Bahamut

Bahamut is a platinum dragon god, with dominion over order, metallic dragons, the embodiment of justice. Rival to his sister Tiamat - Bahamut cursed his sister to become an evil aspect of herself whenever she enters the material plane, though this had the unintended side effect of creating Tammy from the combined good and neutral aspects.

After cursing his sister, the other dragon gods grew fearful of Bahamut. Concerned about keeping his control, Bahamut turned on the rest of the dragon gods - either killing them, capturing them, or sending them into hiding.

Bahamut upholds the guise of being an entity of justice and good while working to maintain meticulous control over dragon domains at all cost, holding disdain for any dragons that not Chromatic or Metallic. Even amongst those dragons he openly permits, he insists such a rigorous dogma of good on the metallic dragons that they only have free will if they can escape his gaze.

Bahamut keeps 7 gold dragons in the forms of canaries around as body guards.

## Appearance

Bahamut usually appears as a majestic and awe-inspiring platinum dragon, the only one of his kind.

Occasionally he would appear in more subtle forms as a humble fisher or a young monk who bear the title of "Grandmaster of flowers", or as an old human wizard dressed in peasant robes known as "Fizban the Fabulous". In all forms, he was accompanied by seven gold canaries or other songbirds.

## Personality

Bahamut values his image above all else. He works hard to maintain the appearance being a creature of good and justice, while often forcing his will on those who don't align to his vision of order. He retains complete control over his metallic dragons, putting their life in the balance if they stray too far outside the bounds of their good alignment. These ideals spawned the rivalry he has with Tiamat, disgusted by the free will and chaos she allowed in the realm of dragons. The evil aspect of Tiamat formed by his curse created the perfect antithesis to the image he upholds, despite the dark methods that brought him there.

Bahamut's view of good is clouded by his domain of order. He is obsessed with being in control and understanding the exact mechanisms and reasoning behind everything that happens. He wants to maintain peace and justice, and thinks the way to do that is by forcing everyone to never do anything bad in the first place, to always follow what he says exactly.

Bahamut often likes to claim he is the god of justice, much to Tyr's chagrin. Tyr got upset with Bahamut over this, and their conflict ended with Tyr banning Bahamut from Dragsa city. Bahamut tries to mislead people about the specifics about his domain by referring to himself as the dragon god of justice or the god of the embodiment of justice.

The cracks in Bahamut's facade begin to show when dealing with Asbenterriloth, the silver dragon not under his control. He is furious that a metallic dragon dares defy him and stray from his domain and order, and goes to great lengths to stop or silence him - often betraying the ideals and morals that he works to uphold even while others are watching.

## Relationships

* Tiamat and Bahamut's rivalry stems from their shared origins as sibling dragon-gods. Bahamut's cursing of Tiamat and splitting of her soul has shaped their contentious relationship, an act he excuses to viewers as justice against her evil aspect.
* Gond maintains a friendly relationship with Bahamut. Gond created Bahamut’s crystal palace and the Platinum Dragon Mask. Bahamut admired his work greatly and showered him with priceless gifts including an infinitely faceted gem.
* Bahamut valued his alliance with Helm, the godden of guardians and protectors. Helm's commitment to being the impartial defender aligns with Bahamut's role in ensuring a just and secure world.
* Bahamut's respect for Tempest's ideals of honorable combat were met with mutual respect from the goddess. While their domains diverged, they shared an appreciation for the concept of facing challenges directly.
* Bahamut's protection of the innocent is at odds with Hoar's penchant for revenge. Despite their differing approaches, they occasionally find common ground in their shared desire for accountability.
* Bahamut likes to claim the justice domain, often discrediting Tyr, the true god of law and justice. They still retain a tenuous relationship as they pursue similar goals of justice, though Bahamut was banned from Dragsa city.
* Asbenterriloth the Silver Dragon has his connection to severed from Bahamut and his domain - becoming the only metallic dragon to exist outside of Bahamut's control. He was free to do as he pleased, and Bahamut hates him for it.

## Bahamut's Palace

The location of Bahamut’s palace is a well hidden secret. Rumors surround the information - some say it is located behind the north wind, others the east wind. This leads many to believe it is located on the plane of air. These rumors are born from the fact that Bahamut has 4 portals to the plane of air in his Palace, named after the 4 winds.

Bahamut's Palace is located on Mertion, the 5th layer of Celestia - also known as the Platinum Heaven. Mertion is a platinum-skied realm of mostly plains and savannas, but with a few scattered mountains. On one lonely mountain rests Bahamut's hidden palace. The Palace was designed by Gond and is hidden by a special property - it can only be found by looking in a reflection. Once a creature knows of its location, they can adjust their eyes to see it. Bahamut admired his work greatly and paid him with an infinitely faceted gem.

