Whether it is regarded as interpretive myth or historical record, “
Elegy for the First World”
offers an explanation for the common elements that appear in the legends and mythology of so many worlds across the Material Plane.
“
Elegy for the First World” is an ancient Draconic poem of unknown origin,
found with minor variations in the collections and traditions of dragons across many worlds of the Material Plane. Various creation myths told on different worlds echo some of the themes and notions of this poem, particularly when they describe dragons or draconic gods being involved in creating the world. But the heart of the poem is a profound assertion not found in any of those individual myths.
The elegy
suggests that before the myriad worlds of the Material Plane came into being, before Oerth and Toril and Eberron and Krynn existed, the primordial dragons—Bahamut and Tiamat—worked together to create the Material Plane in the form of a single First World. All the worlds that now constitute the plane are, in the words of the poem, “seedling realities” formed when the First World was sundered in some unexplained catastrophe.
The
story told in “Elegy for the First World”
suggests a number of truths regarding the nature of dragons.