Aeons ago, the world was ruled by the Dragon Kings. Everybody knows this, of course. It is the horror story that mothers whisper to their children, to keep them obedient. It is the cautionary tale that fathers tell their sons, to remind them that they must grow strong. It is the political myth which underpins every alliance, the legendary hell-on-earth which keeps people of all races observant to their churches, their temples, their Gods of Light.

But no story, tale, myth, or legend can measure up to the truth. Dragons are REAL, and they have returned. Even now, one creeps through the darkness beneath the world, coming home to roost in the Bloodrise Mountain with a captured princess... But this is not his story.

Not just yet.

You are Karz, son of Girraug, employee and citizen of the Blackmantle Corporation… Or, you were. Your mother and father both died when the Dragon King came—dutiful workers and warriors that they were, obedient and brave and loyal. Your father died with the war-cry of the Mountain King on his lips. Your mother perished when the entire camp collapsed inward, smothering dozens—men, women, children, babies. Nobody was spared. Not your parents, not your little brother.

Reality came crashing down, and the Mountain King and the other Gods of Light were nowhere to be seen. The only power to be found in the Bloodrise Mountain Range was the Dragon King.

Even before the Dragon King came, you were an outcast. You were never properly called Karz Girraugson, or Karz Mailmaker, or any other such name. You were called Karz Beardless, Karz Smoothchin, Karz the Girlyman. Since your beard had failed to grow, you had been regarded as effeminate, soft, weak. As much as you hated him at first—as you still hate him, sometimes, when you remember the faces and voices of your parents, your brother—it was the Dragon King who liberated you from that.