Bahamut's home is a glittering palace made from crystal and platinum. The windows are made from gemstones set with silver and gold. The interior is inlaid with ivory and copper with floors of beaten mithril. His palace is his treasure horde. If one inspects it closely, it's foundation is built with the bones of thousands of would-be thieves. The palace connects to the plane of air via 4 portals named after the 4 winds, each one guarded by an ancient air elemental.

## Early Life

In the early days of the gods, Bahamut was still a godling with his siblings Tiamat and Sardior as they were just starting to form a hold of their domains. Bahamut created the metallic dragons, Tiamat created the chromatic dragons, and Sardior created the gemstone dragons. Dragons quickly became a powerful force within the realm and other dragon gods established themselves. Among them was Kereska, the dragon goddess of magic. She created the magical dragons, and gave all dragons magic and breathe weapons, which established dragons as one of the most notorious and well known creatures in the world.

Bahamut reveled in their success and power and sought to use it to establish and maintain control. He established control over the metallic dragons, able to magically force them to do his bidding at any time. Tiamat however, despised this, and gave her dragons free will. Bahamut began to grow worried that Tiamat would outstrip him in terms of power.

Tiamat and the other dragon gods were more interested in creating than controlling their previous creations, and Bahamut saw this as a threat. Tiamat was endlessly creative, and was always pushing the bounds of what she could create. Bahamut saw her as rash, impulsive, emotional, and power hungry. He wanted order, and pleaded to Tiamat to keep the dragons limited to what had already been created - but Tiamat wanted more. Bahamut grew jealous and resentful, and he began to take matters into his own hands.

## The Curse

Bahamut turned to a dark source and cast a horrible curse on Tiamat. Whenever she enters the material plane, she transforms into an aspect of true evil. Bahamut thought this would teach her a lesson in understanding how her actions affect the world.

What Bahamut did not know was that whenever Tiamat transforms into the aspect of evil, she is split into her core aspects, leaving the good and neutral aspects behind with a fraction of her power in the form of Tammy.

### Breaking the Curse

The ritual to break the curse must follow a very specific process:

1. Bahamut must be on the material plane for the entirety of the curse breaking process
2. The curse breaking ritual must be done in Bahamut’s palace on Mount Celestia
3. The curse-breaker must be wearing the Platinum Dragon Mask artifact
4. The ritual requires 5 blood-smeared scales from slain chromatic dragons. The scales need to be given to the curse-breaker directly by the creature that slew the dragon, who must contribute their own blood to the scale.
5. The curse-breaker needs to draw a circle and pentagon with magical chalks and candles. The curse must be written in runes along the outside of the circle. (Takes 20 minutes unpracticed)
6. The dragon scales are placed on the corners of the pentagon
7. The curse-breaker must spill their own blood in the middle of the circle, speaking the true name of Tiamat as they do.

When the curse is broken, Tiamat’s evil aspect is consumed by fire and destroyed, restoring Tiamat, who is now free to travel the material plane with no adverse effects.

## The Purging of the Dragon Gods

After the cursing of Tiamat, Bahamut knew his control could only be maintained if he dealt with the other dragon gods. He approached them all and gave them a choice: join him in keeping complete control over all the dragons, or suffer the same fate as Tiamat. All of the dragons refused, and Bahamut either killed them, captured them, or sent them into hiding.

Concerned about his image, Bahamut did his best to scrub all knowledge of the other dragon god's existence from history. Sardior went into hiding, but is still known to the gemstone dragons, who keep him from fading out of the world's knowledge. Kereska proved too powerful for Bahamut to kill, but he eventually managed to overpower her with the help of his golden dragons. The only way he could keep her subdued was in a demiplane, which he constantly upholds in a spell with the help of his 7 gold dragons. Whenever one of the dragons leaves his presence, Kereska gains a little more power outside of the demiplane until they return.

## Reign of Chaos

Tiamat's evil aspect raged across the material plane wreaking havoc and leaving destruction and death in her wake. The powers of the realm joined together to enlist the aide of Bahamut to help banish her from the material plane. The curse had tied an aspect of Tiamat to always be on the material plane, so when the evil aspect was banished from the material plane, Tammy got magically summoned to the material plane.

Bahamut established himself as the god of justice and good dragons, and slandered Tiamat as the goddess of greed and evil dragons. Knowledge of Tiamat as anything other than an evil rampaging dragon goddess became nothing more than a rare conspiracy theory.

