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21:56, 3rd May 2024 (GMT+0)

Irios

OOC: Not yet approved. Please feel free to comment, criticise or correct.

 Irios the Apostate, Irios the Unbound, the Third-born of Io, Prophet of the Stone Mother, Eater of Storms and the Bitter Rain.

 There are as many titles for Irios as there are deeds, but few if any know the full extent of them. What is generally known is that Iriosxihuuli is a blasphemy against the true nobility of Dragonkin, an unholy hybrid of the dark lusts of a Black Dragon and the twisted ambition of a Green whose hybrid vigour and tainted heritage has made him a target of noble and ignoble dragons alike since his first appearances, a little more than a century ago.

 He's wandered the lands of men, elves and dwarves alike with seeming impunity, usually avoiding or denying battle when faced by a stronger member of his own kind and seeming to take a certain delight in the humbling of those weaker, although there is no record of his ever having slain or devoured one. Rather, he preaches a nominally heretical veneration of Io the Worldfather, the Ninefold Dragon and the Great Eternal Wheel in which he attempts to persuade them - and others - of the fundamental importance of the blending of many things, of the appreciation of the need for both good and evil, both order and chaos and that underpin the foundations of the world itself. His interventions in mortal affairs have usually taken the form of undermining some particularly profound source of imbalance - although rarely nations, for such things are transitory at best or acting to preserve dragonkind against particularly fanatical sects and bands of hunters. Here too, individual revenge is not motive enough for him to intervene - if a Red has burned a village or a Gold slain a hellknight then it is only just that they be hunted by those who care to, but he moves against fundamental assaults on the natural order with shockingly powerful spellcraft for a dragon of his age, further lending credence to the rumours that he has been chosen and supported by his God.

 If he has a lair it's rumoured to be deep in southern Kithran, buried in the swamps and marshes that once held vast and sprawling cyclopean ruins of an elder age and there are those who claim that he has founded or refounded a temple to the Ninefold Dragon there, to which many a younger drake has come out of curiosity or on pilgrimage to learn from or debate with him despite his tainted heritage, a taint that he claims is simply one step upon the path to returning to the unity that Bahamet and Tiamat shattered with their enmity.

 Of course, there are perpetual rumours about his courting of a Kithran Senators daughter (the identity of whom varies according to the rumour-monger and who might be listening) or his having disguised himself to wile away a night in song and dance in some small village tavern before stepping outside to bid his new friends fare-well, return to his true form and wing away into the night laughing and at least a couple of the more notable tales about him revolve around incidents that began this way - becoming known as the Eater of Storms for example, occurred when he was responsible for the shattering of a Sahuagin invasion force who sought to invade a southern province of Avallonë (entirely, it is rumoured because he favoured the regions vineyards) under the cover of a mage-storm and the Bitter Rain was a title he acquired in the far north of Kithran, where he lay waste to an attempt to mine gold under the forested valleys of a region that would have been long centuries recovering.

 That said, he's supposedly mellowed as his power has grown to rival the most accomplished of mortal archmages and in recent decades has been able to achieve his aims more often with polite (and compelling) warnings than out and out assaults, although his very existence remains divisive amongst dragonkind of all colours and creeds with many of the older wyrms staunchly opposed to his very existence and many of the younger seduced (sometimes literally, it is said) by his disruptive teachings.