The Scourge
A defining event in Xanthiri history that marks the beginning of the First Cycle and the modern people, the Scourge is one of the biggest mysteries of Xanthiri.
What life was like before the Scourge is mostly unknown, though there are pieces, artifacts, fossils, some surviving records to piece together.
The dwarven people caught wind of the damage that was to be done by the war between the elves and the dragons, sailing across the sea to avoid it. Humans had either just barely made contact or made contact soon after the Scourge. The ancient Elvhen and Dragon empires had been feuding for at least a century before the war that would last for another century. The Elvhen were on the verge of defeat when the Scourge happened.
The Scourge began suddenly, without warning. It was like the heavens were falling down, something like meteorites crashing into the earth in fiery explosion. Cities were destroyed, defenses demolished. Except, it was not entirely random where they fell.
Each and every Dragon was hit by a piece of the sky, no matter where they tried to run or hide. They became engulfed in flames, crying out uncharacteristically, as fire previously had no effect on Dragons. It was like their outer layers were being burned away, bit by bit. Their forms began to shrink and shift, growing in reverse.
As the flames died down, what was left in the ashes, was a new being.
Those who did survive the event found themselves in foreign new bodies. They were now humanoid, much smaller than their original selves. Gone were their wings, their fully scaled bodies. The transformation was clearly not perfect, as they retained some scaled patches and their horns.
The infrastructure of the Dragon Empire was decimated, and what remained was unusable by the newly formed Draconic. They could barely figure out how to walk, how to talk in these new bodies, let alone attempt to rebuild. Their weapons and defenses were made to be wielded by the giant Dragons, not small humanoids.
Aftermath
The Scourge was essentially a new beginning, for better or worse. History started from zero once again. The war left the Elvhen empire in shambles, and the Scourge left the new Draconic defenseless. Their lands were basically up for the taking by the forming human kingdoms, taking advantage of the chaos. Both of these races, who once nearly killed each other, were enslaved together for many years. It is how human kingdoms were able to rise up so suddenly, with cheap convenient labor. The ramifications of this are still felt to this day in Xanthiri. The scars run deep, and nothing has been done to even attempt healing them, especially by the Estean Empire.Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
