Dragon War

The Dragon War was an armed conflict between the angelic Earthen and the Dragon Kings of Maztica around 1,000 years after the end of the Sin War. The war lasted for about a year, despite the immense strength of the dragons, as they were no match for the powerful Light magic wielded by the Earthen. Despite their collective defeat, they continued to haunt Maztica for years afterwards, making concerted and repeated efforts to escape from custody.

The Four Kings
During the re-ordering of Middle-Earth after the Sin Wars, the Wild Gods began to flourish and develop on the planet as primal manifestations of nature itself. Usually benevolent or at least, peaceful, they curated nature by consecrating their surrounding environments, bringing order and healing wherever they tread. However, this was not the case for Maztica, where the Wild Gods ended up becoming chaotic and overpowered. From the mouth of each river running the continent came forth the Dragon Kings: terrifying, malicious, restless entities that sought to make out their own domain over the land. They were Ao Guang, the blue dragon, Ao Qin, the red dragon, Ao Run, the white dragon, and Ao Shun, the black dragon. At first, each king ruled his dominion without much interference from the others, but as their influence grew, sooner or later things would come to a head.

The war kicked off after Ao Qin destroyed the Qinghai Temple belonging to worshippers of Ao Run, in an act of aggression against the dragons of the west. Thus, the dragons were throne into conflict. Ao Run, Ao Guang and Ao Shun all at first allied with each other against Ao Qin, collectively despising him for his aggressive behaviour and offensives against their holy sites. Realising he was outnumbered, Ao Qin used a portion of his power to turn himself into a white dragon, then, becoming one with the air, disappeared into the Ether only to reappear on Ao Guang's territory. Revealing himself as a white dragon in that instance, he destroyed the Azure Temple. He repeated this trick with Ao Shun's Baikal Temple, this time only disguised as a blue dragon. This caused substantial confusion among the dragons. Eventually Ao Guang saw the futility of the alliance and withdrew himself from the other two.

The war was now on: Ao Guang was fighting against Ao Qin and the combined forces of Ao Run and Ao Shun. The perceived betrayals only exacerbated the conflict, with terrible tectonic disasters taking place due to the constant fighting of the dragons.

Coming of the Earthen
The Earth Watchers were monitoring the situation from the High Heavens, and noticed how Maztica was breaking apart. They realised that the spreading of chaos would only continue if they ignored affairs, so Shemyaza commissioned the Earthen to deal with the situation by capturing the Dragon Kings and imprisoning them within the body of the land. These Earthen were led by keeper Naz'gomal, and using the power of the holy Light, they intercepted the Dragon War and one-by-one captured Ao Run, Ao Shun and finally Ao Guang, who was deep in isolation by the time he was apprehended.

The trend stopped at Ao Qin, who violently resisted all efforts to restrain him. At one point during the assault on the Vermilion Seat, his point of power, the red king split himself into six different dragons of varying colours, only to reform several times over. He created explosions of fire and toxic smoke on the battlefield to throw off his attackers, but all of this expended valuable energy. To compensate, he devoured the Light magic that the Earthen used to attack him. It was from here that Naz'gomal derived his idea: feeding Ao Qin to death. Thus, the Earthen overfed the King, who greedily nourished his depleting powers with the Light - only to become oversaturated and burst into a million pieces, bringing his evil reign to an end. His remains were buried under the Earth, but his spirit - unbeknownst to the Earthen - escaped, and would reform over the years.