Scorching

The Scorching was an event in ancient Pyrrhian history in which dragons became the dominant species of life upon the continent. Five thousand years prior to the events of The Dragonet Prophecy, the Scorching was spurred into action by Cottonmouth, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of the human way of life.

Description

The Scorching is present in most Pyrrhian history books, and it is what allowed dragons to form tribes and create kingdoms.^[1] Before the event, dragons typically lived alone, and the human population was much larger.^[2] The dragons who set the Scorching into place did so to avenge their stolen eggs,^[3] but according to many human stories, the dragons attacked the humans unprovoked,^[4] despite them starting it.^[5]

Timeline

• At least five thousand years prior to the events of The Dragonet Prophecy, humans swarmed the continent. They were organized and advanced, being the dominant life form at the time. They had several warring empires, and large, sprawling cities.^[6]
• Due to territorial disputes, the human empires began seeking out new weapons to gain an advantage over each other.^[7] Cottonmouth came up with the idea to steal and hatch dragon eggs, attempting to tame the dragonets for use as weapons. This plan was adopted by neighboring empires, leading to the theft of dragon eggs across the continent.
• The attempts at taming dragonets resulted in injuries, and methods to control them escalated, becoming more violent and cruel.^[8] The experiments were moved underground, into stone rooms that could not be burned, and soldiers involved adopted heavy spiked armor.^[9] The dragons whom had their eggs stolen from them were very upset with the humans. After several years and dozens of eggs stolen, the formerly disorganized dragons united under the leadership of one of the dragons^[10] and scorched the human cities and empires in retribution.^[5] The human empires collapsed, and modern human settlements have not been able to return to their former size.
• One small group of humans migrated overseas to Pantala, led by Cottonmouth and his continued attempts to control dragons.^[11][12] They may have been followed across the sea by dragons originating from Pyrrhia.^[13]
• All of the dragons banded together to form the first dragon tribe with the dragon who had united them as their queen.^[10] Over time, other tribes were formed and each appointed a queen; dragons, who were once relatively rare, came to outnumber humans. This made it hard to kill individual dragons. After the Scorching, transformation and resettlement of the terrain occurred (notably, the desert that makes up the Kingdom of Sand formed at some point after the Scorching)^[14] as well as constant warfare between dragon tribes that continued for some 500 years afterwards.^[15]
• Centuries later, Webs mentioned that stories before the Scorching would be best described as legends and fairy tales, due to how unlikely it was for humans to be as advanced as once thought.^[16]

Trivia

• Dragons keep track of the date by counting the years since the Scorching, as shown when Moonwatcher mentioned that five thousand and twelve years had passed from the Scorching.^[17]
• Tui stated that the first known tribe and the origin of animus magic were "Scorching-based questions,"^{[event 1]} although it is likely that all dragons were some combination of the traits of the modern tribes, as seen with Freedom.

Gallery

The events of the Scorching portrayed in The Lost Heir (graphic novel), by Mike Holmes

References