When Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat first came out, I recall there being a number of comparisons with Dragonlance (and yes, I made a few myself) and complaints that it wasn't a proper FR story and so on and so forth. Turns out that's not true at all. It's actually the culmination of something that's been a long time coming.
I recently started running HotDQ for my home group, and my wife chose the Dragon Scholar optional background feature. She asked me to compile a little book of dragon lore for her so she wouldn't have to keep asking me questions during the game. One thing I discovered while doing research for my wife's book is that Tiamat's takeover of the Cult of the Dragon and her bid for freedom has *not* come out of nowhere. Chris Perkins did his homework when he put together the ToD story bible.
As far as I can tell, the first seeds for the ToD storyline date back to the 1998 AD&D 2e Cult of the Dragon sourcebook, which mentions that a) Sammaster misinterpreted the prophecy and b) that the Church of Tiamat (based in Unther) has long striven to infiltrate and take over the Cult of the Dragon.
The 2006 D&D 3.5 Dragons of Faerûn supplement expands on this. It talks about how Tiamat battled an aspect of Bahamut called Marduk in the ancient days when Unther was a mighty empire. The two fought time and again and ultimately destroyed each other, with Bahamut disappearing almost entirely from Faerûn for millennia, while Tiamat was demoted to "archfiend" status. This is when she become ruler of Avernus - and was later demoted in favor of that other guy, effectively becoming a prisoner in her own realm.
Eventually Tiamat managed to claw her way back up to demigod status as more and more people in Unther turned to her in secret as their god-king Gilgeam grew more and more despotic. During the Time of Troubles, Gilgeam slew Tiamat, but her essence was preserved in her champion, Tchazzar, who helped her reform, at which point she then slew Gilgeam. (There's a reason why she's known as the "Nemesis of the Gods" in that part of the world.)
As it happens, Tiamat's manipulation of Severin into hunting for the lost dragon masks is not the first time she's meddled with a leader of the Cult of the Dragon. A century before the events of ToD, she also subtly influenced the cult's founder, Sammaster, into hunting for the source of the ancient Dracorage mythal - the old elven curse that periodically made dragons go crazy. While Sammaster's goal was to blackmail all dragons into becoming dracoliches or become permanently mad, Tiamat ultimately got what she wanted when a group of adventurers killed Sammaster and destroyed the mythal at the same time.
This opened the way for Tiamat to usher in a new era of draconic rule. Unfortunately for her, the Spellplague struck a mere decade later. Her church more or less perished along with Unther when part of Abeir was transposed onto it. Her champion, Tchazzar, was imprisoned in the Shadowfell for many years before getting himself killed by his own mercenaries. Worse still, Bahamut returned and got promoted to a major humanoid deity.
Once all the chaos of the Era of Upheaval settled down after the Sundering, Tiamat was finally able to resume her plans. With no Dracorage mythal to drive her children crazy every so often, she could set about putting them back in control of Faerûn, just like they'd been 30,000 years before. She also needed to find a way to get into Faerûn herself, since part of Ao's plan with the Sundering was to prevent the gods from sending avatars into the world of their own volition.
Hopefully that should show you that the Tyranny of Dragons storyline is *not* an aberration. It *is* a Forgotten Realms story, and one that has a substantial amount of history behind it at that. It's just a shame the adventures only mention most of it in passing.
Huh. Neat. Nice job with the research, Pukunui.
Agreed, nicely done and thanks for sharing!
Azzy1974 wrote:
For my HotDQ /RoT group, I used the Ep8 vampire to deliver a soliloquy on the Cult's history. From the point of view of a Cult loyalist, Tiamat is a meddler and interloper in the organization.
I'm thinking about having 'dracoliches' as a faction resource that shows up at the Climactic Final Battle - not under the PCs control but coming in because they saw the Council's army moving to attack the Well of Dragons. If my group is having a hard time gaining / keeping any other support.
BRJN wrote:
Goes back a bit further to the Faiths and Avatars trilogy (1996) which mentions events detailed in the Draconomicon. Powers and Pantheons had more info on Tiamat and Tchazzer (1997). Predating that though Tiamat was imported to the Realms via Greyhawk. Most of the demihumandeities also came from Greyhawk although they added a few mre in the 3rd book of the trilogy Demihuman Deities.
The other main thing RoT has in common with the DL adventures is that its not very good and very railroaded.
Zardnaar wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
Are the events of Scales of War also part of her lore?
On a side note, I was a bit disappointed that the last thing we did in 4e was killing Tiamat, and the very first thing we got to do in 5e was... Killing her again!
Delazar78 wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
Excellent research, pukuni, thanks for taking time to share it. I just started running HotDQ and it's an excellent module (with some minor tweaks). I may steal this for background history in my campaign.
joeburgos wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Very cool research, Pukunui. I vaguely recall talk of the Cult of the Dragon in the Waterdeep in the North book, but don’t know if that had any bearing on Tyranny of Dragons.
pukunui wrote:
Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
It’s Waterdeep and (not in) the North, from 1e:
pukunui wrote:
Ah right. I forgot about that one. Whatever's in there re: the cult is probably rehashed in the 2e Cult of the Dragon book.
