#chessenta

My HC is that Gale's family is Chessentan and he's a second generation Waterdhavian. He loves visiting, but the last 20 years have been too busy. Now that life has settled down, he can visit his favorite booksellers and his nana with Tav 🙈

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(From Elminster's Forgotten Realms)

New chapter of Kept in the Dark has been posted!

*Double, double deceit and trouble*

Chapter summary: "While you were all busy scheming against each other, I ate the remaining food. Sincerely, the cat."

Yes, I’m as surprised as you are. I guess my muse likes to keep me on my toes. Oh well, back to the Realms I go!

To anyone wondering what kind of story this is, please check the summary (and tags) below:

This organisation is the focus of several novels set in the 4th edition era of the Forgotten Realms, but what if you don't use the Spellplague or the 4th editions realms.

This version of the Brotherhood of the Griffon has its origins in 1360 DR when a strange man with red skin named Valus Medios arrived in Aglarond offering to help the council deal with their infestation of griffons, hippogriffs, and wyverns caused by Nartheling moving into the mountain Umbergoth earlier that year.

Valus trained a select group of warriors in griffon riding techniques and forged an elite scouting and fighting unit that proved invaluable in later years dealing with Thayan invasions, their most successful deployment being in 1365 DR.

Valus was forced out of Aglarond in 1365 DR and left swearing revenge. He took a large number of griffon riders with him and created the Brotherhood of the Griffon.

Since then the Brotherhood has seen action in many theatres of conflict including the Mulhorandi invasion of Unther and Tchazzar's conquest of the Dragon Empire of Unther.

The secret to the Brotherhood's success lies in the incredibly strong bond formed between the rider and his mount.

According to Dragons of Faerun in 1365 DR Alasklerbanbastos attracted a coterie of young dragons and dracoliches and granted fiefdoms of territory in Unther and Chessenta as the self proclaimed king of Unther. Of course his subjects are expected to claim the territory for themselves.

In 1373 DR, Tchazzar arrived and slaughtered the dragon and dracolich allies of Alasklerbanbastos bringing his dreams to an end.

So just what form did this Dragon Empire of Unther take, what government did it possess, what laws, what military forces, all these questions remain unanswered until now.

Alasklerbanbastos controlled all the cities of Chessenta (some only briefly), in Unther he controlled only Unthalass. All of this control however was through the dragons and dracoliches he had granted the lands to and that they had duly seized for themselves.

The dragons Jaxanaedegor, Fulmynargatrion, Storum'aelix, Pyratyrmanix, and Rancroriglomous, all typical for their kind were lazy, greedy, and power hungry. Everyone of them lived off the backs of their human subjects uncaring for their troubles.

Alasklerbanbastos took his tribute from his dragon vassals who in turn took their tribute from their subjects. Chessenta was left to its own devices, while Unther was brought a measure of stability in the chaos engulfing that land since the death of Gilgeam.

The rivalry between Tchazzar and Alasklerbanbastos has always caught my imagination, and the hints in Dragons of Faerun are that the rivalry stretches to long before their recent altercations for control of Chessenta in 1373 DR and even before Tchazzar began his conquest of Chessenta in 929 DR.

So I tried to come up with a credible reason for their rivalry beyond mere draconic territoriality.

Dragonback Mountain in the Riders to the Sky is the current home of Alasklerbanbastos and he has a huge stockpile of magical artefacts, it would also seem that Tchazzar is reluctant to combat Alasklerbanbastos in his lair (since Alasklerbanbastos survived the centuries when Tchazzar was a god). The thought occurred to me that the lair might have belonged to someone else before Alasklerbanbastos possessed it.

Since I had already linked Tiamat to Tchazzar as a blood relative it wasn't too much of a leap to make the lair belong to Tiamat first, then her daughter, and finally Tchazzar himself.

I then needed a reason to have Tchazzar and Alasklerbanbastos not destroy each other and the Rings of Tiamat seemed the perfect tool, after all why would Tiamat allow beings that house her divine essence to destroy one another unless its the appropriate time.

I tried to portray Alasklerbanbastos as a careful, intelligent, truly dangerous dragon, it is just unfortunate that his rival was Tchazzar who has been far luckier than Alaklerbanbastos in all his endeavours.

Article one of Forgotten Realms Alternate Dimensions Issue V details another great dragon of Faerun, the dragon overlord of Unther.

Alasklerbanbastos and Tchazzar have been locked in a bitter rivalry for almost their entire lives. This rivalry all started with the death of Tchazzar's mother and Alasklerbanbastos' arrival to steal her secret lair. He forced out the young red dragon from his home and began a bitter cycle of revenge as each wyrm sought to defeat the other.

The rivalry between the two dragons resulted in them both falling under a curse that threatened to one day consume their souls and so they each sought to escape the curse while undermining the other.

Tchazzar sought his escape through divinity and his first attempt at uniting Chessenta and creating a cult of personality was foiled by Alasklerbanbastos in the guise of a prince of Mourktar.

Alasklerbanbastos achieved his escape through undeath, and achieved this by embracing dracolichdom offered by the Cult of the Dragon, in the same year that Tchazzar achieved his escape by ascending to godhood.

Yet even in undeath and godhood the two beings could not let go of their petty hatred for one another. When Alasklerbanbastos seized the lands of Chessenta and Unther for himself Tchazzar even returned from oblivion to foil his nemesis.

Tchazzar I find is an interesting deity. He achieved godhood seemingly through his manipulation of human nature, and yet once he became a deity did absolutely nothing and let the nation he had spent so long building fall into ruin.

During the godswar he acted as a vessel for Tiamat allowing her to be reborn after her death, and then he randomly returned in 1373 DR he returned to Faerun as some kind of fiendish dragon to battle Alasklerbanbastos.

The number of errors in Tchazzar's story are almost as numerous as Tiamat's and in many ways he is linked to Tiamat's story and errors.

This link inspired me to make Tchazzar a relative of my newly created Tiamat the Dark Lady, a human with the ability to turn into a dragon. If she mated with a dragon then she might spawn dragon children with the ability to change into humans, and Tchazzar was famous as a human war leader of Chessenta.

Tchazzar's writeup in Dragons of Faerun detailed a ring that was given as part of a pledge which is implied led to Tchazzar becoming a vessel for Tiamat's essence when she was destroyed. Using this idea I figured the Gestaniius and Skuthosiin were also given rings, and each contained a part of Tiamat.

It then occurred to me that Tchazzar may not have known fully what the pledge would involve and so his attempt at divinity could have been a means of escaping the curse.

Of course all of these ideas mean that Tchazzar is not necessarily in service to Tiamat, and so I have him hiding out in the contested region of Chessenta trying to stay out of her way.

His rivalry with Alasklerbanbastos is historic in nature because Alasklerbanbastos is allied with the Church of Tiamat so it makes no sense for her to be using Tchazzar to fight her own servant.