"Tell us again of the Dragon scale, grandmother!"
"That story again, eh? 
Very well.
Ahem,
What promises can one make with a Dragon or what can a mortal offer such a great dreadful creature by way of gift or bribe? How could a mere human Sartarite, even one of great accomplishments, entice a True Dragon to destroy his enemies? 
Some 500 years ago, during the second age, a great Golden Horde marched against the dragons and their kin. Those who marched had many motivations and came from Prax, and Caramania to far off Kethaela,, many homelands to end the mastery of the left handed dragonewts and destroy their immortal eggs.

Much has been retold and much has been written of the ensuing Dragonkill, how the armies of men were devoured by the great true dragons, of the scouring of Dragon Pass and its emptying of humans.
It has been said that the Dragons suffered no casualties, but known only to a few through knowledge obtained by questing in the godtime,  this is not entirely true, for a single scale, itself among the tiniest of scales lining the eyelid of a true dragon, was shaken loose during the great violence of that day.
Recovered by our great Praxian hero Varantas (she was a llama rider, like us, who was ever a deadly foe of chaos, who had ridden with Jaldon Goldentooth himself!), the great treasure was dragged back to Prax.

Ambushed by evil strange westerners, Varantas was killed and her trophy stolen, secreted into a hidden underground workshop (or "laboratory"as they called it), and the great scale was subjected to bizarre rituals and enchantments, for the ambushers thought that the power of a piece of a True Dragon could aid them in their magickes and in their depraved heroquests.

As was always true with this kind, they had great knowledge but were stupider than cattle when it came to a true understanding of the world. They poked and prodded, using borrowed power (for the hidden camp was in that place that we never venture)."

"The Death place!" 

"The Dead Place, yes. That place is drained of all magic and will suck dry the spirit of any who try casting the simplest of spells--stay away from there!"

"Yes grandmother."

"Reading incantations, baptizing with potions,they thought that in that hidden place they would escape the consequence of meddling with forces toward which they showed such disrespect.
However, for all their secrecy they were discovered, not once, but twice!

The strange left handed, two legged lizards, the Dragon Newts, found the lair of these villains and attacked.
Much blood was spilled on both sides, however during the conflict the westerners did something to the scale that stopped time."

"How did that happen?"

"I do not know, and I do not wish to know, and you should not wish to know either. But just as when you are closest to the fire you are hottest, and those who are a short distance are warm but not hot, and those who are a great distance are unaffected by the fire, so it was with the scale.
And the last two combattants, an evil man from the west and a great lizard were stuck in deadly combat for 20 generations."

"Much changed in the world.
The hated Red Moon was raised into the sky, and the hated red army invaded our lands."

"We hate them Lunar soldiers, grandmother."

"Yes you do, good lad.  You remember what I have told you about the phases of the moon and how if you go to the far north and west, there is a place where the moon is always full and the evil Lunar sorcery is always at its peak.
Well, the empire thought that they could extend that same power throughout all the continent, building temples that would spread their power like a disease.
Not even Prax would be safe from their spells, and those who resisted would be blown to bits by the flaming rocks that they hurl from the sky."

"It is said that there was a prophecy of old, spoken by Varantas, that when the great tribes united they would bring healing to the land and the greatest danger would be removed.
Well now just a few years ago, this very thing happened, for due to the call of some great spirit or the gods themselves, great adventurers from each of the great tribes..."

"Llama, Bison (that's us), Impala, Morokanth, and Sable"

"Very good. These great adventurers were called and were sent by the spirit of Varantas to recover the scale and deliver it to a great liberator who would destroy the Moon peoples' control over Prax.They were Lemak, Tuari, Norajia, Mabwe and Thangar."

"Wasn't there also a dirt farmer?"

"In some stories, yes, but not in the way that I tell this tale.
These 5 heroes followed the spirit of Varantas as she inhabited a piece of bone, facing bandits, chaos monsters, even the Crimson Bat!
They found the scale as if no time had passed since the "experiments" of the westerners, and returned it against great danger to the liberator, the White Bull, Argrath."

"I thought he sent his trickster to get it from them."

"Certainly not! Now let me finish, I am almost done.
What promises can one make with a Dragon or what can a mortal offer such a great dreadful creature by way of gift or bribe?
We do not understand the dragons or their ways, but to be a Dragon Newt is to seek growth to perfection. The missing scale meant the Dragon was incomplete, and the White Bull, among other promises and gifts, restored the Dragon to its perfect state, thus bringing about the Dragonrise. And you all know about that."

"Lothgar says they were finding pieces of Lunar soldiers as far as Pimper's Block!"

"Hahaha, yes they were!"

"Was the scale from the new Brown Dragon or one that was in the Dragonkill, or maybe the friend of the Brown Dragon?"

"Yes. Maybe. Now off to bed, tomorrow I will show you how we hunt gorps."

"Good night, grandmother."

"Good night."
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:33, Thu 25 Mar 2021.