“I was like you once—craving understanding, fruitlessly chasing every clue to the Prophecy in hopes of mastering it. I too wanted to avert disaster, bring enlightenment to the world. The Prophecy is a cruel mistress, young one. I have seen all there is to see. I know the stars. The future thunders in my heart. You should thank me for destroying you now, before it comes to pass.”
—Zenobaal, Prophecy Incarnate
Few dragons alive today comprehend the Prophecy as well as Zenobaal. Devoted to study as a youth, Zenobaal mastered potent magic to create a wondrous planar orrery among the clouds, so close to the sky he could almost reach out and touch those burning spheres of Prophecy above. As an adult, Zenobaal did great works. He shared his awe-inspiring insights into the Prophecy with other dragons, and he sought to use his understanding to better the world for all the races that shared it.
Whether the inevitability of the Prophecy slowly rotted away his ideals, or one dread discovery suddenly broke his spirit is unknown, but as a wyrm, Zenobaal withdrew from the world. The great silver dragon sequestered himself in his remote cloud citadel, repelling all visitors. Rumors claim he even rebuked an offer to join the Eyes of Chronepsis, the first to do so in ten thousand years. For a millennia no soul laid eyes on him. He remained locked within his orrery day and night. When Zenobaal finally emerged, he sealed the orrery with wards so potent they say even he cannot breach them. Many believed then that Zenobaal turned his back on the Prophecy, but the staggering truth of his motivations became apparent when the silver dragon began carving elaborate dragonmarks deep into his own hide. His markings are indecipherable even to experienced sages, and many would like to think of the marks as meaningless self-mutilation. Still, it is clear that they grant him tremendous power.
Zenobaal’s mind bears scars of the Prophecy as well. Now in his citadel among the clouds, he obsessively watches other dragons for signs of those who seek to unravel the Prophecy’s threads as he once did. When someone comes too close for comfort to whatever fell discoveries he protects, Zenobaal sees to their swift demise. In his heart, the Prophecy can be mastered by none other than himself. Zenobaal believes he is the Prophecy’s physical incarnation on Eberron, he claims he is descended from the Progenitors, and he believes that one day the world shall end and he will see it reborn from his own flesh. Many lesser dragons scoff at his doomsday predictions, mocking the “mad, scarred dragon whose brain flew to the clouds and never came back.” Other, older dragons remember the Zenobaal they knew a few thousand years ago—a peerless scholar of the Prophecy whose insights were as terrifying as they were wondrous. His contemporaries grow uneasy at Zenobaal’s mention now, half saddened by the great scholar’s descent into mad ravings of apocalypse, half afraid he sees a truth beyond their own grasp.
DESCRIPTION
Zenobaal is a wonder to behold. A mountain of strength, his gigantic silver-scaled form is covered neck to tail in markings whose puzzling mazelike intricacies befuddle lesser beings. The marks shed a purplish glow whose obvious power can be felt thundering in any who stand too close. The rare few who have gazed upon his dragonmarks swear to have seen terrifying visions of a dread reckoning within. They say his markings show the continents plunged below boiling seas as swirling black tempests rain green flame down from above. Much like the inconstant clouds in which he lairs, Zenobaal’s markings swirl, shift, meld and dissipate, making them utterly impossible to study or understand.
Still, the liquid dragonmarks of power are not Zenobaal’s most impressive feature. The dragon’s eyes pierce the soul, and those who dare meet his gaze see swirling clusters of distant stars and nebulas not visible in the night sky. The untold mysteries in his eyes offer the briefest glimpse into the heart of the Prophecy, just enough to teach any who see them how little they comprehend the universe.
MINIONS
Zenobaal cultivates a dangerou s fol low i n g of assassins and brutal killers who never stray from his commands and their immediate fulfillment. The sagacious great wyrm values subtlety above all in his minions. “When killing dragons, it is best to do it quietly and leave no trace. The Eyes of Chronepsis might not see as much as I do, but they are far from blind.” Mindless thuggery is not only beneath the lofty pretense of his “role in the Prophecy,” but also could draw the attention of the Eyes, whom he wishes to keep ignorant for as long as possible.
