Draedan Historical Text about the Lost Empire of Dakriath
A long time ago just south of the Union of Saertica lay the Empire of Dakriath. It was ruled by a strong, wise
emperor. A fair prince controlled the armed forces, which contained the best archers east of the Draeda Nation.
Another prince, strong in his desires to rule, maintained a steady flow of good relations between Dakriath and
Saertica. Yet the famed and revered Dragon Knights Order soaked up much glory from the Dakrithian public.
The Dragon Knights were founded by a warrior of Dakriath named Bedivere Odhran. Bedivere grew up as the
grandson of Rhonda Odhran, a member of the Council of Elders of Dakriath. As a young adolescent, Bedivere
looked upon the rule of Emperor Arthur Rex IV as an absolute tyranny over the people that would soon crumble.
The Council of Elders, in Bedivere’s opinion was just as bad if not worse. Something needed to be done to restore
the will of the people in government. So Bedivere founded the Knightly Order of Dragons also known as “Dragon
Knights” with six close friends.
The Dragon Knights supposedly protected the people from the Emperor and the Council of Elders. Often times, if
the people expressed dislike toward a council member, then the Dragon Knights would assassinate the council
member, and then vote in a relative of one of their own. Officially, none in the entire empire knew who was and who
was not a Dragon Knight. But unofficially, the Dragon Knights always made known they were the famed Dragon
Knights. It didn’t matter who found it for they loved the popularity and the aura of fear that surrounded those who
knew of their real identity
It was from the Knightly Order of Dragons that the first deity-worshipping faith congregation was set up in the
Empire of Dakriath. They taught of the Draedan faith highlighting the importance of family by showing off the
family of Ae and Erwe as a perfect model. So as to not alienate the old Dakrithian faith, the Dragon Knights
preached of the Dragon Race being the loyal companions of the Aranil. As a result, the teachings of the “Draedan
faith” by the Dragon Knights were seen as treasonous by the Dakrithian royal family and Council of Elders. The
Council of Elders, unwilling to stop honoring the dragons, glorified a single element of the Dragon Knights’
teachings: the concept of the Seranil named Serposan.
Serposan was the perfect choice for a compromised Dakrithian faith. It did not deny the Council of Elders nor did it
demonize the Dragon Knights. In response to the raising of the Serposan faith, the citizens of Dakriath set right to
work on taking down the old human-sized Dragon statues by the west gate and constructing a monumental, large
statue of a dragon they believed to resemble Serposan by the west gate. Now Serposan and the height of Dakrithian
power were publicly displayed for all to see.
The Saertican people looked between the statue of Serposan in the south and their own city. The Saertican Governor
Eleazar almost instantly commanded the construction of two monumental statues towering five times higher than
Dakriath’s Serposan statue. His statues would not symbolize any deity for a faith in a deity was looked on as a
weakness by the Draedan Assembly, and especially by Kearn of Xia. No, instead his statues would symbolize the
same concept that which Saertica was built upon: union. Union of two opposing forces, whether they be male-
female, black-white, Draedan-walrus, faith-no faith would be symbolized within his two statues. One statue will be
that of a man, the other a woman. There was no way Rhonda Odhran in her selfish Council of Elders could beat
Eleazar’s great feat. But Eleazar was once again wrong.
Eleven long months after Eleazar’s Monuments of Union were completed; the Empire of Dakriath had completed
their own rival project: the first man-made river. Rhonda Odhran looked to her son on a name for it and they called
it “The Dragon’s Tongue”. The river was dug off of a corner of the lake near the wedding gazebo in Dakriath and
went right under the mill warehouse. The waters within the river then jumped over a small hill into a stream which
would lead to the Crystal Cavern. People came from all over the land just to look at it and wonder what kind of
arcanic and engineering power Dakriath possessed to have built such a thing and to have made the waters reverse
direction where there was a waterfall off the small hill rather than a jump up.
As the people became more arrogant with nationalistic pride, so did their Dragon Knight Protectors. One by one
through the generations, each Dragon Knight with the exception of its chosen leader, fell into the bottomless pit of
corruption. Overwhelmed with pride, many Dragon Knights assassinated any Elder who even hinted at a possible
alliance with Saertica. Other Dragon Knights took to poisoning those without any faith that came to Dakriath
condemning them as National Outcasts and a threat to the hard work of society.
The chosen leader of the Order, the Bediverean Knight, as they called him, was the only one in the Order’s few
generations to not become corrupted. The Bediverean Knight stayed true to the foundations of the Knightly Order of
Dragons and frequently helped the Dakrithian Priestly Order hold mass celebrating Serposan. But do not mistake the
Bediverean Knight's lack of corruption to also include he was never tempted. Almost daily he was hassled with the
demands of other Dragon Knights to perform tasks legalizing their corruption. If an Elder had to be assassinated, the
Bediverean Knight was called upon to scribe false articles in the Dakrithian Chronicle displaying the Elder in
question in a sinful light often being exposed as worshipping the Wild under the guise of Serposan. Or if a faithless
soul wandered into the Dakrithian valley, the Bediverean Knight would be forced to scribe false transcripts depicting
the faithless in question as having committed a criminal act. Being forced by his fellow knights to publicize
corrupted, false statements, the Bediverean Knight was perhaps the worst victim of the Corruption Plague.
Loneliness in one's own guild of knights leads to a corrupted, possibly insane mind
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