True Dragon History
In the beginning, when the world was raw and primal, the spirits first experimented in the creation of life. Bahamut, as the mightiest of all the spirits, naturally exercised his right to be first. He made his creations of his own image, and gave to his children dominion over all things. Thus was born the race of Dragons.
To the first and most favored of his children, Bahamut granted all the gifts that the spirits had to offer. He gave them great strength and power. He bestowed upon them intellect, and cunning. He made them immortal, and granted them dominion over the world and the heavens. Between the spirits and all other creatures would stand the dragons. Their responsibilities were divided amongst the dragon families; each of Bahamut's many children, and their children in turn, were given solemn responsibilities, to accompany their power. The most important positions were given to the first of Dragons; the twins, Sidarfain, and Chlorethoe. Sidarfain was given dominion over the mortal realm, while his sister Clorethoe was granted stewardship over the heavens.
The Spirits and their children were not the only beings to gain importance in Ivalice. Not long after the spirits were born, the Occuria first appeared. Powerful beings in their own right, they seemed content to leave the governing of the world and the heavens to the Spirits. They did not sit idle, however; while they did not assist the Spirits directly, they created a number of their own children. Though fewer in number than the dragons, individually they were far more powerful. These were the Lucavi, led by Ultima; the Scions of Darkness. The Occuria assigned to them the task of aiding the spirits in the governance of creation.
The status quo remained for nearly a thousand years. At first, the Occuria, Lucavi, and Spirits all lived in relative harmony with one another; but all the while, the Occuria were whispering. They whispered to the Lucavi, and Ultima most of all. They whispered about how powerful they were, and how the strong ought to rule for the good of the weak. They whispered to the dragons as well, and most especially to Sidarfain, to whom they pointed out the injustice that he were so much greater than Clorethoe, and yet he had been given a lesser duty. They whispered until Ultima led the rebellion against Bahamut and the spirits loyal to him. In that terrible cataclysm, the dragons also found themselves divided. Clorethoe remained loyal to the spirits, but her brother gave in to the hatred he had fostered within his heart. Sidarfain sided with Ultima and the Lucavi, and half of the dragon clans went with him. As battles raged in spirit and mortal realms alike, dragons turned on one another, fighting with tooth and claw and deadly breath.
In the closing acts of the conflict, Sidarfain succeeded in climbing the Dragonmount and attacked Bahamut directly. The ferocity of the ensuing battle was enough to damage the seat of Bahamut's power; severely enough that the Twelve Pillars bear the scars of that battle to this day. The aftershocks rippled through existence, even to the point of damaging the mortal realm; the scars yet remain there, too, for those who know where to look. In the end, Sidarfain was defeated, and his soul rent from his body. His bones lie in a vault, directly beneath the Dragonmount itself. His soul is chained in a separate chamber, deep beneath the Abyss; far enough down that his endless howls of rage and hatred cannot reach the tranquil surface of the realm of the dead. After his defeat, Clorethoe took up the task of guarding his soul; absent from the heavens that she loves, she has since turned to stone in her sorrow, but will wake to guard the chamber from intruders. It is said that if ever soul and bones are allowed to join once more then Sidarfain would rise again, and in such a time the spirit realms would tremble and the mortal world would truly know terror.
In the wake of the conflict, once the Lucavi had been defeated and imprisoned the dragons remained divided into two camps. Those that had sided with the spirits enjoyed their share of the spoils of victory, as one might expect; but the spirits took back their responsibilities to tend to them directly, as too many dragons had either rebelled or been slain for them to continue. Those dragons that had sided with Sidarfain and Ultima were cast out. They and their descendants are forever forsaken in Bahamut's eye. This second group have degenerated over time; while a few retain their former cunning and intelligence, most have become the wyrms and wyverns that adventurers occasionally run afoul of. They retain all their strength and power, but their minds are blinded by rage and hatred, leaving them capable of little action besides violence.
The age in which dragons ruled the world had ended; now would be the time of mortals. Those few dragons that had both remained loyal to the Spirits and survived the war now called themselves True Dragons. They scattered themselves amongst Ivalice and the other parts of the world. Though they no longer served Bahamut or any other spirit directly, they still retained their loyalties in the absence of duty. Worship of Bahamut and a quiet readiness have become long standing traditions in True Dragon culture. The conflict, however, was not truly finished.
