In Darkness Born

Creators explanation:

Jard is a fantasy setting world designed around the idea of an entire world dominated by dragons as the major inhabitants. To add complexity to the setting, populations of Nordic style dwarves and primitive, bronze age humans were added to the mix to create a more interesting setting.

In setting explanation:

This world was the homeworld of the Elder People known as the wyrms. The wyrms are vast serpentine life forms that can grow to immense size and exist in both marine and terrestrial environments. While the wyrms do have numerous paranormal abilities to affect their immediate surroundings, they do not build structures or settlements, Jard stayed in a natural state for most of the history of the wyrm society.

The first major change in the world’s natural state was the immigration of the old ddraig from the elemental planes of Jard to the world itself. Each gateworld has a set of elemental planes that evolve from the essence of the magic and nature of life upon the world. On Jard, the elemental spirits of those planes took serpentine forms as reflections of the wyrm inhabitants of Jard. Over time the magical nature of Jard allowed these elemental spirits, known as ddraig, to travel to the natural world. Magical creatures in the natural world eventually either fade or become biological creatures. This was how dragons came into existence.

While the dragons revered the wyrms, but the dragons greater population slowly lead the dragons to dominate the world of Jard. This led to the development of dragon cultures and societies. These societies developed economies and polities over time. While the dragons dietary needs had no use for farming, animal husbandry was still a useful industry to the dragons.

To build up such useful industries the draconic societies invited other sapient populations to immigrate through the gates to Jard. These groups were allowed to live their own lives under their own laws as long as dragon law was respected.

The first groups were bronze age neo-humans. The tribes lived simple but productive lives. Part of their products would be set aside for the use of dragons. In return the dragons would offer protection and would aid the humans with resource gathering.

As dragon civilization become more sophisticated, the demand for more complex artifacts increased. The human subjects could not produce these things, so the dragons sought farther afield. This led to negotiations with several dvar guilds and clans which had been exiled from their home cities. Unlike the human tribes, who were brought in centuries before, the dvar were offered different terms. If they built their cities subterranean and restricted most of their activity to that domain, they would be treated as full partners with self-autonomy.

This was the situation on Jard for centuries. There was a growth of economies and populations. Limited wars and dynastic games would fill the histories of many dragon archives.

The insular nature of the Jardian societies, and the bellicose nature of dragons insured that Jard was seldom a desired destination.