Kolbein the Great

Kolbein the Great, as he calls himself, was someone who lived during the Age of Prosperity. A skilled swordsman and passionate about dragons, he fled his village with his father's cape and explored the world, creating early versions of the current World Map. His journeys also provided crucial information about dragons.

 

Early years

  Kolbein was born under the name Aluen as the son of Chief Ensken. Since he was little, he was put under the pressure of being the next Chief of his village, thus expecting him to learn skills like swordfighting and archery at a young age. He greatly enjoyed reading and exploring the surroundings of the village. He also showed great interest in combining all sorts of sets of clothing and create new outfits.Kolbein suffered the constant pressure put on him constantly, which damaged his performance in swordfighting and archery. This not only lowered his skill at the time, but also worsened his relationship with his father.   By the time he was 13, he had managed to meet everyone's expectations about him, though unable to improve his relationship with Ensken.
  On the day of his 15th birthday, he and his father had an argument. Ensken called the boy a disgrace to the village, which Kolbein took personally, and counterattacked by saying that no father should be so hard on his young son, and said that the only reason people took him seriously was because of his title as Chief, and not actual respect. The argument carried on for a short time after, permanently damaging both father and son.
Overwhelmed by rage, he stole his father's cape that night and quietly fled from the village without a clue left behind.

Rough times after fleeing

This period of time was particularly hard for Kolbein, as he had fled his home village with only a few supplies and a sword. His first obstacle presented itself only a few kilometers away from the village, when he fell and hurt his knee.
That's when he encountered a dragon to which he was able to prove that he was not a threat. A few hours later, the dragon would let him ride it and he went to the closest village going northward.
He stayed there for just enough time for him to receive medical treatment, and fled again because he feared that people from his village would come looking for him.   He spent several days traveling northwards until he reached the sea. That's when he realized that he did not have a destination and was flying aimlessly.
After a few weeks, he began to run low on resources, thus forcing him to fly back into the continent.
However, his dragon, who he named Iaik, was growing tired and he was forced to continue traveling by walking.
On the forest, he ran into a lone mercenary, who, upon seeing Kolbein, charged against him to steal from him.
Kolbein used his sword to defend himself as he could, but was ultimately defeated and wounded by his attacker, who fled and disappeared. This would be the first of many encounters which he would have during the first months away from his vilage.
It took him a while to get used to that rough lifestyle. But things changed when he realized that, no matter where he went, the sea would always be limiting him. He made up his mind about what he wanted to do: he wanted to explore the world. This was already a difficult ambition to fulfill, but it was even more of a risk considering how, at the time, there were no world maps available.
He went to a village in which the villagers did not speak his language. He stayed there for a few months, honing his sowrdfighting skills, and, around the time he turned 17, he gathered enough supplies to travel across the sea.

 

Kolbein's Journeys

 

Beggining

The main worry he had was that his dragon would grow too tired to continue flying before finding land. This was a concern that followed him for the first few weeks after leaving the mainland.  
During that period of time, he met all kinds of people and arrived to all sorts of cities and towns, all of which were really different from his village. He also stayed in some of these palces, where he was able to get jobs and earn money, which he used to buy supplies and improve his equipment, though he also bought more sets of clothing which he would use as outfits.
Most of the times he used wide hats that would cast a shadow over the entirety of his face, so that his dark skintone would not stick out and lead to discrimination of any kind. He was also hiding his face so that no one would recognize him and bring him back to his village.  
He also learned the basics of several physical skills, such as climbing, swimming, among others. He was able to improve his archery skill, but eventually quit
By the time he turned 20, he had traveled around nearly the entire southwestern part of the world. However, he slowly realized that, when he was not going back to where he once was, he was flying around aimlessly. At that point, he went back into one of the biggest cities he knew. That's when he overheard a group of people talking about cartography, a subject he had never heard of before. Upon doing research, he figured that not only there was more of the world to discover, but it was uncharted.
He stayed there several months studying and further researching on the subject. He gathered several maps from different authors and studied them thoroughly.
During the following weeks, he flied around the island, comparing the terrain with the ones respresented in the maps and making illustrations of his own. Yet, he always realized that the maps portrayed the island as the biggest thing there was in the world, with little exploration further south
This especially confused him, as he was aware that there was land beyond that tiny island. It was this event that encouraged him to travel around the world, because it made him see that there was something else far away from where he was.
He sold his final version of the map for a lot of money which he used to buy important supplies. The rumour that he was going to go on a world mapping expedition quickly spread around the city, and the day he chose to go away a party was held in his honor.

