Swynfaredian the Great Royal Trials Conspiracy

If all of Scarterra's dragons united, they could take over the world in a matter of weeks, but it is joked that dragons are infamously bad at working together. It's hard enough for two dragons to "unify" long enough to produce a viable clutch of eggs.   It only took four dragons to create the Kingdom of Swynfaredia, one of the strongest and longest lived human nations in the Third Age. The "Founding Dragons" were Fremiss the Vibrant, Numaness the Mystic, Gorisonad the Wise, and Kovenoth the Builder.   The four Founding Dragons wanted to create a nation that could govern itself without it's four dragon patrons. Their plan was to use half-dragons and their descendants to be the ruling class of Swynfaredia.   The four Founding Dragons had conceived and raised over two score half-dragon children between them to be the upper class. They agreed that a hereditary monarch would be the most stable for a human nation, but they wanted the first king to gain his position by merit. Each Dragon chose one son to be their champion. And the four champions went through a series of elaborate challenges with a points system as sort of a tournament called the Great Royal Trials.   The presumed front runner in the contest was Lord Tecwyn Fremiss, the oldest and most experienced of the four champions.

Swynfaredian Dragonbloods, the nobility of Swynfaredia are all sorcerers and sorcresses backed by both tradition and law. Their magic is one of the main levers they use to keep the upper hand on the lower classes.   Swynfaredian politics has a lot of byzantine infighting and every member of the nobility has magical ability so magical forms of epsionage are very common. This means Dragonbloods are constantly on guard for the smallest signs of magical espionage. They have a bit of a blindspot against non-magical forms of epsionage.   In this case conspirators took advantage of Lord Tecwyn's well known propensity to flirt womanize and arranged to have an attractive tavern maid spike Tecwyn's food with an herb that sort of acts as catnip for dragons and to a lesser extant half-dragons. They found a quantity small enough to slip under poison detection spells but large enough to have a tangible effect to throw Tecwyn a smidgeon off his game.

Lord Steffon Numaness was the presumed underdog of the four champions, Steffon barely edged out Tecwyn in the end. The Kovenoth and Gorisonad champions were knocked out of the running pretty early in the Trials.  

Most of the pawns in the conspiracy were quietly eliminated. One got away. Armynn the Half-satyr, who procured the poison, disappeared. But he only knew a small portion of the picture and a necromancer captured his ghost later and bound it in a Prison Lantern and this Prison Lantern eventually wound up in the hands of House Selwyth who opted to bury the lantern underground and sit on their evidnce just in case.   It's important to note that souls bound to Prison Lanterns are incapable of lying to direct questions by a living person holding the lantern.   There was some accusations of cheating because it was a surprise upset that Steffon won the Trials, but no one oculd produce any real evidence of cheating.   For generations to come, whenever people were upset at the king or queen, there might be recurring whispers that King Steffon the First cheated during the Trials, but over the centuries, this whispers of conspiracy became less and less frequent. Once you have six or seven kings in a row, does it really matter if the first king was a cheater?

by me with Hero Forge

The Swynfaredian nobility love to speak of their dragon blood but their behavior is much more like that of vipers than dragons.   -Spymaster Ralnor of Fumaya

    The old rumors that King Steffon the First cheated don't seem relevant now, as the scandal is so old. But Swynfaredia's noble houses have no shortage of other things to squabble over complete with three major civil wars and an uncountable number of murders, scandals, and suspicious "accidents".   The last ten years have been especially bad. There was even an assassination attempt on the queen herself. It was thwarted easily, but it still left the queen rattled. She believed it would be helpful to point the feuding houses at an external threat that they can unite against. She saber rattled and made up trumped up charges against the neighboring Kingdom of Fumaya in order to justify an invasion.   As an added bonus, she can dole conquered land to nobles who support her and put nobles who don't support her into dangerous situations where Fumayans might kill them.   Now Fumayan adventurers raided House Selwyth's vault of secrets and got the prison lantern with Armynn and got his story. Armynn procured the poison and passed it to the hands of a barmaid at a place where Lord Tecwynwas knwon to frequent. When the barmaid disappeared mysteriously, Armynn went into hiding and left Swynfaredia going south into a nation that no longer exists (Swynfaredia annexed it a few centuries after Armynn's death).   Armynn was given instructions and payment by an anonymous hooded figure, so he does not know who set this up or what faction they represented.   But the Fumayan adventurers are pondering ways to use proof that the rumors of cheating were real. Modern Swynfaredians are unlikely to care about an 899 year old scandal but a lot of Dragonbloods were already plotting against the queen in some fashion so they are hoping that this can be a spark to ignite a new Swynfaredian civil war.   And obviously, if Swynfaredia is fighting Swynfaredia, they'll have to cancel their invasion of Fumaya and maybe even open themselves up to Fumaya turning tables and capturing a piece of Swynfaredia. A large border portion between Swynfaredia and Fumaya used to be the nation of Talama and some locals there still consider themselves Talaman, not Swynfaredian and Talaman's royal family in exile has since married into Fumaya's nobility.