Tiamat

The Chromatic Dragon, Creator of Evil Dragonkind, the Avaricious, the Dragon Queen, Nemesis of the Gods, the Dark Lady, Queen of Chaos, the Undying Queen, Bane of Bahamut, the Primeval Mother

Tiamat is the five-headed queen of the evil chromatic Dragons. She has one head for each of the most common colors of chromatic dragon (black, blue, green, red, white), and each head has the powers of a member of the respective race of dragonkind. Each head's colour continues down her back and sides, eventually blending into three stripes of gray, blue-green, and purple along her hindquarters, becoming muddy brown on her tail. Her underbelly and stubby legs are greenish white blending into the colours on her sides and back. Her fat, bloated body is a blending of various chromatic dragon forms with an appropriately multi-colored hide. Her tail is tipped with a poisonous stinger like that of a wyvern.
Tiamat has also been known to manifest as a dark-haired human sorceress.
She is the eternal rival of her brother Bahamut, the ruler of the good metallic Dragons.
Tiamat is a greedy, vain, and arrogant goddess who embodies all the strengths of evil dragonkind, and few of their weaknesses. Tiamat is most concerned with spreading evil, defeating good, and propagating chromatic dragons. She never forgives a slight. Although she is not averse to razing the occasional village, her true schemes are subtle and hard to detect. From the shadows she moves her puppets' strings.
The Queen of Evil Dragons demands reverence, homage, supplication, and tribute from her subjects.
Temples to Tiamat are often built within the lairs of long-dead Dragons. They are filled with piles of wealth to be sacrificed to the Chromatic Dragon, as well as traps to keep out heretics and the unfaithful. Few dragons keep shrines to her in their own lairs, because they don't wish the goddess to know exactly how much treasure they have, for fear she will demand a greater cut of it.

Divine Domains

Destruction, Dragon, Evil, Greed, Hatred, Law, Scalykind, Trickery, Tyranny.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Tiamat's symbol is circle of five dragon claws, each a different colour representing all of the chromatic Dragons (red, black, blue, white and green).

Tenets of Faith

Although she claims dominance over all evil Dragons (and despite her misleading title, Queen of Chaos), Tiamat's priests, who are known as Wyrmlairds or Wyrmkeepers, are either neutral evil or lawful evil. Tiamat's church has a rigid hierarchy, beginning with the lowly Custodians of the Copper Chalice and continuing with, in ascending rank, the Defenders of the Silver Shield, Wardens of the Electrum Mail, Guardians of the Gold Scepter, Keepers of the Platinum Crown, Scales of the White Wyrm, Horns of the Black Beast, Wings of the Green Gargantua, Talons of the Blue Baatoran, Breaths of the Red Ravager, and the Dark Scaly Ones leading them all.
Priests of Tiamat are preoccupied with gathering treasure and undermining other faiths.
The ceremony garb of a humanoid priest of Tiamat is a form-fitting suit of scales. Dragons or those whose scales naturally cover their bodies don't require this, of course. Adventuring garb typically includes scale mail.

Holidays

The two most important daily ceremonies are the Tithing and the Rite of Respect. The former is an offering of a small amount of treasure to the goddess; the tithe is cupped in the priest's hands or talons, and when a prayer is completed, the valuables have sometimes simply vanished. The Rite of Respect is performed by non-dragons; it is a complicated ceremony of kow-towing in the presence of a dragon or other spawn of Tiamat.

Divine Classification

God

Alignment

Lawful Evil

Gender

Female

Related Myths

• The War of Dragons

Tiamat's Symbol by Unknown