 

New land beyond

Kolbein was moving at a relatively slow rate, but decided to go faster as the nights became longer. His first encounters with land had been disappointing: most of the times, they were islands, and, when not, there were no cities or towns. Even then, dedicated as he was, he included them in his map.
His very first encounter with other people happened several weeks afer, but it wasn't much less disappointing given that they spoke an entirely different language. Kolbein realized this was because they had never really given importance to dragons, so they developed a different kind of culture that did not adapt to the beasts.  
He thought mapping the island was a good idea, but refrained from doing so when he realized that it was a much bigger land than he ones he had previously visited. As a result, he decided to study this new culture he had stumbled upon, noting things such as customs, language and economy.
After several weeks he took off again, not without gathering more materials. He was intrigued by this gigantic island he had encountered, and not only that, it seemed to have a much larger variety of biomes than he could have imagined.
It took Kolbein several weeks to just finish the first rough draft of the map, which he later had to adapt to a smaller version to fit it into the entire world map he was creating. He didn't know whether to carry on with the world map or explore a bit more of this new place, but he was forced to stay because winter had arrived.
He continued to be surprised by how different this place was. Not only were winters more tough, but the way people reacted to them was different. Instead of gathering a lot of resources before the first snow, people kept working under these conditions, wearing thicker clothing to protect themselves from the cold.  
By the time winter was over, Kolbein was 21. During that period, he kept studying the local cultures, though he still encountered other draconic ones that, to his relief, never recognized him.
He had started a list of biomes he encountered and the dragons he saw. The biodiversity was much more evident in that part of the world, though he noticed that dragons weren't a big part of local cultures because they were in places too hard to reach even for him.  
Before he could do any research about it, however, he had to spend yet more time studying the local languages in order to communicate. He found this task a bit difficult, but ended up learning the basics to properly communicate with the locals, even if with difficulty.
He learned that these places were deemed sacred, as the great flying beasts would usually visit that place and fly around, amazing the villagers. Kolbein decided to further explore one of those locations, where he came across a dragon nest. Unfortunately, he also came across their mother, who would have successfully chased down Kolbein had he not been saved by his dragon.
He proceeded to continue studying these dragons. He wrote down the differences between the ones he saw there and the ones from his home island. For example, they had broader wings and stronger legs, not to mention their unique eye shape.
He also noted that the variety was also amazing, as he saw all sorts of dragons. He studied them as closely as he could, growing more and more fascinated each day.
Eventually, he realized there was nothing more worth noting, though he had made some amazing discoveries.
Kolbein traveled further north by the coastline in order to map the island correctly. Since this was the first time he was doing it, however, it was a rather messy draft which he struggled to fit into his previously made drawings.
He noticed how the climate was becoming colder the further north he went, but was relieved to see that he was actually moving west after a while.
His very first draft was finished a few weeks after, but he decided he would clean it up later.

 

Further exploring the world

This time around, he decided he would go east. The first time he came across land it was a cold place. It wasn't cold enough for him to need to improve his equipment, but it was cold enough to be a bother. He decided to look around and see if he found anything interesting, but to no avail.
He then found land again, this time it was a huge plains biome. Since his dragon was tired, he figured he would continue by walking.
He came across several cultures, but none of them were draconic, so his attempts to communicate were usually unsuccessful. However, when he actually found one, it was at the north of the island. It was there where he stayed a few days, asking the locals about the dragons. That's where he learnt about something he had never even thought of. He saw cultures that had merged with others, resulting in the creation of languages unlike any he had seen before.
It was while visiting one of these cities that he learned the word 'Kolbein', which meant 'elusive, secretive'. This was something he identified as, so he decided to take it as his name, adding the title 'the Great' so that people would respect him for it.  
After a few weeks, he decided to travel further south, where the climate suddenly turned incredibly hotter. Kolbein perceived this as a new biome, but decided not to explore due to the extreme temperatures.
He was always flying nearby the edges of this biome. From where he was, he could see a few dragons. He couldn't see any differences from the ones he saw on the mountains other than the colors, which in this case were warm.
He came across a draconic village, but it was quite different from any others he had seen. The buildings were different, more advanced, and one could clearly tell the town centre apart from the rest of the village.
He approached it and asked the villagers about the place. He was told that this was the place from where all other draconic villages had come from. Kolbein didn't quite believe it, but decided to not say anything in order to be respectful of them.
Days later, he met the current head of the Padma Dynasty, Zheng. They went for a walk, and he explained to Kolbein the origin of his family and their duty. Kolbein was amazed and asked if the tatoos on his face meant anything. Zheng explained that those marks allowed the person who had them to bond with dragons in ways no other person could. Kolbein was also introduced to Zheng's newborn child, Gennadiya.
On the other hand, Kolbein told him about his quest to map the entire world and the knowledge about other cultures he had acquired. This greatly interested Zheng, who was looking forward to establish alliances with other villages outside the draconic culture.
He and the family formed an alliance that was possible because of their shared interests in dragonkind. Kolbein also promised to help the family with whatever they needed.
A few weeks later, not having encountered any other villages in that palce, he was able to incorporate the island to the world map.

