The Great Calamity & The Dragons Withdrawal

500 years ago, the elemental forces keeping Uclandia together were becoming increasingly unstable. Wildfires raged unchecked, earthquakes shook the land, and tsunamis threatened the Western coast. The lands that were once well-watered by rain & fertile began to dry up. Races and species were forced to migrate to find water. It was a hard time, and very few were untouched. (The history annals refer to this time as The Great Calamity.) The Dragon Council, a group of wise and ancient dragons, sensed an impending catastrophe that their far-seeing members prophesied would kill most of them.
Ages before, the Dragon Council had organized the bi-peds into a sect of Scholars versed in Dragon Lore, Keepers who tended to the physical needs of the Dragons, and those who protected gemstones that contained Dragon Magic known as Gemwardens. Some individuals who had been trained as Warrior-Knights also took up training as Scholars and became known as Warrior-Scholars. Priests were charged with ensuring all this knowledge was passed down through the ages, as well as training individuals who knew the spells to call back the Dragons when the time came.
After a Gathering and Council, it was decided they would all leave. The Dragons spread the news far and wide, hoping all of their kind across Uclandia would receive the news. When The Calamity was at its worst, the Council performed an ancient spell known only to dragons and made a collective decision to depart from Uclandia to preserve their species. They found refuge in the "Välimaa," (a term meaning intermediate space)
They left instructions with The Keepers that they would return when Uclandia's need was greatest. The Scholars recorded the progression of The Great Calamity and the decision of the Dragon Council in books that were then protected by Dragon Magic. It was the Council’s hope that their magic would protect these books for the future.
One Dragon offered to stay behind to guard over this knowledge. Atrius. Younger and smaller than many of the Dragons, it was decided that Atrius would stay behind in Uclandia and ride out the Great Calamity as best he could. He found a cave deep in the Chonaic Ridge mountains in which to build a hoard of knowledge. The cavern was large enough to store all the books that the Dragon Council felt were important, and every Scholar in the land was pressed into service. Soon, all the most important volumes were being hand-copied. The copies were sent to Vahaava Ri and stored in the Emperor’s Library, while the originals were sent to Atrius.
The books describing The Dragon Covenant were also copied, along with a structure of the Covenant for future Scholars. This was done to ensure that the necessary knowledge would be available when it was time for the Dragon Council to return.
The time draws near for the return of Dragonkind, as a whole, to Uclandia.
The Encyclopedia Uclandia will be updated as more information becomes available. Keep watch over that collection of documents by following the world of Uclandia.