The Covenant and what came after

As far back as memory and legend stretch,
the sapient beings of the world have been divided between two starkly different
kinds of creatures, the humanoids and the dragons. Scholars say that the two
great lineages rose from primitive animalistic states at around the same time,
so long ago that putting a number on the amount of years would have little
meaning to anyone hearing it.

It’s said that the first eons were
dominated by violence, and whilst humanoids had numbers on their side that
should have helped them match the individually much stronger dragons, for large
numbers to flourish and become great requires stability. Stability to build
farms, cities and mines, stability that a single dragon can extinguish in a
whim should it so desire. And so it was that dragons grew stronger as humanoids
stayed where they were, primitive scroungers of the wilderness, or at best
farmers of scorched fields, little better than the animalistic state from which
they had come, despite nature having blessed them with the capacity to be so
much more.

Things all changed on the day of The
Covenant. While the actual nature of The Covenant is unclear, with some
scholars claiming that a great stone tablet was physically engraved by one
representative of all humanity and one of all dragonkind, others claiming it to
be simply a metaphorical construct, whatever it was changed the world forever.
The Covenant saw the dragons agree to leave the humanoid races in peace, to
allow them to build their society as they saw fit and to claim dominion over
their own lands, in exchange for the humanoids agreeing to seed ultimate
rulership of themselves to the dragons and to worship no gods but those of the
dragons. What exactly the humanoids did worship before this time has been lost
to history, with that loss likely helped along by extensive quantities of
dragon fire.

Only one race of humanoids actively chose
not to enter the covenant – the kobolds. It is said that they did so as they
refused to bow to tyrants, however if this fact is correct it would be somewhat
ironic as this race now acts as servants to the dragons, fulfilling their every
command in the hope of blessings or status from their overlords. Kobolds deny
this and claim not to be humanoids at all, saying they are actually a type of
dragon, though the functioning of many common incantations casts serious doubt
on the kobolds’ argument.

Humanoids consider the beginning of The
Covenant to be the beginning of society, and as such start their calendar at
that point (despite significant uncertainties over exactly when, or even if,
the Covenant was created in any literal sense), placing the present day in The
Year of The Covenant 1412.   Fourteen centuries after the covenant and
there’s never been a better time to be alive for humanoids. Great cities dot
three of the world’s four continents (Zienne being declared off limits) and
within them people study art, magic and the sciences, engage in commerce and
ever expand the reach of society into the unexplored regions.

The Dragons have a noticeable presence in
all the regions settled by humanoids, and require worship of their pantheon of
gods; Astilabor, Chronepsis, Falazure, Garyx, Hlal and Lendys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon\_deities
- *the aspects of Hlal’s doctrine speaking*
*against oppression aren’t part of any formal scriptures, and she is spoken of*
more as a CN than CG being, although if one digs deep enough into the passages
relating to her exploits some degree of kindness can certainly be see*n*).
This pantheon isn’t meant to take in all aspects of the world, simply the
aspects of it that have been embodied by the ancestors of living dragons which
have ascended to divinity.

While the worship of other deities is
outlawed (and indeed, few humanoids even know the names of any other purported
deities) many humanoids revere nature or some admirable quality of the world
without falling afoul of the dragons and their kobold enforcers. Sailors
respect the sea and storms, miners the earth, farmers the sun and the breeze
and the insects and birds that help bring their crop to fruition. Dragons feel
spiritual connections to these forces too. People less connected to the natural
world tend to put their faith in more abstract concepts like luck and fate, although
outside times of personal crisis such people are generally perfectly happy with
no more than their required worship of draconic gods to which they have little
personal connection. Many humanoids who serve as healers do so through an
understanding of the universal life force (referred to as ‘colour’) and some
unlock great powers through their control over this force. In all such worship,
worshippers are careful not to ascribe qualities to their chosen forces that
may make it seem as though they worship a literal being, and as such
expressions that anthropomorphise non-living forces are generally considered
profanities.

While most humanoids simply see the worship
of draconic gods as a tiresome part of daily life, some are strongly devoted to
the gods they’ve grown up worshipping and praise them out of reverence as well
as duty. These people are generally not stigmatized, except by a few stuck up
‘progressives’ or those who have personally lost loved ones to draconic
sacrifices.

A small number of humanoids even serve as
priests to the dragon gods, although this role is mostly taken up by kobolds. Priests
from amongst the furry humanoids never gain true insider status, but do tend to
earn favours from their reptilian masters. None have ever been known to be
sacrificed, however it is believed that the dragons have little tolerance for
priests of their gods who perform poorly.

Today,
the respective roles of humanoids and dragons in the world bear little on the
minds of most humanoids. Kobold patrols, dragons flying overhead and mandatory
participation in holy days are a part of everyday life. Whilst sacrifices are
demanded by dragons, in the majority of cases specific individuals aren’t named
for such and criminals can be dragged from their cells to make up the numbers.
Occasionally the number demanded is more than can be made up by truly abhorrent
criminals and the odd pick-pocket or tax cheat has been known to meet a
disproportionately grisly end, but really they should have thought about that
possibility before they turned to a life of crime. In the uncommon cases where
sacrifices are named, there’s usually some explanation to do with that person
offending some local high up kobold. Sacrifices of named individuals without
any obvious explanation do occur and are terrifying, but they’re usually rare
enough not to weigh on the average person’s mind.

So while there do indeed be dragons, in
most places they leave the small hairy folk be, as per The Covenant, and it’s a
good time to be alive.