The Story of Rubylla and Argenthos
Argenthos, a huge silver dragon, sat on the Council of Wyrms, as had his forebears. Rubylla, an audacious younger dragon of red hue, plotted with her brother to unseat him and take his position. But their plots went awry, and Argenthos and his allies attacked them. Rubylla’s brother was killed, and Rubylla fled. She was banished.
Argenthos had to spend a huge amount of time and wealth regaining his position, and finally had to set out after Rubylla. He had to destroy her to restore his honor. Forty years after Rubylla fled to the East, Argenthos set out to find her.
Rubylla hid in the North Sea area. She frequently posed as Crimsia, an elf pirate. She had a large lair-cave in the mountains of Thoss. Making sure her lair was well guarded, she often set out with the crew of a pirate ship and went on raids. It was a fine way for her to gather information from the many weaker creatures that inhabited the world around her, and she enjoyed the plundering. More than a few times she was able to sniff out would-be dragon-slayers long before they came near her lair, and kill them.
Crimsia became well-known for her incredible battle skills and cunning. She usually traveled with a band of pirates known as the Black Sharks. She killed their captain, Tevor, when she first met him, and took control of the group. Her charisma helped bind the crew to her, and she made the former First Mate, Eel, her captain-in-absentia whenever she was away.
(70 years ago) For ten years the Black Sharks were the terror of the seas, and were feared inland as well as on the water. They raided villages and captured ships, then disappeared to raid again hundreds of miles away.
Rubylla also raided in dragon form, and with great prudence. When she hunted or plundered, she typically did so far from her lair.
The Black Sharks had many hideouts, and one of their favorites was a sea cave on one of the smallest Midfy Islands.
(60 years ago) One afternoon 60 years ago, the Black Sharks arrived at their sea cave with booty and prisoners. They had just waylaid a Kentarian merchant ship. Unknown to them, one of their prisoners was Argenthos. Argenthos had taken to disguising himself as Atrachor, a human aristocrat. He knew the pirates would attack his ship and counted on being taken prisoner for ransom. He made himself appear quite wealthy and quite foppish.
The pirates struck, and struck hard. They killed four of the ship’s crew, incapacitated many, and disabled the ship. The Black Sharks unloaded the shipment of ivory and fine wood, and took two prisoners; Atrachor and a traveling elven mage named Uliandar.
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There was a powerful wizard named Inarz who knew the location of the Black Sharks’ lair, and he was probably the only person on the face of Therra who had deduced the Crimsia was actually a dragon. Over the previous years, Inarz had created the Staff of the Dragon from shards of a Dragon Orb he had found in some ruins. Inarz waited in the sea cave that day, prepared to use the Staff to drain the essence from Crimsia, thereby fully charging the staff and giving him the might to easily defeat any others who opposed him there.
Unfortunately for Inarz, he did not know there would be two dragons present in the sea cave lair. The staff was designed to drain the essence from one dragon only; having two dragons in the area of effect would have unforeseen results.
After the pirates arrived in their lair and started unloading at the dock, Crimsia escorted the two prisoners to cells and locked them in; it was here that she was surprised by Inarz.
A short incantation was uttered, there was a ghostly blue flash, and in a split second, Crimsia and Atrachor were flat on their backs, unconscious. Inarz suddenly found the staff surprisingly overloaded as he tried to assess what had happened and fight off the rest of the pirates.
The Staff of the Dragon, overloaded with the essence of two dragons, slew many of the pirates before Inarz himself was slain in a terrible magic backlash. The remaining pirates grabbed the staff, treasure, and Crimsia, and then fled the scene.
Crimsia was amnesiac and weakened, but Eel defended her. Besides seeing her as a profitable leader, he was in love with her.
Over the ensuing 60 years, Crimsia grew more and more powerful among the pirates. She is now known as the Pirate Queen, and has a fortress in the Midfy Islands. Her closest assistant is Zara the Spook, a middle-aged human woman who is nearly as ruthless as Crimsia herself. Crimsia rules through intimidation and fear. Few people know her as Crimsia; most refer to her as either The Pirate Queen or The Blood Queen. The latter name she received due to her rumored penchant for bathing in the blood of her victims, and her fondness for dressing in red.
There are many pirates vying for power in the North Sea, but Crimsia and her Blood Pirates are the strongest.
