The Tempest Order: History [Part 2]

Apexes and Nadirs

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Today we’ll be covering more of my lore from my Flight Rising dragon clan, the Tempest Order! Credit once again to Flight Rising and Stormlight Workshop for this world’s setting and lore, though the history you’ll be reading today is of my own design.

The next two Eras are some of the most defining in the clan’s history. Let’s take a look:

The Golden Era

Athanasia’s boundless ambition and determination led the newly coined Tempest Order on a meteoric rise. It wasn’t long before the Order’s name and reputation spread across the desert, praising Athanasia’s direct nature and single-minded drive. There was nothing she and her clan would not do in exchange for food and coin.

The Order’s ranks swelled with dragons from all walks of life. Some became warriors, while others specialized in hunting — and others, in the practices of mystics. Soon, they no longer relied on other clans to provide their food, and could take jobs for coin and not fear going hungry.

Not only that — the more their ranks grew, the fewer clans there were that dared to deny them payment.

The clan divided into three subgroups, called Families: The Immortassacre Family, The Dejacurse Family, and The Cryptic Family. Immortassacre held the clan’s fearless warriors, while Dejacurse contained the hunters, and Cryptic laid claim to all those of magical talents. In addition to being the leader, Athanasia took the lead of the warriors along with Carnage, while a dragon named Paramnesia led the hunters, and Athanasia’s trusted advisors, Cryptesthesia and Clairaudience, managed the seers.

All these skills were available for sale for the right amount of coin, and their nomadic lifestyle kept the work bountiful and flowing.

The Tempest Order had unknowingly entered its Golden Age — a time of plentiful food, water, and funds — painfully early in its long history, and the same factors that had brought them there would soon enough be their downfall.

Of all the revenue streams that had been explored, there was one that Athanasia had not touched up to that point: something called Exaltation.

Athanasia, the young spitfire of a leader that she was, had very little interest in politics. It bored and frustrated her to no end. She liked her prices set and her deals uncomplicated whenever possible, and was quite proud of herself and her clan for their newfound ability to turn down jobs if she didn’t think it was worth it.

She had made a point to stay out of the delicate web of world politics as much as possible — anything that came up, she handed off to others in the clan that she felt were more capable. Still, she was the leader, and that meant sometimes dragons wished to speak with her directly.

Many could be persuaded to take the issue up with some of the smoother speakers of the clan. But not all of them.

Athanasia hadn’t been impressed, at the time, with the dragon that had found himself at her tent that day. He was small, both in stature and physique — she easily could have intimidated him out of her tent with a single twitch of her tail.

She didn’t, of course. She’d been told that wasn’t exactly a diplomatic way to handle situations like that.

This dragon had not come of his own volition anyway — he’d been sent as a representative of The Spire — the figurative seat of power of the Lightning god that ruled the territory, the Stormcatcher.

Athanasia, admittedly, had only a passing understanding of the gods and their place in the world. It had never been incredibly important to her way of life to know, but it was about to be.

It was far from uncommon or new knowledge that the world was at war — the eleven elemental territories belonged to eleven elemental deities: the Earthshaker, Flamecaller, Windsinger, Tidelord, Stormcatcher, Lightweaver, Icewarden, Shadowbinder, Plaguebringer, Gladekeeper, and the Arcanist. Each held tremendous power in their respective territories, but the borders were often contested.

Some were more contested than others; relations between the Shifting Expanse and the neighboring volcanic Ashfall Wastes of the Fire Flight, for example, were one of trade more than war. Meanwhile, the territories surrounding the Scarred Wasteland, domain of the Plaguebringer, had all been working tirelessly for generations to keep the contagion from spreading too far from its source. The Beastclans, consisting of the sentient, non-draconic creatures of the land, enemies of all dragons, were also a force to be reckoned with.

Regardless, all deities and thus the dragons that lived in their domains had a vested interest in their own elemental supremacy. To protect and expand their borders, each Flight made use of exaltation.

Exaltation was the highest honor a dragon could receive — to leave the service of their own clan and instead serve their deity directly — some as soldiers, others as alchemists, or seers, and so on.

But, especially in times when concentrated efforts were being made to contest a domain’s borders, what deities and their servants needed most was trained exalts — which was why the dragon was here from the Spire.

He explained that her mercenary ventures had not gone unnoticed — dragons in high places were impressed with her knack for combat and how well (if unprofessionally) trained her clan was.

