The Council of Wyrms & Elemental Lords

Founding

Following the First Fall the dragons fell to slumber and dream. These dreams were different than they had experienced before. They came from somewhere outside of themselves, for they were sent to them by forces beyond their understanding... the very ones which created the world they call home. The dreams were brief, but lucid and powerful... and shared with every single dragon. In it they saw not their creators, but each other as their creators intended. Stripped of power, they would form family groups, clans, each beholden to an elder and each elder beholden to each other. A council of elders would deliberate on matters relevant to the whole and hold authority over each other. In this way the world would heal and answer the collective call of dragonkind. In this way they could shape the land, but never again as strongly as they once did.

The dragons took their collective shared dream as a directive from the cosmic creators, forming a Council of Wyrms. The first problem to tackle was determining who would rule. Some fights broke out, but in the end, Aeon The First commanded the most respect and demanded an end to all direct conflict. This did not sit well with her children, who attacked her and defeated her in a grand combat. In the end, she determined the only way to control her children was to give up her role as eldest, succumbing to their hunger. She filled them with her spirit willingly, pronouncing that only the ones who could collectively defeat her would rule as elder council wyrms. Thus the First Dragon fell and sacrificed herself, and the structure of power now extent among dragonkind began. The first task of the council was to order the clans by land preference and keep the peace. Thereafter the council would only convene once a generation to impose its will and educate the youth, sharing the Great Dream directly with the new children, and to reinforce and renew elemental pacts with the servants they once created of their own power. Elementals, shards of will given power and formed of elements, designed for carrying out the desires of dragons... these creatures gained a semblance of free will after the First Fall. Along with the wave of divinity lost in the fall these creatures fell into a natural hierarchy as individual elementals absorbed the power now latent in the world. The most powerful of these became elemental lords, finding a natural affinity for the material of their own body they tended to gravitate towards a lower level of creation, a plane of their own design. Natural portals between the elemental planes and the world of the dragons allowed for congress, expansion, trade of power and influence and being able to wield a small portion of the shaping power that created them to shape the world of their own design. The dragons grew petty and jealous, often binding individual powerful elementals to their own will, but some elementals were too willful for even that. Thus pacts were born, treaties with dragon lords and council elders to limited trade of power and shaping of the world for either side's benefit. The impact upon the world was less dramatic than that of the previous age. The arrangement between dragon and elemental became relatively peaceful in some areas, but still violent and usurious in others. The clans began to distinguish themselves by preference of elemental pacts or enslavement. Environmental change slowed as natural evolution and erosion took hold. Eventually, the land itself would start to shape the dragons. The clans developed unique features that provided advantage or protection against their chosen lands. Some of these features were self designed, others granted by elemental lords, and yet others naturally developed.