of other humanoid races, which were pale imitations of
dragonborn perfection. Io shaped the dragonborn and
fired them with his breath, then spilled his own blood
to give them life. The first dragonborn served Io as
companions and allies, filling his astral court and sing-
ing his praises. The dragons he made only later, at the
start of the Dawn War, to serve as engines of destruc-
tion. This view of dragonborn history is shared by those
who believe that dragonborn are superior to other races
and thus should be the masters of dragons and not the
other way around.
Despite their differing conclusions, a common theme
binds all these legends together: the dragonborn owe
their existence to Io, the great dragon-god who created
all of dragonkind. The dragonborn, all legends agree,
are not the creations of Bahamut or Tiamat-and so
they have no predetermined side in the conflict between
those gods. Every individual dragonborn, regardless of
one's particular draconic ancestry, makes a personal
choice in matters of ethics and morality.
THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
Dragon born hail from Abeir, the primordial twin of To-
ri!. On that world most of the dragonborn are slaves to
their dragon masters, though many won their freedom
and formed nations of free dragon born. During the
Spellplague, the two worlds intersected and one of those
free dragonborn nations, Tymanchebar, was transported
to FaerG.n. It displaced the nation of Unther, and out of
the ashes of these two kingdoms, the surviving drag-
onborn formed Tymanther, a new dragonborn nation
in FaerG.n.
For a time, the dragonborn of Tymanther sought to
integrate with their new world while maintaining their
own traditions and culture. These efforts gave the na-
tion and its people a reputation for being honorable and
worthy of respect. Only a few generations later, however,
the events of the Sundering returned Unther to FaerG.n,
and the formerly displaced land sought to reclaim all it
had lost to Tymanther. Reeling from this disaster, the re-
maining dragonborn in FaerG.n now find they must work
even harder and with fewer resources to find their place
among the people the world.
HONOR AND FAMILY
Every aspect of dragonborn life is dictated by the race's
code of honor and strict adherence to tradition. Drag-
onborn society is highly ordered, with each member
expected to do one's utmost for family and clan. This loy-
alty and sense of duty sustained the dragonborn during
their long history of enslavement and also enabled them
to form communities and nations of free dragon born.
In dragonborn culture, the family is made up of one's
direct relations, while a clan is a collection of families
brought together by alliance, intermarriage, or shared
history. Although they are rarely forced to choose one
over the other, the clan's welfare is more important
to most dragonborn than the family's. The promise of
honor within the clan drives them to acts of heroism
daring, or excellence, all meant to bring glory to the
first and the individual second.
The aftermath of the Sundering has tested these prin-
ciples, leaving some clans fractured and decentralized.
Some dragonborn in FaerG.n seek to recapture the sort
of connection they had with a now-lost clan or family by
forging new relationships among their non-dragonborn
allies and companions.
Dragonborn in FaerG.n have the racial traits of dragon-
born in the Player's Handbook.PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Their code of honorable behavior and unswerving
loyalty serves the dragonborn as a kind of faith, and,
according to the traditionalists among them, that out-
look is all the religion they need. Because they were
forced to worship their draconic masters in times past,
dragonborn are generally skeptical about religion, see-
ing it as a form of servitude. The skeptics believe that
no matter how their original god, Io, brought them into
being, that ancient deity is either long dead or uncaring
about their fate, and the dragon gods that supplanted Io
seem primarily interested in amassing soldiers for their
ages-old conflict.
Still, some dragonborn do hear the call of the gods
of FaerG.n and choose to serve them, and are as loyal in
this faith as they are to any other cause. Bahamut and
Tiamat have dragonborn worshipers, and both Torm
and Tyr appeal to the dragonborn sense of honor and