The Stormcatcher needed trained soldiers, and Athanasia had proven herself capable of producing them. The deal was simple, uncomplicated. Train incoming exalts into soldiers, get rewarded with gold and riches. The reserves of the Spire were functionally infinite — she would get paid fairly and proportionally for every newly trained soldier she provided.

She was more than happy to pledge her support.

Thus, The Tempest Order set up eleven outposts across the desert, settling at each for a few weeks at a time, training exalts, before moving on to the next. With this new stream of revenue, the clan was certain they would never go hungry again.

They were wrong.

The Golden Era and all its riches had driven the clan to heights Athanasia had only dreamed of, but it would be short-lived.

The Death Era

You see, as her clan’s success and reputation grew, so too did the young leader’s greed and paranoia.

She had worked tirelessly day and night to create and maintain this clan. Everyone worked, and everyone pulled their weight. Anyone that didn’t align with this philosophy was exalted along with the rest of the trained soldiers.

It was certainly only a matter of time before someone tried to take this from her. To ruin everything she’d built.

Her clan and its prosperity meant everything to her. She couldn’t lose it.

There was no way to tell where this threat would come from. It could be another clan. After all, many of the stationary clans in the desert hadn’t taken kindly to having to respect their nomadic ways. It very easily could come from within too. Not everyone within the clan was incredibly happy with their living situation, even for as much work as she’d put into making it a good one.

Some dragons were dissatisfied with the mercenary life, or wished for the clan to settle in a territory. Some didn’t agree with her decision to train the exalts for the Stormcatcher, as some of their own children had been among the exalted and they felt it had been unfair. An increasing number of dragons within the clan were there not because they truly wanted to be, but because it was the easiest way to stave off hunger.

Her eyes turned upon her own children, come into this world just as she had, with ambition and fire. They were not exempt from these whispers. They were not above voicing their dissatisfaction.

Suppose one of them saw fit to unseat her?

She couldn’t let that happen.

In a gathering of the Order, she made a point of acknowledging the concerns that had been brought to her, the anger and sorrow of dragons that had seen their loved ones drafted and sent to war. Exaltation was a high honor, she reminded them. And to show her clanmates just how much she believed in it, she listed off the names of almost all of her children, and declared that they too would be exalted and join the Stormcatcher’s military reserves.

It was taken as a show of faith in the Stormcatcher, and anti-nepotism. Her remaining children would work on equal footing with every other member of the clan, given no special treatment. Many of the dragons in the Order had been effectively raised by Athanasia, and were willing to accept this answer.

Sharp-minded dragons saw it for what it was, though. Exile. A way of ensuring that no one was in direct succession to inherit the Order. A way of securing her position as the Tempest Order’s General for many years to come.

It was a bad omen, but the clan’s trajectory hadn’t been altered irreversibly. Yet.

The position of “Arbiter” had already existed for some time by this point, and was held by a Mirror named Zenith. He had a gift for the supernatural — the ability to sense pieces of the future. It was his job to look into the futures of dragons joining the clan or being born into it, and give them their name.

In the Order, most dragons have names based on words, which represent a piece of themselves or their future. Some are indicative of personality, while others foretell a defining event. Some names are harmless, while others can be quite worrying.

It was a position of ceremonial and cultural importance, but nothing more. That is, until Athanasia made it Zenith’s job to determine which dragons of their own clan would be exalted. He was instructed to use his sight of the future to determine who would be useful to the clan and who would not.

To her supporters, this was seen as a good thing. Athanasia had effectively shown that she was willing to give up some of her power to someone more capable — after all, who was more capable than the Arbiter to determine who should stay and who should go?

Her detractors only grew more worried by this, though. Zenith only saw pieces of the future. Certainly he couldn’t tell enough about a hatchling to force it to grow up to be a soldier? Many of them would end up exalted before they could cause any trouble over the issue.

This had not done irreversible damage either, but the mechanism of the clan’s descent was already in motion.

Though the clan was divided into thirds, it quickly became apparent that there would not be an equal distribution of dragons within the Families. The Cryptic Family was the smallest of all, magic being in short supply on this side of the world. It was comprised of only a single mated pair and their children. The hunters numbered decently and came from all walks of life, but relied heavily on their efficiency rather than numbers to keep the clan fed.

