The Ashlands A Chronical of Life After the Fall

Once, the Empire ruled over vast lands and kept both road and sea free for all. The dragons were our friends and helpers, our allies in war, our teachers and guides. Great cities flourished. We made marvels of engineering and magic. The Emperor sat the Golden Scale Throne as benevolent parent to the people, and the Priests of the Eternal Dawn taught us that the Emperor and the Dragons guided us in preserving the light of a Day that would never end.   Lies, all of it.   The dragons went mad, and we do not know why. They lost their mighty intellect and their beautiful gift of speech, maintaining only their terrifying power of tooth and claw, wing and flame. And so the Empire burned. The mighty wards that held back the sea failed and the waters rushed in upon the Imperial heartlands. After devastating the Empire, the dragons turned on one another, battling in the sky for hunting grounds. Folk who once watched in awe the beauty of a dragons flight now fled as the great beasts battled above their towns, with the loser falling in catastrophic ruin on their homes.   The faithful abandoned the Church and it's lies of Eternal Dawn. Some returned to the Archons, ancient powers we worshiped as gods before the Empire. Others followed the rogue priest turned prophet, Shelim, in her mission to preserve civilization against the coming darkness, not for ourselves, but that our descendants might see a new Dawn.   Now we live scattered across the Ashlands, finding havens where we may. Kindreds once united by the Empire are sundered and grow apart. The great wyrms have settled in the Dragonwastes - once the richest lands of the Empire - far from the havens of most survivors, but we are not safe. The younger dragons range far seeking their own hunting grounds to claim, and all who must dwell in the open rightly fear the sound of great wings.   And as always there are those who take advantage of the desolation. Monsters driven from their lairs by the dragons or drawn down into the open lands as people retreated now prowl the ancient highways, and not all monsters fight with fangs and claw. Brigands and warlords look to grasp power for themselves by land or sea. But any who claim power of these lands are fools, for in these dark days our only kings breathe fire.