Thousands of years before the time of our story, the Hyrian Mountains swarmed with monstrous winged reptiles -- survivals of an elder time before man walked the earth. The forefathers of these creatures had ruled the earth and sky, sweeping out the firmament to snatch their prey and bearing the torn carcasses back to lofty eyries in the accessible peaks of the Hyrian Mountains, where the bones of these victims still litter the valleys below. But these creatures had dwindled as man spread across the globe and hunted into extinction the massive, slow moving ungulates that formed their chief prey. They grew fewer and shrunk in size till their great leathery pinions scarcely spanned a dozen yards. They now preyed only on mountain goats and wild sheep -- and the occasional unwary man.

Yet these creatures still possessed the capacity to revert to their former gargantuan power. Every hundred or so years a hatchling of startling size appeared. Often it would starve when its comparatively diminutive parents failed to provide adequate nourishment. But if the hatchling survived and grew to maturity then its fearsome depredations would depopulate entire villages. Fortunately the range of even the largest of the creatures was restricted by their mode of flight, and these monstrosities were confined to the slopes of the Hyrian Mountains. For although they could glide for hours, even days, on their leathery wings, the dragons could take flight only by clambering to great heights and launching themselves into the air.

Still more rarely, the protean nature of these elder creatures created a prodigy that surpassed the awesome power of these atavistic monsters. A thousand years ago, the great worm Bhaleel was born. As large as the greatest of the dragons of the Hyrian Mountains, Bhaleel could also fly like a bird: rather than launching himself from a height, he simply rose into the air. His depredations spread throughout the Hyrian Mountains and soon reduced the human and animal population there. Impelled by insatiable hunger, he began to roam farther afield. The bare Ispochar held no sustenance, but the rich bottom lands of the River Basht teemed with prey... both human and animal. (more to come later)