The Immortassacre Family, meanwhile, held more than double the number of both the other families combined. The ranks of warriors swelled day after day as Athanasia and Carnage trained the young dragons into proficient warriors. And day after day, her methods became more efficient and more intense.

The more they trained, the more money they brought in, the more dragons they could support and train. Simple. Uncomplicated.

The brutal training regiment was by design — while exalting handled any internal problems, their growing stock of bruisers would easily be able to protect the clan from outside threats. And it worked. The savage fighters of the Immortassacre Family took care of mercenary work as easily as they intimidated other clans into standing down and/or coughing up the money they owed.

Most of the Immortassacre warriors didn’t see a problem with it — they were proud of the hardship they had endured to get here, and several were closer to Athanasia than her own children had ever been. They understood her mantra and bought into her vision of the clan’s future wholeheartedly. Their savagery would protect the clan.

After all, how could the clan grow if they didn’t take on mercenary work? If they didn’t help train the exalts? And how could the Order thrive if other clans thought they could get away with not paying them? Everyone had worked too hard for this to see it fail now.

Savagery was a point of pride. Savagery was security. They were terrifying, savage Mirrors — the scourge of the whole desert! You would have to be an absolute fool to even think of crossing the Tempest Order!

And that savagery festered deep within Athanasia’s heart, nestled next to every memory of her clan, hungry and fragile, fighting for everything they had and getting taken advantage of by those of “higher standing”. Of being considered pests and thieves when all they wanted was to live. Being run out without payment because they were too few to stand a chance in a fight.

Weak. Hungry. Exploited. No one would ever make her or her clan feel like that ever again. If the means that met that end were savagery, then she would not back down from using it. They would be respected — feared, if need be. No one would take this from them. They’d be a fool to try.

The savagery escalated.

And escalated.

And escalated.

It wasn’t long before renting out the clan’s services became a violent manner of blackmail. Athanasia herself was a hands-on leader and had no issues handling missions personally. Getting passed up for work became a thing of the past. There wasn’t an option to hire or not anymore — if you knew what was good for you.

Their prices were steep, but were matched pound for pound with a near clan-wide capacity for violence. It was safer just to hire them or even pay them off. A few clans learned this the hard way, precious items or even dragons stolen from them and held for ransom in response to a refusal.

Murder was no longer out of the question either.

Clans that had once driven them out now trembled at the sight of the horde of Mirrors spilling over the dunes.

And that was how most of them liked it.

It felt like justice.

But it had already gone beyond the point of justice, and it would only get worse from there. Unfortunately, though, it would take something drastic to finally wake them up to what they had become. That moment came in what’s known today as “The Burning Night”, or “The Burn” — possibly the darkest moment in the Tempest Order’s history to date.

It had been a long time since the Order had been refused by that point. Most clans had wisened up and decided to pay, despite the steep price, to avoid incurring their wrath.

And so, when a clan led by a Guardian finally stood up to Athanasia, refusing to let her continue to bully the other clans in the desert, she snapped. If one clan got away with this, certainly others would follow. She had to do something before anyone got any ideas — and she had a plan.

You see, it’s important to note here an interesting quirk about Guardian dragons. Their name comes from the fact that each is born with an innate desire to find a Charge — something they are destined to protect for the rest of their lives. A Guardian is nothing without its Charge, and they often consider the worst fate in the world to be failing to protect their Charge.

This Charge can manifest in many ways — for some, it’s another dragon they must protect. For others, it’s a place.

And for the Guardian that led this clan, it was a tree — a massive oak growing in the center of an oasis created by nature magics and thousands of years of dedication. The clan lived in and under the shade of its branches.

That very night, Athanasia led a violent attack not on the Guardian, but on his Charge. With some preparation, she had armed a large portion of the Order’s warriors with fire, and ordered them to burn the tree down.

The Order swarmed the tree, some setting it ablaze while others fended off the members of the Guardian’s clan and sabotaged their efforts to put the fire out.

By the end, nothing remained of the once great tree and the surrounding oasis except a charred husk and a sky full of smoke and ash. Anyone in the Guardian’s clan that hadn’t died in the battle had fled, scattering to the winds. The Guardian himself perished in the flames.

In one night, the Tempest Order had completely annihilated a clan and everything that clan stood for.

The Burn was only one dark incident of a time within the Death Era known as The Great Violence — where Athanasia’s unquestioned leadership led to nothing but pain and slaughter — but it was, by all accounts, the most important one to turning the tide of opinion against her.

