consortthedragonenjoyer - Tumblr blog

consortthedragonenjoyer · 6 months ago

Note

Personally, I like to write them as two beings who started from the same place and diverged to reach their current states based on the choices that they made and the circumstances they were placed in. They started as the same ultrapowerful blank slate, and they worked together for a time until they started to develop their own opinions until finally they had a disagreement they just couldn't overcome, went to war against each other, and ended up becoming what they are today.

It works well on a lot of levels: everyone is influenced by their environment and everyone has choices to make.

Personally I think the timeline goes something like this: Io gets split in half during the war of creation, the two halves get up after the war is won and go create the First World together. Things are pretty okay, and then going by 5e lore, other deities turn up to the First World to colonize it. If I had to guess why, it's because they also made separate worlds and those worlds collapsed (I infer this based on what happens to the First World), so they needed to evacuate. And that is a problem because while they're doing this as a matter of survival, the First World isn't capable of handling a dozen new races. So that creates a hellish moral dilemma. Do you damn all the other refugee races to save the First World, or do you do your best to find a way to save them knowing that it may come at personal cost? Well, Tiamat chooses to try and exterminate the refugees, and Bahamut chooses to side with them and protect humanity. Cue a world-spanning war. Even if Tiamat's call wasn't something completely devoid of reason; it creates a perfect and terrible spiral for her to get Worse. Nobody could possibly stop her getting Worse. She fights a war across the First World, and war is fucking horrible and messy even when it's not fuelled by a combination of prejudice and fear. She loses the war and everyone hates her. She gets captured and tortured (canon; being tortured is how she get her 5 heads), and then exactly as she predicted the First World implodes on itself and shatters into all alternate timelines, killing Sardior in the process. She takes a contract to escape into hell to dodge the shattering and now she's stuck there until the writers decide to let her out. So was she pure evil from the start? No! But she became the ultimate face of evil as direct result of her choices and she WOULD be unrepentantly evil because as far as she's concerned, evil is basically her entire identity. Anyways this interpretation sets up all sorts of metaphors so I like it, and it allows you to play Tiamat as a self-righteous and self-absorbed queen bitch of hell.

Conversely this also works great for Bahamut because spoilers: Thinking that you are inherently good or are an inherent moral authority on good is how you end up with massively corrupt churches (at best), and playing Bahamut as a Big Good who just popped into existence as the Goodest Guy ever is setting yourself up for failure.

Bahamut achieving the status of the Ultimate Good, that of a warrior, philosopher and saint comes across much more meaningfully when he attained that status because he makes careful choices and thinks them through. He chose to offer compassion to a strange and potentially dangerous race that he didn't understand, and he even decided to stand against his own other half to protect them. He's honest that he has regrets and makes mistakes, but he actively reflects on his decisions and seeks to better himself. Societal standards change over time and he doesn't stand in front of a society and tell them that they should obey HIS standard, he observes those societies and lets them guide his own opinions of good (Which is also why he doesn't like to meddle or show off). "It's not a guiding light. You are guiding the light. Where you go is up to you." -Mateusz Skutnik, Submachine 9 [Or in my worlds, Bahamut]. But anyways yeah I like to play them this way because it turns them into actual characters. It's way easier to make Tiamat absolutely vicious when she's got some formerly understandable but now deeply twisted motivations behind her actions, and Bahamut is just much more consistently likeable when he's capable of being wrong and striving to be good regardless. Whoops that was longer than intended, my bad

I feel like most think Chromatic Dragons are evil because they worship Tiamat instead of Bahumat, Tiamat is a goddess of Chaos which most people generally associate with acts of evil but chaos generally isn't evil it just is. While Bahumat the metallic god of Order is generally seen as good there are times when too much Order is stifling

Well to start, if I were to write Tiamat or Bahamut for whatever reason, I'd wouldn't try to stray too far from their moralities. I mean it's right there in their titles: Tiamat, Queen of the Evil Dragons and Bahamut, King of the Good Dragons. It's practically written in their DNA and concept. So trying to portray Tiamat as some woobie or Bahamut as being secretly evil would defeat the entire purpose of the characters.

I wouldn't even say that Tiamat is a Goddess of Chaos in a traditional sense. Chaos usually means the potential for change and the hope for a better future. Tiamat on the other hand seems to lean more to the "evil" in "chaotic evil". As in she's fully willing to commit to atrocities in order to further her goals. And indulge in her own whims and impulses instead of tearing down an oppressive order. Hell, for a Goddess of Chaos, she keeps a tight leash on her servants and has very problems with dominating them when they get too uppity. Aren't the Blue Dragons (Lawful Evil) amongst her most dedicated followers?

As a whole, I don't think Tiamat represents Chaos as a force for change. But rather as a force for shortsighted impulses and domination. She's the one who would dominate and use her domination as an excuse to indulge in her vices. Think a dragon version of a Skeksis and you get the drill.

Conversely, Bahamut is a bit closer to the "good" in "lawful good". His sphere of influence centers around justice, doing good deeds, and promoting acts of charity. He's not even focused on establishing some kind of societal order or regime since he rarely gets involved with mortals on a societal level. Usually, Bahamut only acts to right some kind of wrong or bring justice (which tends to be against his sister and her followers). In that way, he's more of a knight-errant than a king.

If Tiamat represents domination and living out one's impulses for the self, Bahamut focuses on helping others and holding the self to a higher standard. In that regard, the "lawful" is less societal and more living to a code of honor or strong morality. And their relationship is less "chaos vs order" and more "depravity vs nobility".

So with all this in mind, how would I handle Chromatics as a whole if it's less a societal standard and more a moral standard? Well to start, I sincerely doubt the Chromatics have too much love for Tiamat. Again, she keeps a tight leash on them and expects things like accepting consorts from them or reaping whatever portion of their hoards they have collected. And I did read that some Chromatics will try to keep portions of their hoard secret to keep out of Tiamat's hands. From this, I believe that their devotion to Tiamat is less out of reverence and loyalty and more wanting to stay on her good side. Thus, the idea of leaving her has to be a thought a lot of the Chromatics have.

Thing is, Tiamat is freakishly powerful and I doubt she'd want any of her children to get any ideas of rebelling. Even if somehow a Chromatic could break away from Tiamat and survive, they were still raised with the toxic mindset that their "mother" instilled in them. So it would be a pretty painful changing process if all they know how to be are vicious monsters. Add to that how many mortals rightfully think Chromatics are violent monsters, and you have a stacked deck.

Again, I do believe it is possible. It just won't be easy. If I were to write this sort of story, I would possibly have a young Chromatic who strikes out on their own from their parents who instilled that toxic mindset. Old enough to be self-sufficient, but young enough to still be mentally vulnerable and a bit awkward in terms of actually being vile. Basically enough of a threat to gain adventurers' notice, but not enough of a threat to have a massive bounty on their heads. From then, you could either see them begin to question themselves on what they're doing wrong. Not sure how Bahamut might see such a dragon though. On the one hand, forgiveness and mercy are part of his sphere. On the other, I did read that he was also pretty merciless when it comes to Chromatics (I mean, he's been in conflict with Tiamat and her brood for so long that it's hard to blame him). So it could go either way.

That's how I'd write the dynamic between Tiamat and Bahamut along with the Chromatics. Let me know what you guys think or if I'm missing something.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #tiamat #bahamut #writing #dragons

16 notes · View notes