such adjutants are chosen is unknown.
Since the death of the previous dragon king, the baronies have seen the return of some of its old inhabitants. These old Taronians generally elect their own leaders and have largely been allowed to manage their own affairs by Avorikat.
History
In the 442nd Year of the Prophet, four great dragons flew over Kraken's Domain to establish their dominions upon the realms of folk. The black and bronze dragons stopped in the southern realms of the Thaner and the Karida, while the great red dragon flew east. The great white dragon flew the furthest, and landed upon mount Rhysk. From that mountain, the white dragon Thatavor and his minions descended upon the baronies of Taron, and swept away all resistance. Stymied in the west by the dwarves of Kilth and in the south by the Exodites and their vassal kings, the dragon nevertheless claimed as his dominion all he could survey from the mountaintop of Rhysk.
Death reigned for 63 years. The men of Taron fled their ancestral lands, and their northern home became the domain of white dragonthralls. Unlike in the Thaner realms, the Taronians did not have the revanchist zeal to fight on, and the Kilthians and the Exodites chose to contain the dragon's minions rather than try to challenge the beast on the mountain directly. Thus, Taron was lost to the beast, and those few who remained became enslaved to Thatavor's depredations.
"The dragon which has held you in terror for decades is dead. I, Avorikat, son of Thatavor, have assumed his dominion. I come to you as king among kings. I wish to talk."
It is believed that in the 505th Year of the Prophet, Thatavor died. Suddenly, the great beast no longer flew from the mountain, and his thralls became listless and weak. None know how it happened, and many doubted that the dragon could even die in the first place. Nevertheless, Thatavor had disappeared, never to be seen again. A lesser dragon emerged, smaller by half, identifying himself as Avorikat, son of Thatavor. The cross-border raids by the dragonthralls stopped with Thatavor's death, and unlike his father, Avorikat spoke the tongues of elves, dwarves, and men. Though retaining his father's rule over the realms of old Taron, Avorikat has seemingly sought to be a king rather than a ravening beast, and has ceased his father's unceasing war on his neighbors. Some descendants of the Taronians have even returned to Avorikat's realm, and though few trust him and nobody knows what he wants, the lords and kings of neighboring lands have all breathed a sigh of relief that Avorikat seems to be more interested in ruling than ravaging.
Avorikat sounds really interesting. I'm curious as to his motivations, though currently he seems like he is a better option than his father was.