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The Dragon Goddess of the Moon is described as a wyrm dragon with beautiful white fur, and horns shaped like a crescent of the moon. She's depicted as the divine mother of all beings with her caring and gentle heart, the embodiment of night, devotion, and protection. She was the beloved of Yol, and together they represented the eternal companionship of sun and moon.
With that union came an egg, an unborn child whose fate is left unknown after Denek stole and hid it away in his jealousy for Vulon's love of Yol. After she lost her beloved Yol to Denek's fury, she begged Sil to help her, and together they imprisoned him for his treachery.
Vulon is closely associated with Calla Moon, the mysterious first Queen of Ashrathar. Rumors persisted for centuries that Calla wasn't mortal at all, but Vulon herself walking among her dragonkin in disguise.
The Dragon God of the Sun was known to be a powerful red beast with wings that left trails of embers, and the embodiment of light, warmth, and passion. Beloved of Vulon, he represented the radiant counterpart to her night.
The Sun God was unaware of Denek's bitter jealousy until it was too late. When Yol found that the egg of his unborn child was missing, and learned it was the Earth God's doing, he confronted them in a raging battle of a father's love. However, he was overpowered and fell from the sky, the Sun's fire snuffed from his heart.
Though much surrounding Yol's life has been lost after his death, it's said that after Yol fell, Vulon wept over his immense body and her divine tears rose the obsidian peaks of the Fel Mountains. Yol's body hardened into stone, his once colossal form becoming part of the great mountains, and his fiery heart fueling the dangers within it.
The Dragon God of the Earth was a mighty drake with horns like those of a bull's, and a body of rough scales, rock, and bits of moss. His domain encompassed stone, knowledge, and the unyielding strength of all Ajagar. Powerful even among the other ancients, his name would become inseparable from one of the greatest catastrophes of the divine age: the Divine Sundering.
Denek harbored a bitter jealousy toward Yol after Vulon chose him as her beloved companion. His resentment ultimately culminated in the murder of Yol after the two dragons battled, an act that ignited the Divine Sundering.
For his betrayal, and the destruction of all Ajagar, Denek was confronted by Vulon and Sil, but rather than destroy him, Sil produced a powerful gem capable of containing the Earth God, and together they imprisoned Denek within it, condemning the mighty drake to remain sealed away forever. Whether forever will truly mean such, however, is unknown.
The Dragon God of Life is slender and graceful in form, with a mix of fur and scales that shimmer in many hues, and horns that resemble antlers. A being of growth, creation, renewal, and the enduring vitality of all things, he possesses a gentleness that belies the immense power capable of shaping life itself.
Sil played a pivotal role in the aftermath of Yol's murder and the Divine Sundering. Alongside the grieving Vulon, he opposed Denek and created the divine gem that would imprison him, but only because Vulon could not convince him to slay the Earth God.
When the God of Death rose, Sil chose to leave Vulon and flee, giving in to his cowardice and unable to confront the being that represented the consequences of the Gods' actions. Where he's hidden is unknown, but rumored that the vibrancy of the Diell Forest is due to his presence.
The God of Death is an enigmatic being of death, passage, and the unknowable boundary beyond mortal life. Though commonly depicted as a great black wyvern, Oblaan is no dragon at all. His true form is an amorphous entity of wispy, oozing darkness, having adopted his draconic appearance after imprinting upon the first beings he witnessed, born from the destruction of the Divine Sundering: Vulon and Sil.
Mortals have long feared Oblaan, though much of that fear comes from misunderstanding. Death holds countless unknowns for the living, and the being responsible for tending it consequently became the subject of grim stories. In truth, he is a gentle giant with neither cruelty toward the living nor preference for who enters his keeping.
Oblaan spends most of his existence "asleep" and secluded within his own small dimension, emerging only when his divine duties require him.
Before the rise of the Courts, the Dragon God of Life, Sil, chose two among the early Fae to shape their destiny. These two, Morveth and Caelivra, were granted immortality many sought, along with vast power, becoming the first true sovereigns of the Fae known as the Sidhe. In exchange for their ascension, Sil bound them with a singular curse meant to preserve the code of his nature: they would never be able to lie. This condition became known as the Inheritance of Honesty, passed down over time from the First Sidhe to the rest of the Fae race.
The Unseelie Sovereign, King of Hunger
Morveth ruled with a brutal honesty of nature that was almost cruel. He believed life existed to devour itself in order to endure. His creed became kill, consume, multiply, and conquer. Under Morveth's gaze, creatures grew strong, abundance became excess, and beasts devoured one another and birthed litters without end. Death fed life, and life fed death, in a cycle so rapid it nearly tore itself apart. The Unseelie embraced fecundity, dominance, and survival without painting false illusions. He never promised mercy nor beauty. Morveth would say, "I will devour you," and to hear his word was to know exactly what would follow.
