QOkay, here's one about recent continuity that I and a few others have been scratching our heads over.
Since third edition, the goddess Tiamat has not been living in Avernus like she has in all the other campaign settings. Powers and Pantheons said that she would officially join the Faerûnian Pantheon in the middle of 1371 DR. Her divine realm since joining has been listed alternately as Heliopolis (in Faiths and Pantheons), Dragon Eyrie (in the Player's Guide to Faerûn) and Banehold, serving Bane (in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide), despite Faiths and Pantheons saying that Bane was one of her enemies.
Tiamat made a cameo in Erin Evans' Fire in the Blood and is described as "Guardian to the Gate of the Second Layer. Latest Vassal of Asmodeus." and it's said that she has her own kingdom in Avernus.
I recently came across this post made by Ms Evans: “Tiamat came up in story summit discussions, which was where Ed Greenwood mentioned that they'd kicked around the idea back in the day that whatever Tiamat consumed was completely destroyed. Which just kind of lit up my whole brain--what a fantastic reason to share territory with this dragon goddess! I'll admit, at the time, I think we were all under the impression that she was placed in Avernus by 4E. I know I was. She's in Avernus in pretty much every other campaign setting, after all, and a lot of the 4E changes did have a streamlining effect. But she was in Banehold for some reason. So this is sort of a smoothing scene to account for that transition. Because Tiamat doesn't deserve to skulk around in Banehold like some kind of beaten pet! She's a Queen! She deserves her own little realm in the Nine Hells!”
So why does she need rescuing from Avernus in the Tyranny of Dragons storyline? I briefly chatted to Wolfgang Baur about this but all he said was that "It was the premise provided by Wizards, and Kobold Press really isn’t in a position to dictate canon to the Wizards team."
AEd spent some time trying to get an official answer for you, and at length abandoned that attempt and spun his own (which of course he has the moral and legal authority to do, although Wizards can of course at some future time supercede what I’m posting below). So, heeere’s Ed:
Tiamat’s physical body, like those of the Chosen of Mystra, had been slowly failing over (much passing) time; regenerating ever more slowly, and afflicting her with internal aches and pains.
Tapping into the power of her growing (“growing” in part because of disaffected members of the Cult of the Dragon who turned to her as “the True One” or “the True Hope”) worship in Faerûn (as she did in 1371 DR, from the point of view of inhabitants of Toril) renewed and strengthened Tiamat, and allowed her to truly become “The Dragon Queen” as her clergy on Toril reverenced her.
Yet this very experience of ailing and aging made Tiamat, until then a creature of bold fury and reckless, aggressive attacks (a “to think is to act” creature) suddenly more paranoid. So she misinformed her clergy—who were in no position to see through her lie and “know” differently—as to her celestial whereabouts (and wealth, and servitors, and vast ruled dominion). She also became more scheming and patient, and determined to spread “parts of” herself into several places, so as to survive the ravages of time and attacks of foes.
Her great kingdoms on Heliopolis and later Dragon Eyrie were both largely fictitious; she “changed locations” from one to the other because intrepid wizards adventuring from the Realms (ambitious members of the Twisted Rune seeking allies or sources of power they could plunder or compel) actually reached Heliopolis—and discovered Tiamat had no “realm” there at all.
What she did have in Heliopolis was a lone spellbound, shriveled lichnee half-mad Netherese archwizard, magically confined in a cave, who was the Listener of the Fiveheaded (he heard the words of prayers made to Tiamat, and “saw”offerings, and yielded up that information when Tiamat mentally visited his mind). If need be, Tiamat’s sentience could “move into” the Listener’s mind and so “be on” Heliopolis, and even use the Listener’s lich body as her own (and survive if her five-headed form was ever destroyed). She apparently used the Listener at least twice to attack foes from behind when they had no idea Tiamat was anything other than in front of them, and alone. (She could also manifest an aspect of herself through him, although if she ever did so in earnest rather than in mere brief experimentation, no one of Toril is aware of it.)
When the Twisted Rune explorers found the Listener and tried to mindscour him for magical lore, they uncovered Tiamat’s secret. Enraged, she entered into the Listener, managed to mentally dominate the Twisted Rune mages, and compelled them to assist her in “relocating” her to Dragon Eyrie by assisting her in mentally destroying and subsuming the draconic deity Azharul (whom she’d long been spying upon as a scheming rival she should someday destroy) and took over his body and rulership, renaming his gigantic and labyrinthine cavern lair as the Cave of Greed (to others in Dragon Eyrie and to priests and sages, it remained “the Dragonspawn Pits of Azharul,” and they merely assumed old Azharul—a fearsome, bad-tempered draconic deity of many long, sharp projecting body-barbs and a mighty mastery of magic—had hit upon a new name for his home). She then used Azharul, assisted by what was left of the Listener and the controlled Twisted Rune wizards, very much as she had done the Listener back on Heliopolis. (The “soft borders” connecting Dragon Eyrie with Avernus allowed Tiamat to visit the Cave of Greed whenever she wanted to, but she apparently did so only once, to convince dragons, both living and spirits, and some abishai, to accompany her to Avernus and fight for her there.)
