Bayt-Altinin

Ages ago, dragons lived more or less isolated lives. They sought each other out to mate and raise their young, but then went on their own ways. When they came into conflict with each other, the stronger of the two would claim territory or treasure from the loser and that was just how they lived.

All that changed with the arrival of mortals. First thought to be beneath the notice of nearly immortal dragonkind, the longer-lived peoples like elves and dwarves evolved quickly from savage primitives to strong, thriving cultures in their own right. Shorter lived species like humans and orcs proved to be even more adaptable, making up for their shorter lifespans with passion for life that dragonkind had never encountered before.

Curious dragons used magic to walk among these mortals and over the millennia, occasional trysts between disguised dragons and mortals gave rise to the dragonborn clans. Suddenly (to the dragons), they had an entire race of mortals that revered them nigh unto gods. Some exceptionally powerful dragons even proved to be able to pass on magical talents to their mortal descendants (dragonborn and otherwise) and the wisest among them began to make use of their dragonborn vassals to increase their wealth and power and that of their descendants (both dragonborn and true dragons).

The original causes of the war that followed are lost to history. Some conflict among mortals breached the boundaries between planes as the sides sought advantage over their enemies. In the end, many metallic and chromatic dragons alike lost their lives driving back the extraplanar hordes that sought to turn the material plane into a proxy battleground for conflicts that were impossibly ancient even to the oldest great wyrms.

With their numbers greatly reduced, the dragons found themselves vulnerable for the first time. So they put their natural distrust of each other aside and, over centuries, forged the Altinian Council to guide the affairs of dragonkind in the world.

The Council's first decision was to find a safe place for dragonkind and their dragonborn vassals to call home. Isolated lairs were targets, and while grown dragons were more than a match for any single mortal, groups of hunters posed serious threats to younger dragons without dragonborn clans to protect them. They sent dragonborn scouts abroad throughout the world to find a suitable home.

They found one.

Bayt-Altinin is a large continent that lies along the equator on the other side of the world from the island where mortals would found the Arcturus Academy of the Arcane. The lowlands are hot with climates ranging from tropical rain forest to desert. Great mountain ranges rise out of the boundaries between tectonic plates in the continent's interior, where even silver and white dragons can live comfortably in land that never sees summer. Volcanic islands stretch out from the eastern and western ends of the continent, where gold and red dragons typically make their homes. Through a bit of good luck and a massive amount of magic and engineering, Bayt-Altinin is a draconic paradise.