The Covenant and what came after

As far back as memory and legend stretch, the sapient beings of the world have been divided between two starkly different kinds of creatures, the humanoids and the dragons. Scholars say that the two great lineages rose from primitive animalistic states at around the same time, so long ago that putting a number on the amount of years would have little meaning to anyone hearing it.

It’s said that the first eons were dominated by violence, and whilst humanoids had numbers on their side that should have helped them match the individually much stronger dragons, for large numbers to flourish and become great requires stability. Stability to build farms, cities and mines, stability that a single dragon can extinguish in a whim should it so desire. And so it was that dragons grew stronger as humanoids stayed where they were, primitive scroungers of the wilderness, or at best farmers of scorched fields, little better than the animalistic state from which they had come, despite nature having blessed them with the capacity to be so much more.

Things all changed on the day of The Covenant. While the actual nature of The Covenant is unclear, with some scholars claiming that a great stone tablet was physically engraved by one representative of all humanity and one of all dragonkind, others claiming it to be simply a metaphorical construct, whatever it was changed the world forever. The Covenant saw the dragons agree to leave the humanoid races in peace, to allow them to build their society as they saw fit and to claim dominion over their own lands, in exchange for the humanoids agreeing to seed ultimate rulership of themselves to the dragons and to worship no gods but those of the dragons. What exactly the humanoids did worship before this time has been lost to history, with that loss likely helped along by extensive quantities of dragon fire.

Only one race of humanoids actively chose not to enter the covenant – the kobolds. It is said that they did so as they refused to bow to tyrants, however if this fact is correct it would be somewhat ironic as this race now acts as servants to the dragons, fulfilling their every command in the hope of blessings or status from their overlords. Kobolds deny this and claim not to be humanoids at all, saying they are actually a type of dragon, though the functioning of many common incantations casts serious doubt on the kobolds’ argument.

Humanoids consider the beginning of The Covenant to be the beginning of society, and as such start their calendar at that point (despite significant uncertainties over exactly when, or even if, the Covenant was created in any literal sense), placing the present day in The Year of The Covenant 1412. Fourteen centuries after the covenant and there’s never been a better time to be alive for humanoids. Great cities dot three of the world’s four continents (Zienne being declared off limits) and within them people study art, magic and the sciences, engage in commerce and ever expand the reach of society into the unexplored regions.

The Dragons have a noticeable presence in all the regions settled by humanoids, and require worship of their pantheon of gods; Astilabor, Chronepsis, Falazure, Garyx, Hlal and Lendys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_deities - the aspects of Hlal’s doctrine speaking against oppression aren’t part of any formal scriptures, and she is spoken of more as a CN than CG being, although if one digs deep enough into the passages relating to her exploits some degree of kindness can certainly be seen). This pantheon isn’t meant to take in all aspects of the world, simply the aspects of it that have been embodied by the ancestors of living dragons which have ascended to divinity.

While the worship of other deities is outlawed (and indeed, few humanoids even know the names of any other purported deities) many humanoids revere nature or some admirable quality of the world without falling afoul of the dragons and their kobold enforcers. Sailors respect the sea and storms, miners the earth, farmers the sun and the breeze and the insects and birds that help bring their crop to fruition. Dragons feel spiritual connections to these forces too. People less connected to the natural world tend to put their faith in more abstract concepts like luck and fate, although outside times of personal crisis such people are generally perfectly happy with no more than their required worship of draconic gods to which they have little personal connection. Many humanoids who serve as healers do so through an understanding of the universal life force (referred to as ‘colour’) and some unlock great powers through their control over this force. In all such worship, worshippers are careful not to ascribe qualities to their chosen forces that may make it seem as though they worship a literal being, and as such expressions that anthropomorphise non-living forces are generally considered profanities.

While most humanoids simply see the worship of draconic gods as a tiresome part of daily life, some are strongly devoted to the gods they’ve grown up worshipping and praise them out of reverence as well as duty. These people are generally not stigmatized, except by a few stuck up ‘progressives’ or those who have personally lost loved ones to draconic sacrifices.

A small number of humanoids even serve as priests to the dragon gods, although this role is mostly taken up by kobolds. Priests from amongst the furry humanoids never gain true insider status, but do tend to earn favours from their reptilian masters. None have ever been known to be sacrificed, however it is believed that the dragons have little tolerance for priests of their gods who perform poorly.

Today, the respective roles of humanoids and dragons in the world bear little on the minds of most humanoids. Kobold patrols, dragons flying overhead and mandatory participation in holy days are a part of everyday life. Whilst sacrifices are demanded by dragons, in the majority of cases specific individuals aren’t named for such and criminals can be dragged from their cells to make up the numbers. Occasionally the number demanded is more than can be made up by truly abhorrent criminals and the odd pick-pocket or tax cheat has been known to meet a disproportionately grisly end, but really they should have thought about that possibility before they turned to a life of crime. In the uncommon cases where sacrifices are named, there’s usually some explanation to do with that person offending some local high up kobold. Sacrifices of named individuals without any obvious explanation do occur and are terrifying, but they’re usually rare enough not to weigh on the average person’s mind.

So while there do indeed be dragons, in most places they leave the small hairy folk be, as per The Covenant, and it’s a good time to be alive.