 

The very last island

It took Kolbein a few weeks to find this island. He spent a lot of the time flying around the world, but he somehow always missed it. He only found it after being chased by a gigantic sea dragon that he 'chose' a different route.
It was quite an interesting island, as he described it, because it had a mountain range that went across nearly the entire island, separating the plains from the tundra.  
The plains part of the island was not of his interest, as it didn't have anything special that separated it from any other he had seen. What he most enjoyed, however, was being able to study the dragons more closely than ever, as they were mostly Infelix or Hynd dragons, who didn't have much interest in chasing him.
What he was particularly excited about was the tundra part, as he had never been in such a place before.  
He started from the mountain range and never really went away from there. He was able to see how the dragons in the tundra had grown bigger than their counterparts on the rest of the world. He also saw that they developed some kind of fur and shot acid, just like the dragons he saw on the jungle.
One day, he was flying around the island coast when he saw a dragon nest. He approached it and studied the eggs. They were rounder and overall bigger, though he hadn't seen a lot of dragon eggs to be sure. Things got bad when he heard a dragon roaring, most likely their mother. Kolbein started running away but the dragon was faster and caught him. They went up by several meters when Iaik attacked the other dragon, causing it to drop Kolbein, who was caught by his dragon uninjured.
He didn't need a lot of time to map this island, which was a little sad for him. It took him only a few days to properly add it to the map.
He realized he had most likely finished the world map.  

Denial

After Kolbein finished mapping the world, he found himself, ironically, lost. He had nowhere to go, he didn't have a home.
He spent several months flying around the world, unable to understand that there really wasn't anything new to find.  
Overwhelmed by despair, he decided to join the first nomadic village he saw and stay with them for a while.
He learned their language, their traditions and their lifestyle overall.

They didn't use dragons to move - in fact, they had little relationship to dragons. They praised and admired them, but they were never part of their culture.

This gave Kolbein a new perspective of the world. Tai, the Chief of that village, talked to him several times about his negative feelings.
Nomadic cultures were very spiritual. They trusted the skies and stars to be their guardians during their trips, and the ground and animals when they established themselves. They saw themselves as part of something bigger that they were not entitled to.
They were able to see past physical appearances and tend to those whose wounds were in their mind.
Kolbein learned to meditate and rest, sing and dance, laugh and cry. These sort of emotions were never explored in his village, and thus he was never able to express himself.
A year and a half after joining the village, time which he spent healing and resting, he was able to accept that just becasue his quest had finished didn't mean he didn't have any worth. He thanked the village and went back to his home island.    

Returning 'home'

After years of traveling, Kolbein realized that he had mapped the entire world, and had been quite successful at it.
Kolbein visited other places before understanding that there really wasn't much left of the world to explore. One day, he realized that he felt quite guilty about having abandoned his village. He decided he'd go back home, but he realized that he probably wasn't welcome there.
Alone, he started to worry about his fate. He feared he would have nowhere to go and that all he had left now was aimlessly fly around the world, hoping to find a home. After weeks of doubting himself and his worth, he made up his mind and decided he would go back to that island, even if it wasn't to his village.  
Thus, he went back to his home island, and he explored the land until he came across another draconic village. When he arrived, he feared people would recognize him, but over a decade had passed since he left, so he looked very different and he had even changed his name, so no one really associated him with a fugitive.
It took him a while to get used to that new lifestyle which he had abandoned so many years ago. Because he was a stranger, people didn't really accept him, but they gave him shelter and food. Slowly, Kolbein began to take part in the village's numerous activities, such as hunting or gathering fruit. In turn, he showed them old drafts of maps he had made and told them stories about his journeys.
It took him a lot of time to get over his feeling of guilt from running away from home. He learned to accept his mistake and understand why it was wrong, but he also understood the reasons his younger self had to flee in the first place.
After a year, not only had Kolbein made several friends, but he had also become quite a popular figure in the village thanks to his stories and discoveries made during his journey.

