There’s an event in Cimmerian history that I described to my players but never really detailed called the Dragon War.

It’s a turning point in the history of my campaign world. I have a basic outline of it, but managing the writing of it is difficult with the way I’ve set the blog right now.

Let me explain what the event is first.

My campaign is currently taking place around 400BCE. 500 years ago, around 900BCE, dragons ruled Cimmeria.

The dragons were definitely evil and nasty. They ate people, stole wealth, and burned crops just to watch people starve.

Ten brave heroes, who had accomplished many things on their own, joined together to lead a rebellion against the dragons.

The dragon’s slave armies were defeated and the heroes took the fight directly to the dragons.

Dragons come in ten varieties in D&D, Red, Blue, Green, Black, White, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Copper, and Brass. One for each of the ten heroes.

Death is only a temporary thing for divine creatures in Greek mythology so when the heroes defeated the dragons, they imprisoned the monsters instead of killing them.

A pair of dragons had ruled each of the colors. The heroes trapped one dragon of each pair in a mystical orb while the other dragon was set to guard the orb for all eternity. The orbs, infused with draconic might, give whoever holds them the power to command dragons of that orb’s color.

If you’ve played D&D, yes, these are the infamous artifacts, the Orbs of Dragonkind.

The heroes split the Orbs up and set further defenses around them. Additionally, instead of dying normal deaths, the heroes accepted a sort of cryopreservation. If the Orbs were ever broken and the dragons released upon the world once more, a hero would be awoken to renew the fight against the flying lizards.

One of my players, Zigfried, has a character who is one of these awakened heroes, Danar.

But back to the point of this post, why is it difficult to write about this for my blog?

The problem hinges around the heroes having “accomplished many things on their own” prior to working as a group.

If I write this as a Timeline post first, then I practically have to come up with the history for all ten heroes before even starting.

If I write this as Characters of Cimmeria entries, I still have to come up with the specific events of the Dragon War as all ten of the heroes would’ve interacted with that part.

I’m going to break away from the boundaries I set for myself a little bit and write about the events leading up to the Dragon War in a different way.

I’ll start with an unfinished Characters of Cimmeria entry for each of the ten heroes detailing their adventures during the time of draconic oppression before joining together. Once the events of the Dragon War are completely written I can go back and complete the Characters of Cimmeria entries along with the Timeline.

Zigfried already did a lot of work on Danar’s backstory. I’ll post an edited version of his work on Monday and start writing the others for the coming weeks.

-GoCorral

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I’m Isaac

Welcome to the GoCorral website! I’m Isaac Shaker and this is a place for me to write about D&D and occasionally other topics. I host a podcast called Setting the Stage that interviews different DMs about their campaigns. I’m currently focused on completing the Cimmeria campaign setting and turning it into a book.

Setting the Stage Podcast

81 – Biopunk 2287 RPG (Seiya and Synesthesia Synthetica) Setting the Stage, Campaigns for D&D and Other RPGs

Seiya tells us about his TTRPG system and setting, Synesthesia Synthetica (SNS). SNS is a biopunk game adjacent to the cyberpunk and steampunk genres. After an asteroid induced climate disaster, Earth has rebuilt itself using bio-technology instead of the metal based tech that surrounds us in the real world. Genetically modified humans have split into distinct species and mutant horrors prowl the wastes outside civilization. The rich rule from their space stations up above but resistance is growing in the streets below.During the episode we discussed a piece of art that Seiya had made for the game. A picture of that bio-tank is available for you to look at.At the moment, Synesthesia Synthetica is available for free as an early access game on itch.io and DriveThruRPG.If you want to learn more or find a group to play with, you can do that on the Synesthesia Synthetica Discord.Remember to nominate your favorite TTRPG shows/creators/things for the 2026 CRIT Awards!Check out the Setting the Stage website!Want to be on the show? Fill out this survey.Join our Discord!Support Setting the Stageon Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
  1. 81 – Biopunk 2287 RPG (Seiya and Synesthesia Synthetica)
  2. 80 – Dynamic RPG Countries (Travis and Tetara)
  3. 79 – Dragon Age Degenerates (Zoe from Degenerates with Dice)
  4. 78 – D&D in Suburbia (Ryan and Serenity Springs)
  5. 77 – KPop DnD Hunters (Dan and Idols of the Neon Dark)