The Shining Wyrm

1.i

Of all the Wyrms, the Tyrant is the most dangerous. It is as intelligent as a man and can speak the languages of its country. It can learn other languages, if it encounters a speaker. The Tyrant's scales are impervious to any single strike from metal, stone, or wood. It must be brought down by a constant barrage of blows to the same spot until its hide finally gives way and blood can be spilled.

To compare, the Mountain Wyrm's scales are too thick to pierce, while the Lesser Lepori Wyrm's scales are so soft that the challenge is to avoid damaging them during a hunt. Hunters of the former favor long spears with hooks for prying open the armor so that a partner can stab between the scales, while the latter are best brought down with sling bolts or cudgels.

As with all true Wyrm from the mouth can be expelled a blinding white smoke which leaves naught but ash in its wake. As their most destructive weapon it is vital for any would-be slayer or hunter to avoid attacking from the front with the Tyrant Wyrm especially.

While with the merely cunning Wild Wyrm, a forward charge might not provoke this form of attack, the Tyrant is well aware of its own power and will make use of it on any such foolish charges.

No shield of steel, wood, or stone however fashioned will suffice to defend for much longer than a moment from direct assault by this all-destroying smoke. Avoidance, surprise, and flanking are the only viable tactic, and the Tyrant Wyrm will make this more difficult than any other of its kin.

It is conjectured that the exhalation is not in fact fire, but a fluid which releases the latent elemental fire in all it touches. Nonetheless, all attempts to extract such a venom from the corpses of any wyrm including the Tyrant have so far failed.

In records from the accounts of Pythra of Veracules the Wanderer, encounters of two Tyrant Wyrm and their deaths were witnessed:

First, the Serpent King Ghaurganzor who was fifty feet from snout to tail tip and a hundred feet (or perhaps hundred and twenty) between the farthest tips of the wings at full extension. His hide was that of tarnished copper and mottled in black, and he commanded a legion of armed snakes deft in use of spears and possessing a powerful venom and by them commanded all the peoples and land between the peaks of Fraeidillo and Winchost in serfdom.

He was slain in the year of 1052 by the Dynasties of the Sun Lands. The last of his legion was seen in 1056, as part of the expansion of Aurelia of Cantor.

This is corroborated by records of this engagement stating it was at the cost of three centuries of fully armored soldiers and the act of two military-trained Elementalists, one of whom was lost in the act.

When the Tyrant Wyrm fell, his legions broke and routed from the battle in all directions. The corpse was divided and the skull was carried at the head of the Triumph on return from the expansion campaign.

It would be used as the framing for the Imperial throne of Cantor for a decade after, until it was broken down at the behest of the Academy of Sages for study.

Second, the Mountain Seer Shialtza’s physical descriptions were solely reported by Pythra and said to be a hundred and eleven feet long and possessed of voluminous wings that could never be properly measured at once. The scales were white like ivory or snow and it commanded no apparent legions but the inner circle of the monastery was always fully obscured in full dress and never spoke.

It commanded allegiance from all the plains of Inochi within view of the mountain peak which housed its monastery.

On a return visit to the region Pythra found the lands ruled by barbarian kings and the monastery sacked.

The cause of the Mountain Seer’s death is not known but according to the locals, in the year 1046 (by the Dynastic calendar) the inner circle descended from the mountain bearing a train of palanquin burdened by its corpse and playing instruments of mourning local to the region.

There are legends, tombs and remains that are said were also Tyrant Wyrms but whether these were the distinctly dangerous foes attributable with the powers of thought, speech and provincial command exhibited by True Tyrants is mere conjecture.

Every domain and province of the empire makes claim to fealty to the wild wyrms as their own special Tyrant Wyrm but the monstrous packs which roam around such animals is sure proof against these assertions of intelligence and speech where such still live.

And in death there is little to distinguish Tyrant Wyrm from their feral and far less dangerous kin.

It is conjectured by Altun the Elder that the Tyrant Wyrm is but a fully mature specimen and that it is within the means of any wild wyrm to successfully mature into such.

But if such is the case, the Serpent Lerner's vast size and completely feral nature offers a counter argument. It has preyed upon man and beast and grown in its marshes from records that predate the founding of the Sun Land’s Dynasty to present times (1074 SD).

- Excerpt from Orion’s Historica naturalis Cantora