From the memories of Oryndryndyr the Verdant Sword , founder of House Amaratharr
They came to make their homes in the great forests of Faerun; in the High Forest in the North, the Yuirwood in the east, the Chondalwood in the south, and in Cormanthyr in the heart of the land. They spread wide and far, raised children and founded great houses, built magnificent kingdoms among the trees, and convinced their brethren still in the Realm of Faerie to follow them.
For this was the Time of Dragons, and they still ruled the skies above Faerun. The Dragons of the Noble Metals were wary, but grew to trust the People in time, and forged great alliances. But with the Drakes of Cruel Colors there arose unceasing war with the People. We fought them in the forests of jade and gold and in the cerulean seas; we fought them in the blackest depths of the earth and atop the airiest peaks. We fought them through blood, and death, and though a kingdom would be cast down in smoke and ruin, two more would rise up to challenge the dragons.
Then there arose one that came to be called Wethril'ailoki, the Rogue Dragon: Ashardalon. Of all the dragons he was the strongest, the cruelest, the proudest. He ruled a kingdom of dragons like a tyrant, ruthless and bloodthirsty, and when he raged in the skies it was as if the fires of all the Hells burned behind him. When he took to the skies, the People died and their cities burned, and even the strongest and most elegant towers crumbled into ash.
But there was one who would not stand for Ashardalon�s rule, a hero of the Aril�tel�quessir, a great king whose strength in arms was matched only by his power of Art--Rathuil the Black Wing, wielder of Bladesong (as well as founder and unmatched master of that art). It was by his soft words and his purity of heart that he united all the Aril'tel'quessir under his wing and led them in the Scaled Crusade--that glorious war that came to be called the Dragondoom by bards in the ages that came after.
The war lasted for centuries, elf against dragon, Art against fire, blade against tooth, feathers against scales in a sky that ran red with blood. The hosts of Ashardalon were shattered, but broken also were the ranks of the avariel, the survivors scattered and lost throughout Faerun. And it came, at last to Rauthuil and Ashardalon in the skies above the Wolf Woods. But Rathuil had been weakened greatly by his battle with the Rogue Dragon�s host, and he was crushed under the first great claw of the Red Demon--his wings broken, he plummeted to the trees.
There it might have remained, the Rogue Dragon victorious, had it not been for Dydd. For she was Rathuil�s lover--a human woman and a great druid of the new gods. Many among the People try to erase her from our history, pretending that she never existed or maligning her as Rathuil�s betrayer. But we should all remember that, between the People and humans, even in the earliest days of the Flowering, there was friendship and love between us�and that it was that love that saved us all.
For Dydd traveled to Rathuil and beheld his broken body in her arms, weeping over her dead lord. For as she wept her tears became fire, the fire rose about her in a halo and bore her aloft. Still screaming with grief for Rathuil she battled Ashardalon, her body a corona of flames that shook off the Rogue Dragon�s breath like the sea shakes off a gentle rain, her tears rising in a gale of glass and ice to pierce the dragon�s scaly armor, her cries of woe an explosion of pure force that rended his flesh and shattered the wyrm�s bones like kindling.
Dydd threw down her enemy, and smote his ruin upon the mountainside. And stood over his body with one of his own teeth in her hand, vowing to cut out the heart of the creature that hated her love enough to slay him. The Rogue Dragon lay helpless, and while he watched his own heart cut from his chest he pronounced his curse: that one day he would return, and gather unto him all the hordes of dragonkind, and never cease the war until all of Faerun ran with the blood of elves, and the skies were once again ruled by dragons, and above them all, like a god-king, stood Ashardalon, the Rogue Dragon triumphant.
