Scorching

The Scorching, as shown in The Lost Heir (graphic novel), by Mike Holmes

The Scorching was the period in Pyrrhian history which lead to dragons becoming the dominant species of Pyrrhia, and forming tribes. Prior to the Scorching, the continent was ruled by humans.

Description

At least five thousand years ago, humans swarmed the continent. They were organized and advanced, being the dominant life form at the time. They had several warring empires, and large, sprawling cities.

Due to territorial disputes, the human empires began seeking out new weapons to gain an advantage over each other; Cottonmouth came up with the idea to steal and hatch dragon eggs, attempting to tame the dragonets for use as weapons. This plan was adopted by neighboring empires, leading to the theft of dragon eggs across the continent.

The attempts at taming dragonets resulted in injuries, and methods to control them escalated, becoming more violent and cruel. The experiments were moved underground, into stone rooms that couldn't be burned, and soldiers involved adopted heavy spiked armor. The dragons whom had their eggs stolen from them were very upset with the humans. After several years and dozens of eggs stolen, the formerly disorganized dragons united, scorching the human cities and empires in retribution. The human empires collapsed, and modern human settlements have not been able to return to their former size.

One small group of humans migrated overseas to Pantala, lead by Cottonmouth and his continued attempts to control dragons. They may have been followed across the sea by dragons originating from Pyrrhia.

The dragons then formed tribes, and each one appointed a queen; dragons, who were once relatively rare, came to outnumber humans. This made it hard to kill individual dragons. After the Scorching, transformation and resettlement of the terrain occurred (notably, the desert that makes up the Kingdom of Sand formed at some point after the Scorching) as well as constant warfare between dragon tribes that continued for some 500 years afterwards.

Centuries later, Webs mentioned that stories before the Scorching would be best described as legends and fairy tales, due to how unlikely it was for humans to be as advanced as once thought.

Trivia

• Dragons keep track of the date by counting the years since the Scorching, as shown when Moonwatcher mentioned that five thousand and twelve years had passed from the Scorching.
• Tui would eventually like to make a Legends book about the Scorching.^{[citation needed]}
• The events of the Scorching will be addressed in A Guide to the Dragon World.
• Tui stated that the first known tribe and the origin of animus magic were "Scorching-based questions,” although it is likely that all dragons were a combination of the modern tribes, as seen with Freedom.