 

Meeting his partner

When he was around 30, he met Val, a woman around his age. He had met a lot of people, but for him, she stood out from the rest. They had a lot of things in common: they both loved adventures, learning and defended their own ideals fiercely. It was this attitude that brought them together.
They started out as good friends, Kolbein helping her gather fruit, and Val teaching him about archery again. They slowly began to grow closer. He didn't realize immediately, but Kolbein was falling in love with her.
Lucky for him, the feeling was mutual. They became a couple and got married not long after.
Two years after getting married, they had a son, whom they name Aart. The kid looked a lot like his father, but his attitude was more similar to his mother's. Both parents love their child immensely.
As a parent, Kolbein faced several hardships. Because his relationship with his own father was not the best, sometimes he found himself arguing with his son over small things. However, he accepted the advice both from his wife and other parents, and always tried to apologize to his son, explaning how he felt and getting better every time.
Both parents made sure Aart grew up in a loving household. He wasn't very interested in adventures, but rather passionate about helping his own village. Kolbein was startled by this behaviour, but supported him all the way through.
Because Kolbein was a skilled swordsman, he taught this skill to his son.
He proudly watched his child grow up. Even though he wasn't having a lot of adventures as he would have liked, he greatly enjoyed spending time with his family. He did not want to worry them, so he never told him the story of him fleeing his home village, and instead said that he was from the northern side of the world.

 

The fall of the Orb Dragons

When his son was 13, news arrived that floating islands around the world were starting to fall to the ground, causing chaos all over the world. This prompted Kolbein to travel around the island for a few weeks looking for information about these events.
Eventually, he came across a merchant town. Even though they couldn't communicate fluently, they showed him some drawings that made him understand what was happening: a few cities had formed a group of Dragon Slayers, and were hunting down Orb Dragons.
Because they were vital sources of magic, he thought, their mass disappearance casued magic to disappear, thus weakening the islands and making them fall to the ground.
He returned to his village and informed the Chief of the situation, but to no result, as it was against his wishes to intervene. The Chief advised Kolbein to not interfere, believing that this wouldn't last long.
This, however, did not help Kolbein calm down. Whenever nomadic villages were nearby, he apporached them and tried his best to communicate with them. This is how he heard that dragons were fighting back, attacking humans directly.
Naturally, he saw this as a threat. He decided to teach his son how to ride a dragon, but also brought up his concerns to the Chief once again, but this time he brought other people from the village to back him up. Finally, the Chief accepted that they were in danger, and asked most of the adults to prepare themselves for battle.  
Two days before the group departed, Kolbein and his son argued about whether or not should Aart go with the grown ups. Kolbein asked him to stay safe in the village, and while his son argued that he was old enough for it, he eventually ended up agreeing to what his father said.
The night before, while Aart was sleeping, Kolbein approached Val, who was going to stay in the village, to take care of their son. She agreed, and in turn asked him to come back safely. He didn't answer.
He took with himself an empty journal to write about the experience.

 

