Reign of the Dragon

The residents of Northwind Keep would never forget that morning. Cassius, the "Infernal Scourge," perched atop the centuries-weathered battlements, his colossal wings blotting out the sun. The red dragon looked down upon the thirty thousand gathered townsfolk, proclaiming to them the establishment of the Kingdom of Cinders—and the demise of the realm their ancestors had inhabited for generations. "Who is in favor? Who is opposed?" Cold light glinted on the hobgoblins' spears. There was no room for negotiation; it was merely a cold notice. And so began the age of the dragon's reign. At first, the people were gripped by terror. Doors remained barred and shuttered in mortal fear that these monsters would commit unspeakable atrocities—just as the Song of Cinders recounted: defiling and devouring their wives and daughters, reducing their homes to ash. Yet matters did not unfold as many had dreaded, nor as the nobles beyond Northwind Keep had anticipated. Duke Brad Lakeman's atrocities were laid bare for all to see. Incontrovertible evidence emerged from the bunker: during his two-hundred-year rule, tens of thousands had been tortured to death, and countless missing-persons cases were entirely his doing. "This is an outright smear!" "They want to destroy our history!" An uproar rippled through the populace. Their instinctive reaction was to suspect this was slander orchestrated by the Kingdom of Cinders. Yet as more and more evidence surfaced, and the mountains of bones and sea of corpses beneath Lakeman Castle were exposed to the light of day, even the most stubborn, dragon-loathing souls in the keep had to acknowledge that the duke they had once revered was indeed an evil, tyrannical monster. Only the northern nobles remained obstinate, insisting the Kingdom of Cinders had deliberately fabricated the evidence, or even alleging that the red dragon had slaughtered those victims—conveniently ignoring that the kingdom had occupied Northwind Keep for mere days. What followed in the city was panic and lingering dread. After the Kingdom of Cinders took over, disciplined, orderly tieflings formed the backbone of Northwind Keep's garrison. Yet among the keep's ordinary denizens, quite a few had the blood of tieflings on their hands. Retribution did come. The tieflings arrested every noble who had known the truth yet continued aiding the atrocities. They brought them to trial in Council Square, lopping off dozens of fresh heads. That day, blood stained the square crimson. Yet toward the ordinary citizens who had been kept in the dark, the tieflings took no further action—even though some townsfolk still harbored hatred and bided their time for revenge. Contrary to the image he consistently presented to outsiders, Mezrolash was not an extremist bent on vengeance. He was simply a pragmatist whose sole aim was the survival and continuation of his people, willing to employ any means necessary to achieve it. Hence, during the years of war exiled on Storm Heights, he had elevated many revenge-minded hawks to maintain the tribe's martial might and guarantee their capacity to fight back. But once Northwind Keep was truly reclaimed, he moved to win over the doves—those who had previously been sidelined for advocating peaceful coexistence with humans—using them as a counterweight against the hawks. Standing upon the battlements, Mezrolash looked down upon Northwind Keep as it resumed its daily rhythms. The streets were bustling once more with humans, tieflings, and even hobgoblins. While harmony between humans and tieflings was out of the question, they were no longer mortal enemies engaged in racial slaughter. "Rerysa, you should have understood this long ago." "War." "Only war can bring peace." Gazing at the scene below, Mezrolash murmured to himself. Those beautiful, lake-blue eyes seemed to surface before him once more, filled with innocence and goodwill. He often felt remorse over that loss, felt the pangs of a guilty conscience, but he did not regret what he had done. At the time, it had been a calculated choice born of reason. Only cold reason could save their people. Mezrolash had never allowed trivial emotions to master him. He knew all too well that if he indulged the hawks' desire for brutal massacres and bloody vengeance against humanity, the tiefling tribe would lose its place within the Kingdom of Cinders. An autocratic red dragon would never tolerate any race disrupting his order—not even the tieflings, who had grown into a vital pillar of his realm. ... "Fresh raw meat!" "Plus-sized leather breeches, hobgoblin-tailored!" "Standard-issue silver swords from the former Principality of Lakeman for sale!" Streets that had long been silenced by warfare finally regained a measure of bustle, though it still fell far short of their past vibrancy. To the tens of thousands of Northwind Keep's residents, it mattered little who ruled from on high—be it a vampire or a red dragon. People had to look forward; life had to go on. To their surprise, they discovered that these dragonblood monsters were not as monstrously cruel as imagined—at least not after divvying up the vast stores of wine, cured meats, and treasure hoarded by the nobles to sate their greed. As for what the future held, that remained to be seen. "Theft is forbidden within the city." "Brawling without authorization is forbidden within the city." "Murderers within the city shall be put to death." Residing temporarily in the Council Hall, Cassius issued one brief Dictatorial Law after another. Though he could not enforce an instant "death to violators" edict upon ordinary natives as he did with the players, subtle psychological conditioning that compelled their subconscious compliance was more than enough. Under Cassius's Dictatorial Laws, even the dragonblood monsters within the city temporarily suppressed the cruelty and violence buried deep within their veins. They committed few outrages, though they produced their fair share of farces. For instance, an ogre named Datou ate a tavern entirely out of stock and fled without paying the bill. In the end, he was apprehended by the watch and sentenced to three years of unpaid hard labor at the establishment—with neither room nor board provided. To their even greater astonishment, thanks to rigorous searches conducted by the Claws of Cinders constabulary and the Nocturne unit, the underworld syndicates that had once thrived in the power vacuum and colluded with the nobility vanished completely. Covert rings such as the Nine Fingers Guild and the Devil Gang were eradicated, causing law and order within Northwind Keep to improve markedly. Meanwhile, the once-haughty nobles were knocked from their pedestals under the Kingdom of Cinders' new regime, stripped of any chance to oppress ordinary folk, with many facing trial. Slaves who had suffered endless abuse regained their freedom; some young boys were even rescued from basements. The players, too, scrambled into the city in droves to seize the initiative. Players from the Machine Cult guild built mana-powered steam engines and set to work constructing massive mechanized factories. The Magic Coin guild used spells to provide municipal services to the populace and rake in gold, bringing once-aloof, rarely seen spellcasters straight into the daily lives of everyday folk. The Wangquan guild went so far as to lavishly purchase an entire hall, declaring themselves open to any and all mercenary commissions. Some believed all of this was mere theater put on by the Kingdom of Cinders to win over hearts and minds; they plotted in secret, hoping to make contact with the outside world to resist the empire's tyranny. Yet others gradually grew accustomed to this new life, leaving behind the traditions of the past...