Dragon Storms
"Even while knowing how dangerous they must have been, i cannot help but think that they nonetheless must have been quite a sigh to behold. Oh, how i wish i could have the joy of seeing them fro myself..."There are many accounts and testimonies of Dragons sightings in the First Age, from all over the world, who describe them as beautiful and majestic creatures, capable of instiling humbleness in the proudest warrior, even as they fly lazily over forests and plains, farms and towns alike. There are exceptions however, as some dragons, for reasons unknown at the time, and which are still debated today, are said to have summoned and unleashed magical storms around them, wrecking havoc, and causing chaos and even death on their paths.
Manifestation
Dragons and Elements
Dragons are elemental creatures, meaning that they are connected to the natural elements that make up the world, which are Light, Fire, Air, Water, Metals,Sstone, Ice, and Shadows. They can create and control those elements with their Mana energy, much like Elemental Mages do as well, only with much more power.Elemental storms
According to First Age accounts, Dragon storms were always triggered by the presence of a dragon that was airborne above an area. However, many such sightings also do not mention any kind of storm, suggesting that it was an incredibly rare phenomena as well. It is also not clear why or how those dragons sometimes provoked those storms, nor if they were even volontary.Draconic Mana burning
Some scholars have theorised that the storms may be a form of Mana Burning, a phenomena found today in both humans and animals that are able to manipulate and store mana energy. When those reserves overflow, it creates a mana burning event, whereas the mana energy is violently ejected out of the body, and rapidaly converted into whichever element the mage or animal can control. Under the right circumstances, and with enough mana to consume, such an event may be described as a sort of storm, especialy with some elements like water and ice.Visualisation
"We saw the dragon approche. It flew low to the water, and it almost seemed its body was absorbing it for a moment. Then, it flew high, very high, before it spun on itself and deployed its wings. When it did that, the lake's water began to grow temperous, and the sky darkened. We barely had enough time to paddle back to shore before the lake was rocked with the biggest thunder storm id ever seen in my life."
"I had decided to gather more firewood for the cold day ahead. But as i made my way to the pile beside my house, i saw the dragon flying over the forest. I was so impressed that i didn't even realised how low the temperature was dropping until i couldn't see the beast anymore because of the falling snow. By the time i had run back inside, the trees were snapping from all of the ice and snow on them. The door was frozen shut for two days..."
""I was in the market with Kian, just to buy a few apples and some flour. Then, i heard a gasp in the crowd, and i turned to look at the sky. There was a dragon, all red, like a freshly hammered sword, and it seemed to be in pain. It cried and flew heraticaly, towards the town. When it flew over us, it let out a deafening cry, and fire spat out of its body. It landed all around us, and i just a few seconds, the whole town was a blazing inferno. I'm only alive now thanks to sebastian's quick thinking...""
"Sand storms aren't anything new here. But that's not what that was at all. Oh no! That sand felt more like gravel. These weren't mere grains, they were pebbles. The dragon flew over us, and in its wake there was this massive cloud of... rocks. One of my friend even saw a boulder fall from the sky! If we hadn't found that cave when we did, well... hopefully the gods would have welcomed us...
Type
Natural
Localisation
These types of storms seemed to only manifest wherever dragons were spotted. Since dragons had a much larger range of habitats during the First Age, the storms were never confined to just a region or two. Instead, they were seen on every inhabited continent multiple times. However, since dragons were still rare even in the first Age, and that only a very small amount of those ever unleashed a dragon storms, we can assume that very few regions were ever directly affected by a dragon storms in the world.
Range of Effect
For each instance of a Dragon storm, the area it covered seem to have been highly variable, from a few dozen metres, to hundreds of kms. Scholars theorise that this could be for multiple reasons. The most obvious is the amount of mana that is used during any one event. The more mana energy is used, the more violent the storm will be, and the larger its area of effect will be. The other reason may be the strenght of the dragon themselves. A weaker dragon, due to it being a juvenile or elder, may not produce storms that are as strong as dragons in their prime.History
The first ever records of a phenomena similar to a Dragon storms comes to us from the Kingdom of Nan-Tao, around the year 3600 bc. Over the next millenia and a half, numerous other such events would be recorded, some with witness accounts. It seems that the continent of Osian had slighly more dragon storm events, but some scholars push back against that statement, pointing out that Osian also had the biggest population, and many civilisation that kept detailed records, while places like Mahador or Arros did not.
After The Long Winter, sightings of dragons became extremely rare, to the point that many cultures around the world thought of them as being extinct, only for one to appear in their sky centuries later. One possible example of a dragon storm exist after the First Age, of a ship caught in a severe storm in the emerald strait between Mahador and Arros right as a water dragon flew over them. Appart for this instance, not other records of dragon storms exist from the Second Age or the Third, say for that curious phenomena around mount Kimali, which some have attributed to dragon storms.
Possible current example
Around and above Mount Kimali and the Calderus Sea, in eastern Mahador, a permanant spiral of storms rages on for the past 2 thousand years. Recently, after yet another volcanic eruption of Mount Kimali, a dragon was sighted flying around the mountain, swirling between the lighting of the storms raging around it. Many local witneses have atributed the storms to that dragon, citting the Dragon Storms of the First Age.
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