Dragons

Dragons
A dragon’s colour is an indication of its rank in society, with white being the lowest rank and red the highest (there are no metallic or gem dragons). Naturally, all dragons are creatures of fire, regardless of their colour. However there are stories of occasional dragons that use other energy types as a breath weapon and have other abilities. Scholars speculate that this comes about as a result of dragons magically altering their natural fire based abilities, however research into the nuances of dragon society is very hard to undertake – dragons don’t talk about it to humanoids (they rarely talk to non-kobold humanoids at all) and the rare kobold that has been convinced to talk about this type of thing (something they are explicitly forbidden to do) doesn’t seem to know very much.

Humanoids only ever see adult dragons – it is assumed that young dragons are raised in the various parts of the world declared off limits to humanoids (there is also a theory that says they live on the moon – features on the moon’s face change over time and some scholars think this is due to draconic settlement there. This is a pretty fringe theory though). Within Xian-Tau the only dragons regularly seen are those who are part of the hierarchy. Usually there is a single mid-ranked dragon assigned to watch over each major city (Daric is watched over by a red because Daric has a reputation for being non-cooperative, the rest have greens and blues) and a few lower ranked dragons patrol more remote areas at sporadic intervals.

It is said that the penalty from disobeying the orders of dragons is the death of all those in the vicinity of the crime, e.g. destruction of the entire city where it took place. However this is probably a myth, no one can actually name a city that was ever entirely destroyed. It is certainly true that disobedience causes lots of blood shed though. In the few recorded cases of major disobedience in Xian-Tau (mostly people slated for sacrifice escaping) hundreds of people have been killed as punishment, including everyone who was in a position to stop the sacrifices escape. It is said that all the dragons that watch cities have the ability to quickly summon a number of other dragons as a result anyone who knows what’s good for them will do their upmost to make sure dragons aren’t disobeyed.

There are stories of dragons going rouge and abandoning the hierarchy, fleeing to live in remote areas, hiding from the hierarchy that seeks to punish their desertion. It is thought that a number of these rogue dragons live in the Dagallion ranges.