Tiamat

Tiamat is the lawful evil dragon goddess of greed, queen of evil dragons. Tiamat is also the eternal rival of her Bahamut, ruler of the good metallic dragons.

## Description

Tiamat was a unique chromatic dragon, who had one head for each primary color of the most common species of chromatics (black, blue, green, red, white). Each head was able to operate entirely independently of each other and had the powers of a member of the respective race of dragonkind. Her body also had traits in common with a wyvern, including a long tail tipped with a poisonous stinger.

Tiamat was arrogant, greedy, hateful, spiteful and vain. She never forgave any kind of slight and was focused in obtaining more power and wealth. She disdained mortals, regarding them as mere disposable tools in her schemes. When needed, she was charming and fey, but her self-serving and reptilian personality betrayed her sooner or later.

After having experienced relative mortality as an archfiend, she became less reckless but also paranoid.

Tiamat enjoyed the company of male dragons, and had many great wyrms consorts of the chromatic varieties.

She had an insatiable greed for treasures, but preferred that her followers brought it to her in the form of gifts instead of searching riches on her own

Tiamat wanted to take control of the realms, and even as she was thwarted again and again by her enemies, she didn't give up. She didn't like to leave her lair, however, and usually acted to advance her agenda by using members of her Church or her agents in the Cult of the Dragon.

Tiamat kept an active watch over evil dragonkind and always stirred them to further actions of avarice, pride and wickedness.

## Powers

As a unique type of chromatic dragon with the traits of the five most common chromatic varieties, Tiamat was a foe to be reckoned with in battle.

Along with all the standard powers and godly senses of a deity of her rank, those who saw her fight claimed that her heads were able to cooperate in battle, and that those heads had the ability to use the breath weapons and spell-like abilities common to their species. Although her sheer size prevented claw and kick attacks while on the ground, she was adept of its use while flying. She also had a stinger on her tail that injected a powerful venom on her foes, killing them in agonizing pain.

## History

For ages, sages debated whether if Tiamat actually was a deity or not. Many believed she was the archetype of evil dragonkind, a devil or demon, the avatar of another deity or even a mortal dragon so powerful that chromatic dragons revered her as their queen and creator. Whatever she was, sages knew for certainly that she was powerful and worshiped by evil dragons as a goddess.

The fact is that Tiamat was actually a goddess. She came into existence alongside the rest of the draconic pantheon when the first dragons were born. Her origins were highly conflicting, however, as there were many accounts about how she came into being.

In the more commonly accepted traditions, she was the daughter of Asgorath and sister of Bahamut and Null; while in the myths of the Dragonborn, Bahamut and Tiamat were born from the sundered corpse of Io (the name by which dragonborn knew Asgorath) instead, when Io was killed.

Whatever the truth, her cult grew rapidly in the communities of chromatic dragons, especially among blue, green, and red dragons.

Once dragons as a race had established themselves, the various religious factions of dragons began to battle one another over their different ideologies. Over time, religious fervor waned and draconic philosophers came to the conclusion that gods who allowed such behavior were not worthy of their worship. This started the draconic apathy toward their gods which lasted for thousands of years. However, the hatred that had developed between Tiamat, Bahamut and their followers was so intense that they refused to stop fighting. Their conflict came to be known as the Dragonfall War. During the first years of the war, Tiamat breed horrific and aberrant draconic creatures known as the Spawn of Tiamat, in an attempt to wipe out the followers of Bahamut.

The war waxed and waned in intensity, with the last era of intense fighting. It was during this time that the early Elven empires began and with them, their pantheon became prominent. Tiamat became one of their deities by using a three-headed aspect, and her purpose in the pantheon was to balance the "order" represented by the other gods with her "chaos".

Now that both, Bahamut and Tiamat had humanoid worshippers, the Dragonfall War entered into a new period of intensity. The two siblings fought each other personally, with neither being able to gain the upper hand. Tiamat also worked against the other gods.

As an archfiend, she was given rulership of Avernus by Azmodeus. Her job was to prevent outcast devils on that layer of Hell from becoming a threat but performed so poorly that Azmodeus demoted her. Knowing her failure was not deliberate (by reading her thoughts), Azmodeus deigned to allow Tiamat to remain in Avernus unpunished, and even gave her a chance to regain her position if she impressed him in her new role as the guardian of the main gate to Xesteria.

This state of affairs lasted until some time until cultists managed to summon another aspect of Tiamat to Xesteria. This aspect, known as the Dark Lady, formented rebellion all over the realm against the metallic dragons. Worship for the Dark Lady swelled, and Tiamat was elevated to status of a demigoddess.

The metallics eventually fought back, and the Dark Lady was transformed back into her three-headed avatar, which was promptly slain by the Church of Bahamut. Her divine essence though was somehow divided into three and came to inhabit four powerful chromatic dragons. When devoured by a black dragon craving power, it gave rise to Tiamat's five-headed avatar once more. Realizing her increase in power, Bahamut implored his followers across all planes to band together to banish Tiamat to the plane of Nowhere.

 Devils