The seers foretold that her actions would lead to her own destruction, but she wouldn’t believe a word of it. She no longer took their council, believing they wished to manipulate her.

The most dogmatic members of the Order still followed her without question, but many others were sickened by what they had become, and began looking for a change.

In her ambition and paranoia, Athanasia had become the very thing she had sought to root out and destroy: the seed of her clan’s downfall.

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Led and organized by the seers of the Cryptic Family, public outcry was issued over the violence Athanasia used and condoned.

This came as an unwelcome shock to their leader, who became enraged. Everything she had done, she had done for them! How dare they treat her like this!

For so long she had taken care of these kinds of threats by simply removing them, but their dissatisfaction was too public, too prevalent. They had friends and families — if she simply got rid of them, she would only stand to lose the support of the dragons still on her side.

The Families split their allegiances. Most of the Immortassacre Family sided with their leader and mentor, though not all of them did. The Cryptic Family stood in staunch opposition, but couldn’t hold a candle to the power of the monopoly of strength held by the loyal forces of the Immortassacre. Though hunters within the Dejacurse were allowed to make up their own minds, the Family’s leader, Paramnesia, had no definitive stance on the conflict.

Paramnesia, like many dragons in the clan, had effectively been raised by Athanasia. She was one of the first hatchlings Athanasia and Carnage ever took in, and had seen a lot since the clan first started. While she didn’t agree with Athanasia’s violent methods, she did still hold onto belief in her as a leader.

To end the fighting, Paramnesia declared that the Dejacurse hunters would not hunt for either side until the issue had been peacefully resolved.

It was a masterful move, in some ways.

The trouble with negotiating with Athanasia was that she was surrounded by well-fed warriors double in number to any other group in the clan. And even if all her loyalists had turned on her, she and Carnage alone were deadly both by themselves and especially together; there was no convincing Athanasia by force to change her ways unless Carnage could be turned against her, and he would never dream of such a thing.

Starvation was a great equalizer, and Athanasia wouldn’t let her clan go hungry for long. It was only a matter of time before she agreed to compromise.

It was not, however, a move advised by the Cryptic Family’s seers. They warned Paramnesia that her decree would only cause more and more pain, but she remained firm in her stance.

Thus began the First Famine.

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Food stores ran out faster than anyone had anticipated, not realizing how much work the Dejacurse family had been doing to keep them all fed. Most of the starving warriors were clumsy hunters, not built for this kind of fight. Most of the seers had never hunted a day in their life.

The few dragons that were able to hunt brought back what they could, but it was always too little. In her paranoia, Athanasia refused to buy food from any nearby clans, sure that they’d see this as a show of weakness and attack while the clan was divided.

Locked in a stalemate with her own pride, Athanasia could do nothing but watch as her clanmates grew thinner and thinner. Hunger could not turn her most loyal soldiers against her, but she was acutely aware of how it wore away at them. Dragons she trusted began to beg her to consider the offer, or else claim that if this wasn’t resolved soon, they would leave the clan for another.

Still, she held out.

She held out until dragons did begin to leave. Until hatchlings were getting sick and weak. She held out until it was almost too late.

Everything she’d worked for was slipping through her claws — she had to do something. She couldn’t lose this clan. She’d worked too hard for this to be the end.

In lieu of the rest of the Order starving or disbanding, Athanasia and her loyalists agreed on a truce with the rest of the clan.

Athanasia would no longer be the sole ruler with her mate in tow. The clan would now be ruled by an oligarchy composed of the three heads of the Families: Athanasia, Paramnesia, and Cryptesthesia.

It was shaky. Complex. Complicated. But it was enough.

The Families pulled back together to support each other, fighting, hunting, and guiding one another once again. Blackmail was now out of the question, and it was clear that if anything like The Burn ever happened again, the clan would completely dissolve.

Tensions were still high, but this was the only way everyone got something they wanted. Athanasia was still a leader, but her power would no longer go unchecked. The other families had a voice in the governance of the clan, rather than being outgunned by their Immortassacre counterparts.

It was far from perfect, and it pained Athanasia greatly to surrender her power this way, but for the sake of her clan’s survival, she knew she had to.

The Tempest Order was far from the end of their troubles, however. Things had been set into motion here that would not easily be stopped; the Cryptic Family was never wrong in their prediction, and it had yet to come true.

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