The Seelie Sovereign, Queen of Change
Caelivra ruled through beauty, change, and subtlety. Where Morveth's creatures grew too many and too brutal, she taught them to change. She promised that growth need not scar the world, that it could twist, bloom, and still never stain the memory of their original Maker. Under her influence, the cruelty of life became easier to swallow. Though equally bound by truth, she mastered the art of deception, speaking only truths while carefully shaping what was left unsaid. She never lied, yet countless were led astray by what she chose not to reveal. Caelivra would say, "You will be more than you are," and never explain the cost.
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❝ Let the soft be fed to strong,
Let the many test the few.
From the fallen rise the worth,
From the broken, something new.❞
❝ O Caelivra, golden lie,
Wrapped in truth we long to see,
Change us softly, change us kind,
Keep our Maker's memory clean.❞
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❝ The chains are not mine to rule,
they are my burden.
They are the memory of what we fled,
and the promise of what will never come again.
By the sky that lifted us,
by the chains that hold us,
by the Nameless One who blessed us,
I am a Chain Warden.❞
Long before Caelum touched the sky, the elves were bound to the chains of Bannhaven.
When the first great escape came, they were greeted by pursuit, hunger, and the certainty of their inevitable demise. Among the escaped was an elf named Aelthir. He was a laborer who had lived with the weight of iron, and whose hands bore the scars of labor meant to humble him. When the refugees reached the high cliffs beyond Bannhaven, cornered by soldiers below, Aelthir lifted his eyes upward to the stars and endless sky, begged for freedom.
The sky listened, the clouds parted, and the stars burned brighter than they ever had before as a gentle presence descended. She gave no name, and to this day she never has. The Nameless Goddess touched the land beneath the refugees, and the world let go. The ground rose, lifting an entire mass toward the heavens and away from Bannhaven's reach. Thus, Caelum was born, and the untouchable elves wept with relief.
But the Nameless Goddess knew what the elves did not. Left unbound, Caelum would wander or ascend beyond reach of life itself. So she turned to Aelthir and granted him strength beyond mortal measure, placing into his hands colossal chains forged by her will. Aelthir drove them down from Caelum's edges, tethering the floating kingdom to chosen points within the crater left behind, and creating stability within their freedom. In doing so, he became the first Chain Warden. Aelthir lived and died in service to the chains, ensuring Caelum neither fell nor fled too far from the world.
Grumach, Deep God of Stone, is the eldest of the Deep Gods worshipped by the dwarves of Knurl. He placed his ear against the world and heard the mountain's heart. So Grumach struck the earth with his fist, and the blow formed tunnels and paths within.
It was Grumach who blessed Tharn Knurlborne's axe, guiding its strike into a cliff and revealing the wealth hidden within the mountain's heart, marking the founding site of Knurl itself.
Bralka is the Deep Goddess of Fire and Craft. They revere her as the patron of smiths, artisans, and builders. A forge fire lit without respect for Bralka is said to doom the work to failure. She represents the balance between destruction and creation. Fire may melt and ruin, but when guided by skill and patience, it can refine rather than consume. To Bralka, effort matters as much as outcome.
Kheldrun is the Deep God of Wealth. He watched as riches formed too close to the surface, tempting the unworthy, so Kheldrun gathered the gems and metals and pushed them deeper into the mountains. He laid veins like riddles through the earth so only those who listened could find them. When dwarves strike true, they say it's because Kheldrun allowed himself to be seen, being the God who "hides" amongst his other siblings.
Youngest of the four, Morndra is the Deep Goddess of Protection. Where her siblings shaped the deep, Morndra ensured it would hold together. She swore that nothing built with care would fall easily, and nothing defended with love would stand alone. To defend one's hold is to serve her, and to abandon it without cause is the gravest of sins.
Arrazorn was born in an age when gods demanded worship and mortals like himself obeyed without question. He was a storyteller, a performer, and a thinker, one who delighted in jokes that carried truths and stories that revealed hypocrisy in the divine. He asked questions others feared to ask, and laughed where silence was demanded. He believed joy was not indulgence, but rebellion against despair. Most dangerously of all, he believed that belief without thought was simply an empty act. For this, he was labeled a blasphemer. People who gathered to hear him speak began to laugh, wonder, and think for themselves. That was when one God took offense. Arrazorn was summoned by this God under the promise of discourse. Instead, he was bound, stripped of clothes and voice, and displayed in shackles as an example of what happens to those who question the gods. This time, the crowd laughed at him instead of with him.
Then he smiled. With a flourish worthy of a stage illusionist, Arrazorn twisted, bent, and slipped through the bindings. Gasps rippled through the crowd as the mortal stepped free, bowed deeply, then snapped the very chains back around the God who had placed them. The God was never truly trapped, but it did not matter. Because the moment the chains closed, Arrazorn laughed, and the people laughed with him. The spectacle was undeniable, a mortal who had turned punishment into farce. The God raged, declaring the act meaningless, but the faithful became faithless. Those who once worshipped the God turned their faces away with sneers and laughed openly. The damage was done.
Arrazorn spoke once more as the weight of laughter outweighed that of divine fear. "I took everything from you, just as you took everything from me."
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❝A simple role to entertain,
Laughter at words untrue,
Kings turned to fools as the mirrors crack,
The joke placed on me, now falls to you.❞