## The Platinum Dragon Mask

Gond created the Dragon Masks - 5 chromatic dragon masks and a platinum dragon mask. He gave the 5 chromatic masks to Tiamat and the platinum mask to Bahamut. The dragon siblings each enchanted the masks with a great amount of their power - for Gond had created items that could draw out and hold incredible amounts of magic. This gave each of the masks a certain power over each of the dragon siblings themselves. Traitorous Mooshai learned this important detail, and stole the platinum dragon mask from Bahamut and gave it to Tiamat - who promptly traded it to Zariel for The Orb of Cania.

## Asbenterriloth

Asbenterriloth was one of six silver dragons summoned and controlled by the fiendish mercenary i'Serab using the Platinum Dragon Mask during The Fiendish Absolution. The mask forced Asbenterriloth to fight against his natural alignment, so when Dulphiva's death rattle twisted the alignment of all the summoned creatures present, it separated his connection to dragons, celestials, and even Bahamut himself.

Many years later Czarshann was besieging Dragsa city and Ter flew down to help fend off her troops. When Bahamut heard that he had been spotted, he descended on the battlegrounds. The warriors of Dragsa city cheered believing Bahamut was there to help them fight, however he approached Ter and banished him to the depths of Carceri, then promptly returned home. When called on for the crucial final confrontation against Czarshann in The Divine Reckoning, Bahamut ignored it.

## The Quest to Kill the King

Tammy made contact with the Wanderers of the Expanse through her newly appointed warlock Volhaut. She employed them to help her defeat Tiamat through different means than killing her - to break a curse instead. She explained to them some of the details of how Bahamut cursed Tiamat, leaving out the alignment splitting and her identity. The Wanderers began the quest, their hesitancy fading as they gathered more details of the story and Tammy's identity became clear. They needed to gather a scale from each of the 5 types chromatic dragons, an artifact called The Platinum Dragon mask, and then bring the True Name of Tiamat to Bahamut's home.

While they were out dragon hunting, they met a Paladin of Bahamut named Áron and his brother Lászlo in Sakimoto, who helped them kill one of the needed dragons - though the party did not share their reasons for doing so with him. After parting ways, Lászlo went travelling while Áron remained in Sakimoto. A short while later, it was invaded and destroyed. Áron left to lead the refugees safely to the next town, defending them from invaders along the way. After they successfully made it, Bahamut saw it fit to make Áron his champion for his acts of justice.

To find the platinum dragon mask The Wanderers talked to Ragabash Buckle, famed scholar and artificer. Ragabash had the mask displayed in his private collection, though the true mask was hidden elsewhere. They did not share their plan with him because of his admiration of Bahamut. Ragabash sent them to investigate the Zyaan the Grafter, who had been tracking many magical artifacts, including the mask. They followed the information to An'Callister the Time Forger, who gave them the mask.

As the group quested, their check-ins with Tammy became more and more tense, as she became increasingly erratic and nervous. She was being pursued and had to change location frequently and became increasingly paranoid. Though she represented the good and neutral aspects of Tiamat, Volhaut and the party began to doubt her motivations and what would happen after the curse was broken. Volhaut became particularly tense, as his very essence was tied to her. The group still agreed that the best move going forward was to break the curse, the only thing left they needed from Tammy was the true name of Tiamat.

They knew Bahamut's Palace was on Celestia, but they did not know specifically where. In order to get to Celestia, Volhaut used an old contact from the empire to access an imperial vault and get an ancient portal that could access Celestia. Once the party arrived there, they went to Dragsa city to seek information on the location of Bahamut's Palace. After asking around, Faye Resnick introduced them to Mooshai (under the moniker "I Assume") through a scrying mirror. Mooshai offered to tell them the location of Bahamut's Palace if they agreed to a deal: the moment any of them learned the true name of Tiamat, he would learn it as well. Additionally, none of them would be able to tell her about their deal. The party bargained that Mooshai would not use the true name of Tiamat to harm them or against them in any way they wouldn't like. They agreed, and Mooshai revealed the location of the Palace on Mertion.

Shortly after the party arrived in Dragsa city, they joined the gods and fought Czarshann Odsbane and her forces in The Divine Reckoning. Bahamut was called on for aide, but remained in his palace, not wanting to risk his life for something he saw as the problem wrought by Tyr, the true god of justice. If the situation went poorly, he saw himself getting the upper hand in his rivalry with Tyr - potentially once and for all. During the battle, Czarshann was defeated in large part due to the actions of Volhaut and The Wanderers of the Expanse, and Tyr was slain - though Bahamut did not gain the domain of justice.