Watchers

The Watchers are all that remains of the dragons — once the keepers of balance who guided the Ashen Lands. Mortals, blinded by greed and fear, sought to overthrow them. Using forbidden magic, they tore the power from their true forms, binding their spirits into fragile human flesh. Forced to take the shape of their betrayers, they were slaughtered one by one.

But not all perished. A few fled beneath the earth, hiding far below within the Hollow Deeps. Their hearts, once bound to balance, now burn only with hatred. For centuries, their kind has endured, dreaming of vengeance and ruin.

Above, mortals live on in ignorance, telling stories of a bygone age, never knowing what waits beneath their feet. The Watchers remain unseen — silent, patient, and hungry — and though the world does not know their name, they remember every name that once dared defy them.

Immanuel

Immanuel was among the oldest of the dragons, old enough to have watched the first mortal cities rise. He had walked among their people for centuries in mortal shape, sat in their halls and settled their disputes, and it was there that he first heard the whispers — in rooms where he had always been welcome, from mouths he had counselled. Gatherings broke apart when he drew near. By the time he understood what was coming, it was already too late to stop it.

He led his kind to war to end the madness before it took both sides, and lost. Mortals used forbidden magic to tear the power from his true form and bind what remained into human flesh, and he watched his own hunted down one by one by the hands they had once guided. Immanuel walked off that field alive and fled beneath the earth into the Hollow Deeps, wearing the shape of his betrayers.

The world counts him among the dead, as it counts them all. He is not. He waits below with what is left of his kin, patient in the way only something ancient can be, until the hour of his revenge.