T'chin (Dragonkin of the East)

The Dragonkin of the T'chin Empire are regular visitors to the eastern cities, arriving in their strange, elegant Dragonships that sail through the sky as easily as they ply the waters. They often bring vast hauls of rare metal trinkets, ceramics and exotic herbs and spices with them making good business with the bazaari for iron ore, gemstones and textiles. Whilst the Dragonborn do not forbid visitors to their lands, few ships can sail past the hazardous reefs that guard their domain and the route by land across the Thousand Grains marshland is perilous. Still a few brave souls have travelled east beyond the Khagar Mountains or landed on the T'chin coast to find cities that dwarf the jewels of the Caliphate in their size and splendour. The Dragonkin numbers are legion and their cities house vast multi-level cavernous buildings that reach up into the heavens themselves.

The T'chin also display a vastly superior understanding of the arcane and it is only the fact of a regressive, dictatorial Empire that values the Old Way of the Wyrms above all else that halts their powerful Magis from dominating the entire world with their magic. The T'chin Empire is blessedly an inward looking entity, forever busying itself with maintaining the balance of its several strains of people. This is usually a subtle affair but on occasion spills into genocidal cullings of overpopulated areas.

Society in the Empire is highly structured with little freedom to cast off your birth colours and the position inherited from your parents. Each Dragonkin will perform the same function as his father or mother, depending on gender, until they die and so will any children they are allowed to hatch. Population control is a part of the balance the T'chin strive towards and thus mating and brooding are privileges that are given to the lucky few based on the need to replace numbers in each social stream to maintain equilibrium.

It is no surprise that Dragonkin who have ventured beyond the borders of the Empire find a world of chaos and freedom that is liberating. A few indulge a little too readily in these freedoms. Whilst tolerated in the Caliphate, partly for their value in trade and partly for fear of angering their Empire, they are often victims of nefarious dealers in their organs, eggs and hides which are highly valued components in the arcane or to a competent leatherworker. The experienced Dragonkin traveller learns early to avoid dark alleys without protection in numbers.