The war against the Lucavi had weakened the Spirits, and being forced to take direct control taxed them to their limits. It was the opportunity the Occuria had long sought. One by one, they assaulted the preoccupied Spirits, and destroyed the pathways that previously allowed them to leave their realms and manifest in the world, thereby sealing them away in their respective homes. The last was Bahamut, and the howl of his rage when he was defeated by the combined strength of the Occuria shook the heavens. The rule of the Occuria had begun, and would last until the days of the Larsan Folly.
The True Dragons faced a crisis. As the last remaining servants of the Spirits, they realized immediately that they would be the next targets of the Occuria; and that unlike the Spirits, they could be slain. It wasn't long before this began to happen. Dragons would occasionally disappear, snatched by the Occuria; sometimes to be killed outright, sometimes to be sent into one of the Lucavi's prisons, for purposes unknown.
The Dragons grew terrified for the future of their race, and desperate enough to chance a mass meeting, at one of the few places yet safe for them. The Dragonfont, a location known only to Dragons to this day, served as their meeting place. There, it was firmly decided that henceforth, Dragon kind would hide themselves amongst the mortals of the world. One of their number, one of the eldest dragons and well versed in the arts of sorcery, taught to the others a ritual that they immediately performed upon themselves en masse; a ritual that gave to them the power to transform their bodies and pose as ordinary humes. So great was the power required by the spell, that only one way could be found to fuel it, however. The dragons sacrificed their immortality, and from that day forth have grown old and died as any other mortal.
The Dragons scattered after the meeting. There remain in the world a small handful of locations where Dragons may meet and be open with one another, but in the world they hide, and wait. Their society has become one of mystery and secrecy. Retaining one's concealment is paramount, as is protecting the language spoken by dragon kind. This language, taught to them by the Spirits when their race was young, is the most ancient language throughout all of Ivalice; the Celestial Script. It is also a a lost tongue, known only to Dragon kind and a mere handful of others. Many of the words of this language have grown so old that they have taken on a subtle power of their own, and merely uttering them by someone who knows what they are doing can discretely alter the flow of fate. Teaching it to outsiders is considered a grave crime.
The hume disguises that the Dragons employed were perfect. It was not mere mortals they hid from; they were being hunted by the most powerful beings in the universe, who also happened to be in direct control of Ivalice, and few means existed that could tell the difference. Neither sight nor smell nor sound nor touch would do the trick, and only the most powerful of magics would even stand a chance of uncovering the truth. Unfortunately, this meant that Dragons could not even identify other members of their own kind. One could not simply walk up to a hume suspected of being a fellow Dragon and ask them; speaking to them using the Celestial Script was also impractical, as it was not to be revealed to outsiders. In the end, they could find only one solution.
Members of the race identify each other by tattoos on their hume forms, which have meaning in their language. The first tattoos employed were simply that, but later tattoos evolved beyond simple marking, and to those who know how to read them they carry important information about the person they are placed upon. The tattoos are started at birth, and are placed upon the hands face, and chest. Over time they are not so much added to, as they spread on their own. A dragon's lineage, accomplishments, honors, and even crimes and shame are visible upon their bodies in a constantly updated record of their lives. Where on the body the tattoos appear is also significant; for example, the right arm for achievements in battle, or the heart for charity. Should a dragon break a taboo then the breach is recorded on their body as well; even in the case of a breach requiring death, the corpse of the offender will bear the mark into burial, and the spirit will carry it into the afterlife as well. The ink for the tattoos is prepared with enchantments, known well to a handful of Dragons; they can be seen by others of their kind, regardless of clothing or armor that might be in the way.
Even after the defeat of the Occuria just preceding the Larsan Folly, the Dragons remain in hiding. It is possible that the Occuria are not truly defeated, or that one or more of them may have escaped. Not only that, but as they have hidden for so long, the world has become accustomed to the feral, fiendish Dragons living in the wilds; and to most, these are the only Dragons that are known to exist. The old taboos remain firmly in place in Dragon society, and the ritual that trades immortality for anonymity continues to be performed on every newly hatched child, maintaining the True Dragons as the most scattered and most elusive race of Ivalice at least for the most part.
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