Zenobaal’s most trusted servant is Jalm D’akrar, a powerful efreeti ninja trained in the shadow arts for countless centuries. Under Zenobaal’s careful (and often painful) tutelage, Jalm has become far more than a mere assassin. He is a whisper of death on the wind, a dragonslayer. Most of the dragons Jalm slays never even detect the efreeti.
Jalm is a lithe, wiry-muscled efreeti whose skin is a darker crimson than others of his race. His face betrays no pain, pleasure, or any other emotion at any time. The devoted efreeti worships Zenobaal as a god on earth, and serves as if compelled by divine hand. He never questions his master’s commandments and never hesitates in carrying out even the vilest tasks.
The peak below Zenobaal’s citadel of clouds is home to a clan of gynosphinxes and their harems of brutish hieracosphinxes and criosphinxes. Their matriarch is Maris-kossja, a Huge 24 HD gynosphinx. Her keen wit and acumen on occasion please Zenobaal, and she has borne him a brood of half-silver dragon gynosphinxes the dragon lovingly calls the Daughters of Prophecy. His daughters are brainwashed from a young age to worship their “divine father” above all, and each would gladly die for Zenobaal.
Finally, Zenobaal keeps a herd of 101 cauchemar nightmares he calls his “Skyblazers.” Their races through the firmament delight the dragon to no end. He enjoys orchestrating their frolics to paint the sky in streaking dragonmarks of flame.
ALLIES AND ENEMIES
Zenobaal’s enemies might be numerous, but they are largely unaware. The Eyes of Chronepsis do their best to keep tabs on the mad Prophet, but many of them grew up with Zenobaal, or studied his brilliant theories on t he Prophec y. More than a few of the Eyes once counted Zenobaal among their closest friends, or looked up to him as a doting mentor in the years before his strangeness overtook him. Most of the Eyes hold Zenobaal in such high respect that they find the idea of his descent into evil as unlikely as it is distasteful. Zenobaal is a master of manipulating his past relationships to keep the Eyes ever one step behind his evil conspiracies of murder. Few suspect he is behind the dozens of dragon deaths that occur each year, and fewer still dare accuse the mighty prophet in open forum.
The Chamber is Zenobaal’s most reviled foe. He views these young idealists with a malignant mixture of sorrow and contempt. The promising among the Chamber’s members remind Zenobaal of himself in his youth before he realized the unspeakable doom that awaits the world. Some days he swears to himself it is his duty to destroy these upstarts before they see the horror that lurks in the murky shadows of the future. Other days, jealousy at the Chamber’s progress drives him to order the execution of their finest. Few members of the Chamber suspect Zenobaal is behind the death of their order’s best and brightest. Part of Zenobaal’s ability to avoid detection is the unfathomable randomness with which he strikes. Seemingly gigantic leaps in understanding the Prophecy often do not trouble the sage, while uncovering an obscure morsel of information provokes his immediate and lethal response.
The level of secrecy Zenobaal maintains and his general disdain for all other creatures makes alliance of any kind impossible. The prophet views reliance on other beings as beneath him. As the Prophecy Incarnate, he is all things, and in Zenobaal’s mind all creatures on Eberron dance to his masterful schemes, even if they don’t know it.
HOOKS
The PCs might draw the interest of Zenobaal upon discovering a tidbit of the Prophecy he deems forbidden, at which point the dragon sage dispatches his Daughters, or worse, Jalm D’akrar to deal with them. More than likely, Zenobaal is not the antagonist of a single adventure but the central mastermind of a campaign—a constant nemesis just out of reach of the party. Even a group of epic-level PCs could spend a decade trying to unravel the mysteries of Zenobaal before tying him to any number of heinous crimes and mustering the power to oppose him. Some possible hooks include: Death of a Mentor: If the PCs toil in the service of the Chamber, they might suddenly arrive at their mentor’s redoubt to find her vanished. Only a minuscule sliver of a clue points to any wrongdoing—an obscure reference to a “remarkable new discovery concerning the Prophecy” in her hidden chronicle of research. Doomsday’s Doom: A powerful doomsday splinter cult of the Dragon Below opposing the PCs suddenly goes silent. Their members vanish to the last, their strongholds stand vacant, and all trace of their investigations into the “oncoming apocalypse” wiped away. The cultists accidentally stumbled onto Zenobaal’s “truths” and he erased them from the face of the planet.