The Dragonlord Crusade

[Havard]

By 3500 BC Blackmoor had over a dozen minor colonies from Evergrun through the Oltec lands. Little more than trading posts, these colonies paved the way for later invasions, both militarily and culturally. Blackmoor began colonising Brun wholesale, specifically in the southern "Dawn Territories", which were then known as New Thonia. The peoples of New Thonia enslaved the local Oltec population (who were not under the aegis of the Oltec Empire). United with the Dwarves of the Free Dwarven Principalities, the Thonian High Church began a genocidal crusade against the Beastmen of Draconia, invoking the wrath of the Draconian Empire (the First Beastmen Crusade, 3480 through 3420 BC). The Chromatic Dragons discovered during that war that they had been unwise to eschew the advancement of technology, as many of them died under the volleys of the Blackmoorian guns. In the end, the Chromatic Dragons were forced to make a treaty with the Kingdom of Blackmoor (The Treaty of Gandhar, 3420 BC) that not only forced them to renounce their alliance with the Beastmen, but also forced them to recognise the Free Dwarven Principalities and cede the lands to the south to Blackmoor. Rather than be slaughtered, many Draconian Beastmen fled to the north, where they joined their brethren in the "Borean Valley". Many of the functions formerly held by Beastmen in the Draconian Empire were thereafter performed by Human slaves bought from Blackmoor or the newly formed Azcan Empire (mostly Neathar and Oltecs).

This description details a time around the year 1500 in the Blackmoor Calendar (500 years into Blackmoor's future). Most likely this was also the time of the "First Dragonlord" mentioned in Thorarinn Gunnarson's novels. Blackmoorians at this time is at the late Renaissance/Early Colonial technology with some exceptional technology thrown into the mix.

How would this make for a fun setting to play in?

-Havard