Rage of Dragons

The Rage of Dragons is a catastrophic event that occurs regularly in the Dungeons & Dragons world of the Forgotten Realms. Also known as the Dracorage, it stems from an ancient period in which Elves and Dragons warred for dominance over the world; in desperation, the elves created a mythal (epic, self-sustaining spell) and tied it to a comet that would periodically enter their planet's orbit. This mythal caused all dragons, great or small, to fly into blind frenzies and become consumed with the urge to destroy, even at the cost of their own lives. And when we say all dragons, we mean it! From the Metallic Dragons and Chromatic Dragons down to Faerie Dragons and other Dragonets, if it had the Dragon type, it went nuts!

In this blind, unthinking rage, the dragons could not use their keen minds and so the elves could out-think and out-maneuver them. This ended dragon dominance over the planet and allowed the elves to raise their own great empires - and incidentally freed all of the other humanoid races too. One small problem: the elves forgot to turn the mythal OFF -- the result of everyone involved in the final draconic assault on the fortress (including the vast majority of the Avariel elven subrace, who were its defenders) dying to a man (or a dragon).

So, whenever that comet, known as the King-Killer Star, swung back into orbit around the Forgotten Realms, the dragons went mad again until it left within 10 days.

This posed a particular problem when Sammaster, the crazy lich who founded the Cult of the Dragon learned of this ancient mythal and sought to use it; after all, what better way than to both entice dragons into becoming dracoliches and to set things up for a world in which dracoliches would rule? His meddling caused the Last Rage of Dragon in 1373 DR, which was ended when a band of heroes led by a Half-Golem Human, Dorn Graybrook, and a Song Dragon, Karasendrieth, slew Sammaster for the final time and broke the Dracorage Mythal, ending its blight forever.

This is a good news, bad news situation for the world really. Good news: no more Dracorage, so no more 10-day stretch of every single Dragon-type creature going homicidally insane, which is always a positive. Bad news: the Dracorage was what caused the downfall of the original dragon empires and prevented any major attempts to rebuild it, so with the mythal gone, that little obstacle is gone with it. Which means that the great game can now be played in earnest...