Gospel of Wyvernax

The Gospel of Wyvernax, or *Ēvangelium Vibernāgis,* is a vranirist story drawn from Draconist lore from Daelyria describing the origins of the hostile relations between dragonkind and mankind using the two heroes Wyvernax, the first non-deity dragon born from Aegerax, and the great hunter Wur-Kudlak, who was among those tutored directly by the goddess Vranir. In this story, Wur-Kudlak is led by pride in his hunting talent and his ambition for fame to hunt and kill Wyvernax using siege-weapon like devices. Afterwards, Aegerax asks Gaelithox to honor his lost son with a constellation, known to the Nubble fishermonks as the Draco Constellation, which trails directly after the moon.

The story depicts Wur-Kudlak in a negative light, as his lust for greater hunts has led him to murder intelligent beings.

## Gospel

So it is spoken from Dakkarios, discovered through Draconist theology:

So forth arose enmity between man and dragonkind when blood chasing Wur-Kudlak, greatest hunter among the ancient men, murdered the eminent Wyvernax, the first mortal dragon begotten by the Fourteen Divine. In the times that Vranir walked with us, she freely imparted wisdom and knowledge to those faithful travel companions that followed her as if she were the pastures to their herd, nourishing with enlightenment, and among these was the predator born in man's skin. Drawn to those lessons and secrets more attuned with his nature, he learned and devised means for following quarry with always the upper hand. After Vranir's departure, winding fate carried him off, scattered like the others with the wind. Leveraging his talents and knowledge for fame and self-gain, the greatest hunter sought increasingly daring prey until the victims became so alike to kindred thinking beings that it verged on being labelled homocide. Nonetheless, Wur-Kudlak remained blind to the injustice of his motives as appetite supplanted empathy. The might of the dragons inspired his pride and the fame of their forerunner decided his destiny, Wur-Kudlak could only set his eyes on summits, as towering as the dragons were, and he sought the highest towards the wisest among them, named Wyvernax.

For two years, for his crowning achievement, he plotted, planned, and placed the contraptions conspiring murder on the firebreathing forefather who was more than equally a mighty hunter, but by tooth and claw rather than by machination. A narrow parting splits a certain mountain range, providing passage just wide enough for a dragon even as large as Wyvernax to fly through. These two peaks then framed a doorway of doom for the dragon, through which before he had been accustomed to traversing, as Wur-Kudlak used these to sight his demise. As he crossed, spears of immense size erupted from foliage below, transfixing his wings, and sent him spiraling to land at a cliff's edge. From on high among the rocks, Wur-Kudlak witnessed his initial success and seized the moment, skipping, hopping, and seemingly flying down the mountainside to descend doom upon his enemy, he bore his spear of dark-oak and drove a running charge into the fiery maw of his victim, an effort which thrust the pair beyond the edge. The great Wyvernax fell, his wings torn and useless, but the light hunter was born aloft by a single wing of canvas, folded and strung in a method instructed by Vranir at whim on a windy day more peaceful than hence.

Mighty Wyvernax met an ignoble end, but his grieving father Aegerax beseeched Gaelithox to give him a noble memorial, to which Gaelithox granted a place for his son among the stars following after the moon so that his memory may honored for all time, and to remind mankind of Wur-Kudlak's sin. From then forth, dragons wrought death with fire across far swathes of lands inhabited by human beings in retribution for the murder of their forefather.