The Rise of Minestus

Everyone "knows" that dragons are greedy, cruel, and destructive. Ask any citizen of Allaria, and for most practical purposes, all dragons look alike.

However, like men, each dragon has its own personality. Minestus was unctious to those dragons who were stronger than him, and ruthless against those who were weaker. These traits led to his appointment the Lordship of the Caves of the Shreken. After the overthrow of the city in the caverns, Minestus roused the envy of none of the more powerful dragons, and was placed in charge of the Caves of the Shreken as a compromise choice.

If he had been more patient, he could have used the knowledge still hidden in the caves to lie in wait until he could compel the neighboring nations to do his bidding. If he had been wiser, the resources, location, and magic of the city should have allowed Minestus to become a Great Dragon himself. If he had been more far-seeing, he could have treated the remnant barbarian Kingdoms of Allaria and Aqualaria as a farm, fertilizing and cultivating them with selected acts of benevolance, and gleaning some of their wealth, instead of treating them as mines, as something to be stripped, used, and abandoned. But Minestus had little of any of these virtues.

A rash act early in Minestus' lordship of the Caves of the Shreken blighted the rest of his life. In consolidating the hoard of the underground city, he melted down much of the coin as raw bullion, as a prudent dragon does. It is not wise for a dragon to become too attached to any given land, although it can be a source of a great, but temporary, power. The treasures of a dragon are his life essense. Greater treasure means greater power, knowledge, and magic. Minestus had uncovered an ancient cache of silver in his new dominions, far removed from the main part of the caverns. Minestus knew that there was enough silver in that cache to give him the power to animate life, and perhaps become a god by controlling his own captive race! It looked like raw silver bullion, with a fair number of coins from an unknown origin. There was a danger in mixing coins of any nation with a dragon's hoard - the health of the dragon and that of the nation were bound together. Mixing in the coinage of a nation would allow the dragon a burst of strength, but at a price. The flame that burns half as long burns twice as bright. As Dragons lived longer than nations, this strength would be purchased at a cost of protecting for that nation, or risking a premature death. Eventually, most dragons would feel that the nation was, at some level, part of their hoard, and feel compelled to live there to guard it. [2139] Caught in this situation, the wiser ones farmed the nation, and duller ones mined it. Minestus had never heard of this nation, could not read the languauge, and thought this nation was most probably long extinct. The ties that bind a dragon to the nation that issued this coinage certainly would not be activated.

1. However, the coins were those of a living nation.

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