The great Calamitosas War

Unlike the others, Kolbein traveled by flight, though he constantly stayed close to them. He thought of the trip as a painfully long ordeal, given that he saw the suffering of his people and he himself was suffering as well.
Given that it wasn't a war in the traditional sense, what they were doing was tracking down the hunters and getting rid of them through whichever method they saw fit. Kolbein himself took down with the help of his dragon or by swordfighting them. However, they were constantly at disadvantage because the hunters' weapons were more advanced and of a wider variety than those of Kolbein's group.  
While they moved around the world, they tried to recruit more people to join them. Of course, they weren't quite successful, but at the end of the day, there were always two or more persons willing to join their team. Soon after, they had to split, as keeping everything under control in such a big group and under such extreme circumstances was becoming more and more impossible.
Kolbein wrote about this and described it as a tearjerking farewell. They were divided into four groups with a leader, Kolbein being the leader of his own group, which was named Xuan. During the first few days, he was extremely worried about the other groups, given that his group was facing several hardships, but that feeling of worry slowly faded away.
After a few days without conflict, Xuan faced a terrible storm which forced them to seek shelter. They came across a gigantic draconic village in the middle of the desert. Believing it was a product of his imaginations, he commanded his group to stop. While everyone started discussing their next move, Kolbein realized that he had seen that draconic village from many years ago.
Once again, he told the group to follow him and they approached the village. It felt strange for him to go back after so many years, but Zhang recognized him and asked that the travelers be given a proper welcome.
The Padma Dynasty and the Xuan Group discussed the circumstances under which they were. Zhang suggested they used the orb dragons living there, but no one agreed, given that it was too dangerous to approach dragons at that time. In fact, no ideas were accepted that night, because everyone was too tired to think of a proper plan, so they decided to call it a night and everyone went to sleep.  
They were woken up by a horrible sound. It was as if something had exploded and they felt the ground shaking. Everyone went outside, and they discovered, to their horror, that one of the nearby floating islands had fallen to the ground. Thankfully, it was far enough from the village that the event didn't damage it, but close enough for everyone to feel the effects.
To make matters worse, they saw an entire fleet approaching them at a worrying speed. This made everyone understand that a big battle was approaching.  
And they were right. Zhang instructed the dragons in the village to help the Xuan group in the battle, and some of them allowed the travelers to ride them.
The battle that followed was massively destructive. It wasn't raining anymore, but thunders and lightnings were still invading the scene. Slowly, Kolbein began to realize that there was no way they could win the battle. Suddenly, a strange sound stopped what everyone was doing. Everyone looked up and realized what it was, and Kolbein froze when he saw Zhang riding an Orb Dragon.
The beast started attacking the ships, effortlessly destroying the first ones that hadn't had time to react. Then, it started using its magic to take down the following ones.
Even then, more and more ships continued to arrive, and there was no chance for the warriors to take all of them down. Kolbein approached Zhang and asked him to retreat and save the Orb Dragons, but to no avail. Zhang told him his plan to destroy the Magic Orb, which would cause an explosion so big it would wipe out the entire fleet. Kolbein argued against it, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to create another plan. He called Zhang a crazy man who was unable to think things through.
Kolbein want back to the battlefield and started shouting at everyone to retreat. While he was doing it, he started thinking about a way to defeat the ships, but ended up going back to Zhang's plan. However, he was able to think of a way of doing it without having to wipe out his own group as well.
He went up to where Zhang was and captured him. This caused the Orb Dragon to get angry at Kolbein and Iaik, and started chasing them. Zhang started yelling at Kolbein, demanding to be released. Kolbein promised that soon enough he'll have nothing to worry about.
He flew around the entire fleet for a while to try to see which was the best place to cause the explosion. But since the dragon chasing them was becoming more and more aggressive, he just went to a random spot.
Iaik was growing tired, and he was slowing down. But Kolbein didn't mind. Instead, he told him to turn around and shoot at the Magic Orb. Zhang panicked and told him that they were too close to the orb, that the explosion would wipe them out.
Indeed, Kolbein was too close to it. The Orb exploded. Iaik let go of Zhang and he and Kolbein went underwater in an attempt to save themselves from being incinerated by the bomb.
That was the last time anyone saw Kolbein.

 

Aftermath

The Xuan group went back home shortly afterwards. Some of them didn't make it, others were wounded, and just a few of them had minor injuries.
They were all received warmly and regarded as heroes. Val and Aart were devastated by the news, but the boy was secretly hoping that his father managed to avoid the explosion and was out there.
Because of his achievements and discoveries, as well as his contributions to defend the Orb Dragon species, Kolbein had several statues and tales dedicated to him in his honor.

 

Relationships

Val: His wife, whom he loved dearly. He was amazed by her intelligence, and grew close to her because of their shared interests. There was not one day where he didn't tell her he loved her or that he didn't appreciate her being there with him.
Aart: His son. The greatest joy he ever experienced was to raise him, and he was always proud of his son. He taught him everything he knew about dragons and told him tales of when he was traveling. He feared that the boy was too devoted to his village, so he told him to stay home when he had to leave because of the ongoing crisis.  

Appearance

He always used his father's cape whenever he was traveling