For all of this time, the “real” Tiamat was in Avernus in the Nine Hells, rebuilding an ever-larger kingdom in the most inhospitable mountains (and rift-like alpine valleys) of that layer (she had long ago been demoted from rulership of that largely-lawless layer because she was so ineffective in preventing the various outcast devils there from repeatedly attempting coups that threatened the dominion of Asmodeus—though the Supreme delved deep into her mind and saw no disloyalty, so he didn’t destroy or otherwise punish her, merely left her to her own devices, reasoning that in building her own power, she would fight against the outcasts and any other intruders far more effectively than she would otherwise—and he also left her with the notion that she could “earn” her “return to rule” if she pleased him enough with her performance; formally, she was given by Asmodeus the duty of guarding the largest and best-known way between Avernus and Dis—the route by which “dumb beasts,” lesser and least devils, and armies gated in from elsewhere would have to pass through, and she fulfilled this duty faithfully by stationing an aspect of herself there that never departed nor neglected this duty).
When the Spellplague struck, it didn’t just affect Toril (and Abeir); its ripples tore through the multiverse, wreaking havoc large and small. Dragon Eyrie disintegrated, and although the plane of the great “Dragon Mountain” was linked to Avernus (and other planes), in the tumult of destruction a stunned and half-crushed Azharul (“physically torn open like a fowl spatchcocked or butterflied for the grill,” as described by one who saw his violent arrival in the Barrens) was hurled violently into Gehenna (Banehold), where an opportunistic Bane pounced on the dazed and physically ruined draconic deity to enslave it—and discovered Tiamat’s presence. And immediately sought to compel and rule her.
Tiamat was furious, of course, but her true self was still in Avernus, and she was wise enough to see that considering the challenges she was facing at the time from various ambitious outcast devils, she could not hope to survive a battle on two fronts—and she would have to exert her full power to defeat Bane in Banehold. So she allowed Bane to “enslave” the part of her that was Azharul, and even served him faithfully, learning his secrets (and relaying them wholly and accurately to Asmodeus as she learned them, which pleased the Overlord of Hell very much). For his part, Bane exults in tyranny and rule, not slaughter and destruction, and so gloated in harassing his new slave in every way he could. And Tiamat suffered all of these indignities and bided her time, learning all she could of Bane’s nature and powers, awaiting her chance.
And when it came—the details aren’t known—she struck ruthlessly, not only freeing herself from Bane’s tyranny and snatching her Azharul body out of Banehold and into Avernus, she drained much of Bane’s power to do so, passing all that she didn’t need to mend the Azharul body and fully link it with her own—so that in Avernus, she has her “true” body, an aspect guarding the Way To Dis, and a “battle body” or fighting body (Azharul) she uses to meet with all others, keeping her true self safe and hidden (so an adventurer encounter, such as can happen in the Rise of Tiamat™ adventure, will be with this body, enabling Tiamat herself to survive unscathed any adventurer attack).
Delighted by the gift of divine power torn from Bane (who survived, lessened in might but not in essentials), Asmodeus offered her the rulership of Avernus once more. Whereupon Tiamat surprised (and touched him) by saying she didn’t want it because she wouldn’t be good at it, that Bel would do a better job and that Asmodeus shouldn’t spurn him and so make him a foe, and that Avernus needed to remain a largely-wild “safety valve” for the Nine Hells, to keep his rule strong—but that she would willingly and devotedly be “his champion” on Avernus, smiting all who worked against him whenever she became aware of their “treason.” So Asmodeus held a great ceremony in which he named Tiamat formally “Guardian to the Gate of the Second Layer,” and his “Latest Vassal.”
He also privately urged her to provide covert magical aid to the imprisoned Zariel, behind Bel’s back, to make sure that Bel didn’t siphon all of Zariel’s power and “become a problem.”
When she did so, she came under Bel’s compulsion, and through their hostile meeting of minds saw that Asmodeus had forewarned and prepared Bel to deal with her, so as to establish firm control over her—imprisoning her in her kingdom in Avernus, so that she “doesn’t get above herself” and kindle personal ambitions.
Tiamat was enraged anew, though she hid her ire from both Bel and Asmodeus, and now believes that all the archdevils of the Nine Hells see her as a “lesser being,” a “mere monster” to be duped and exploited. Determined to be caged nowhere and by no one, she reaches out to her mortal worshippers in the Realms, and conceives of a way to manipulate them into bringing her—or at least an aspect of her—into Toril.
All of which has left her in the situation and location she’s in at the beginning of Hoard of the Dragon Queen.™
There. Hope this is of help.
So saith Ed. Who gave us our first detailed look at the Nine Hells, so many years ago, helped Jeff Grubb as a sounding board when the original Manual of the Planes was being written, and has been tinkering with details of the various conflicting cosmologies of the multiverse ever since.
Knowing Realms fans and scribes as I do, I’m sure this lore will generate lots of questions and objections, so I’m standing by. Dressed in my best red devil Hallowe’en costume, the skintight horny horns rig with the little barbed tail.
love to all,
THO