After the fight between Inarz and the pirates, Uliandar’s cell was damaged. He managed to free himself with a little work and found Atrachor in his cell, delirious and unable to speak anything but the simplest sentences. He could not tell Uliandar his name or homeland, though he seemed to speak all languages that Uliandar knew.
After a while, this stranger regained his awareness of what was going on around him, and seemed very bright, except he had no memory of his past.
After searching the area, the two found a small sailing boat and, with Uliandar’s small knowledge of sailing, headed southwest in the hopes of reaching Caldos. Luck was with them, and they came ashore near a small village and received help. Uliandar called the stranger “Gray”, because of the gray robe he wore and the matching gray streaks at his temples. Together they made their way to Arlay, where Gray took on a job working at the docks. The two parted ways.
Gray became known for both his intellect and his sword arm. He was well-liked, and became first a member of the watch (58 years ago), then captain of the watch two years later (56 years ago). Four years later he became a member of the Royal Guard, and eight years after that he was Captain of the Royal Guard.
King Muran Toth counted Captain Gray among his closest advisors. In fact, Gray had a deep influence on the king, and the whole kingdom of Caldos. Muran Toth had long been a strongarm ruler, as had his father and his father’s father. In such a way had the aristocracy controlled the populace for hundreds of years. There was a middle class, and the subjects were heavily taxed. There was no consistent legal system, and nobles frequently and unjustly jailed or executed people on trumped-up charges. There often were riots and small revolts, put down by force.
Over many years, Captain Gray convinced his king to change his ways. Taxation was eased, and commercial enterprise was encouraged. The powers of the nobility were diminished, and for the first time most members of the ruling class were forced to compete, on an equal footing, with the rest of the people of Caldos in commerce and industry.
The nobility did not accept these changes passively. On numerous occasions, King Muran’s Royal Guard and allied nobles had to put down rebellious aristocrats through force of arms. The most significant of these events, the Battle of Greendale, ended with a sound defeat of Muran’s opponents. A dozen opposing dukes were dead, and a dozen more had their titles stripped and were imprisoned. Thousands of people were killed in the two days of fighting, much of which took place in the streets of Greendale itself. (32 years ago)
Four years ago, King Muran died, and the throne passed to his daughter, Elessa. King Muran’s wife, Queen Elessandra, had died in 465 H.C.
Queen Elessa Toth, in power for four years now, makes up with intelligence what she lacks in experience. She is fortunate to still have Captain Gray at her side as advisor.
One could say that Captain Gray, now Lord Gray, looks his age, except for the fact that no one knows how old he is. He’s resided in Arlay for about 60 years, and he looks to be in his nineties. But he is very alert, very agile, and in good health. He takes very long naps and hates to have them disturbed. He is excellent with his sword, perhaps the best swordsman in Caldos. Not much gets by him.
Captain Gray has never figured out what happened to the first part of his life, though it still troubles him. He knows he was knocked unconscious, somehow, by magic involving a silver staff with an elaborate dragon head. He knows that he was kidnapped by pirates, and that he had been a merchant.
Any information he hears about a silver dragon-headed staff will definitely interest him, and he will seek as much information as he can about it.
After that battle with Inarz and his Staff of the Dragon, the pirates had the staff. But before they had a chance to research it, it was lost. A rival band of pirates, taking advantage of their weakened state, attacked them. Several of their crew were killed, and the staff was captured. It thereafter changed hands through pirate treachery for a decade, finally arriving (50 years ago) in the hands of a band of adventurers from Ullum. The wizard Mithrine used it successfully on several occasions to great effect, but only as a last resort due to its inherent dangers.
Mithrine was good friends with the monks who inhabited the Monastery of the Winter Moon. She frequently stayed there, and she trained as a monk herself. One autumn evening 42 years ago, the orcs of the Skullcrusher tribe attacked the monastery. They attacked by surprise with a force of ogres and strong magical support, seeking to eliminate all outsiders and solidify their hold on the region. (Their main interests were seizing the two small human-run mines nearby, and controlling the single small road that ran through the area.)
Mithrine died trying to escape. Knowing her death was a strong possibility, she hid the Staff of the Dragon in the monastery’s secret vault.
Most of the monks died in the fighting. A few young monks escaped thanks to the sacrifices of their elders.
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