Age Of Dragons: Alliance of Light
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When Ghost Dragon refugees, hounded by the Ascendancy, arrived in the Southern lands they found the twin domains of Arrantis and Kalarn, both riven with small wars and disunity.
The Ghost Dragons brought with them tales of the growing dominion of Endless Night in the North, and to their credit the dragons of the South listened. The Solar Dragons saw this as an opportunity to restore unity amongst the Dragons of Order, and brokered a treaty named the Alliance of Light that would guarantee cessation of hostilities between Pure, Argent and Solar draconic factions. The Ghost Dragons were included as well, but as refugees with no domains and little military might, there was an unspoken agreement that they would be second-class citizens in this Alliance, with no place on the ruling council and little influence.
Seeking Allies
The Ascendancy had effortlessly taken over control of Sable, Blood and Velvet breeds, and somehow also convinced a number of Forest Dragons (namely the mountain dwelling Jade Dragons of the North) to join them. The Ashen Dragons had of course declared neutrality, the Ghost Dragons had fled to their enemies, and the remaining majority of the Forest Dragons remained deep within the Heartswood to the west, beyond the reach or interest of draconic society as a whole.
The Alliance, in contrast, had equal strength in theory, with Pure, Argent and Solar united, with the Ghost refugees in tow. However in practice, the Alliance was far weaker, with less unified leadership, a smattering of independent mortal armies rather than one huge one, and internal division still causing great difficulties. In fact, many Dragons of Order refused to do any more than pay lip service to the Alliance, and few were willing to risk personal resources to pursue a war that was still distant to them.
The Alliance of Light knew it needed to draw in allies, and so Solar emissaries were dispatched as ambassadors to the remaining breeds...
They first approached the Storm Dragons that ruled over the oceans to their South, and also the Chimerical Dragons of the Archipelago of Dreams in the coastal region. Both breeds refused to be drawn in. The blue-scaled Storm Dragons declared that the affairs of land and sky were not their domain, and that they had a greater and older war to fight against the Krakens of the Drowned Abyss. A few of their number - mostly young dragons who were already enamoured with the world above the horizon - chose to join the Alliance, but for the most part the breed remained apart. The Chimerical Dragons also turned the Alliance away, citing that they had no talent for war and that their numbers were too low to take casualties. However they agreed to present ambassadors and emissaries to the Alliance's court, who would observe, engage in further diplomacy and offer sage advice. Unknown to the Alliance the Chimericals also took it on themselves to dispatch ambassadors to the Ascendancy as well, with every intention of playing the war to the advantage of the Dragons of Dream.
Finally the Alliance approached the Sky Tribes of the Hunter Dragons and found to their surprise that the Hunters were more than ready to fight the Ascendancy, who they had already recognised as a greater evil than even the "civilised fops" of the Alliance. However, their help would be conditional, and offered solely on the grounds that the Alliance would declare themselves enemies of the sorcerous Ashen Dragons. The Alliance decided that for all their physical might, the Hunters were simply not worth this price - the Ashen's neutrality was the fulcrum around which the war moved, and the Alliance could not afford to drive such potent Dragons to the Ascendancy. Diplomacy continued, and eventually a single Sky Tribe agreed to join the Alliance without condition. This Tribe, named the Talons of Open Sky, had already clashed with Ascendancy forces that strayed into their skies, and in the battles that followed lost two-thirds of their number and been driven south. Now a mere eight dragons they had lost any standing amongst the Hunters as a whole, but were welcomed to the Alliance as equals, with the Solar Ambassadors of the Alliance hoping that they could be used as a diplomatic bridgehead to eventually bring the rest of the Breed into the war.
