Red Dragon

*"And from the dust storm emerged a power reborn, the red dragon ascending, enveloping all the crimson world, blessing those worthy with untold power and devouring those who dared stand in its way"*

For a hundred and nineteen years the Red Dragon slumbered in isolation, buried beneath the barren lands of Hellas Planitia. Hidden from the world, the dragon schemed and planned, gathered strength and wisdom, spreading unbeknownst to the powers that be.

### Waking dragon

When the Dragon reemerged, it was with the formidable force ancient myths foretold of the dragons of old. Rising against the existing order, the Red Dragon grew into a formidable power with which dozens of smaller nations aligned. Controlling much of the southern Martian hemisphere, the Dragon itself remains much of a mystery. No-one seemingly knows for certain, how many hundred millions of denizens dwell in the caverns and vaults of the depth, how far the Dragon dug toward the Martian core. And no enemy of the Dragon ever dared to test its hidden power.

## The birth of a dragon

The origins of the Red Dragon are shrouded deep in schemes and mystery, reaching back at least two centuries.

### Crossing the Void

At the dawn of the Century of Absolution, the ancestral forerunner to the Central Realm, the Middle Kingdom Cathay, reached for the stars. An absolute regime yearning to expand its might and influence, the Cathay pursued the ambition take the red planet whole. Vowing to raise a true Martian civilization, Cathay sent a fleet greater than any interplanetary project before. Thousands of vessels, assembled at the heart of the Terrestrial Swarm, set out to cross the Void and settle Hellas Planitia, the new home.

### Schism

Successful in their most ambitious endeavor, the pioneers of the Middle Kingdom Cathay soon founded a prospering, rapidly growing colony in the Hellas Planitia. For half a century, the colony thrived but its great success grew to become the downfall of the interplanetary nation.

Stability was granted to Cathay through authority. But no stately power could gap the abyss between worlds effectively. Soon, the paths of two worlds began to diverge. The colony, once symbolizing the triumph of unity over separation, now blemished the repute of the Middle Kingdom Cathay by defying the very reason of its existence.

### War between worlds

Cathay knew only one way to respond - quelling the rebellion by force. Never before had a military effort of such scale been undertaken between two of the inner planets. With no historical precedent to draw experience, virtually no supply lines and information about the military state of the red world, the invasion of Hellas Planitia had always been doomed to fail. Some say, the end of Cathay had already been decided long before and it was now merely following the last act of its demise.

Weeks after their arrival, the forces of the Middle Kingdom vanished, having laid waste to all of the colony's surface installations. What took place within the caldera of the Planitia, no-one ever learned.

### Silence and solitude

In a century of isolated exile, the erstwhile pioneers of Cathay waited hidden, but by far not idly. Deeper than any force before, the survivors of their war ventured into the depths of Mars, claiming great wealth and realms to expand.

On the surface, the fate of the red colony became quickly the stuff of legend. Some said the colony had been wiped out completely, taking the last of the invaders with them in nuclear hellfire. Others proclaimed the gears of war were still churning, hidden by conspiring leaders. Further reaching, some claimed both forces to have been destroyed by an ancient remnant of alien civilization, discovered deep within the planet of war.

All such legends were easily perpetuated by agents of the Red Dragon hiding among the nomads of dust. They were happy to weave their secretive nation carefully in a web of legends and myth, to delude the truth of their power completely.