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How A Legendary Paladin Fell From Grace Down The Path Of Madness
Hi everyone.
All Things DnD is back with another story.
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself ending up becoming a villain.
Tell us if you’ve ever become the villain after listening to this:
I’ve always looked at the lore of dnd and been happy to use it as a guideline, not alway
concrete setting laws.
I keep most of the gods, and certain groups within, but usually I just make my own world
with the building blocks provided.
But one thing in DNDI love and will never change, the dragons.
The whole metal vs chromatic bit is something I absolutely adore.
And I love stories of beings struggling against their nature, in the words of Paarthunax:
“What is better?
To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature with great effort?”
Needless to say, no one can blame me for loving this theme and playing around with it and
similar ones, but I was poking about online when I saw the question “Who’s your favorite
villain with good intentions from your campaigns?”
And instantly I was reminded of one of my favorite “villains” given to us by a good
family friend who is no longer with us.
So without further ado, please listen to the tale of Hadar the Golden, Hadar the wise,
Hadar the kind, Hadar the Righteous, Hadar One Eye, Hadar the Honored...Hadar the Mad…
Once long long ago, there were five cities built at the base of a massive mountain.
They divided five plots of land surrounding the mountain into five separate kingdoms.
Despite their proximity, the kings of these kingdoms did not get along, despite all five
kingdoms CONSTANTLY trying to get along and arranging marriages into each other’s families
pushing for unification and trying desperately to bring their peoples together, it never
worked.
Every time they were close to establishing a new uniting law or ceremony between two
or more of the kingdoms, assassins or military groups would strike.
But it was impossible to determine who was responsible for the nefarious actions because
there would always be evidence to implicate multiple kings.
For hundreds of years this continued, the kingdoms struggling just barely at the brink
of war, unable to get a hold of proof to justify war, but every outstretched hand ended up
with their fingers metaphorically lopped off.
But the kings had a secret weapon, all of the royal families shared a single family
ancestor, and as corny as it was, they trusted each other and they knew this was not each
other’s doing through the blood oath that bound them and their forefathers.
They were all heroes of their own people and wanted to unite the kingdoms through their
people, but despite their best intentions and efforts, something kept intervening.
It took several generations, but they finally discovered extremely deep roots into each
and every one of their kingdoms, rotting them from the core out.
They came to the understanding that something was manipulating the kingdoms, pulling their
strings, and for the most part succeeding.
Years were spent secretly searching for the cause.
And almost by accident...the source was finally discovered.
Living deep within the mountain between the kingdoms was a particularly nasty dragon.
An odd, very ancient red dragon who didn’t seem concerned with killing and destruction
but was obsessed with manipulating the lives of mortals.
He played the kingdoms as if they were instruments in his grand orchestra of pain and suffering.
This discovery gripped the king’s hearts with fear.
They realized this ancient threat was far beyond any normal dragon or even an ancient
dragon.
This beast was something...else.
He declared himself to be a spawn of Tiamat, he proved to be much older and much more powerful
than any other dragons.
The discovery of the dragon plunged the kingdoms into chaos.
The kings, now finally united by a common enemy, sent their armies to the mountain.
When opposed, the dragon who had named himself Nalahar the Red quickly showed his hand.
As the armies approached the mountain, dozens of cultists in the kingdoms began to riot
and perform horrible blood sacrifices.
It was an odd and horribly destructive event which led many to believe that Nalahar was
trying to ascend into godhood through constant ritual sacrifices.
But the kings felt this was a distraction for a much more simple mission.
Nalahar had ruled this area since long before the cities were even built, it was more than
likely that he simply enjoyed convincing the mortals to kill each other.
But despite Nalahar’s cleverness and cruelty, he did not expect the kings to react in the
way that they did.
The five kings were unable to stop the cultists or Nalahar’s champions who served as the
most violent and powerful of his hands, but they were able to call upon the sole heir
to the bloodline that aligned them, they called upon Hadar the Golden.
They knew very little about him, only that he was a powerful and noble Paladin of the
Platinum dragon and something of a renowned slayer of chromatic dragons.
But while only the kings knew why he made such a good slayer of dragons, Hadar was even
more of a mystery to the people.
He quickly became their hero as he relentlessly hunted the cults, effortlessly slaying them
in droves and blessing their foul lairs making their rituals impossible to repeat on the
same ground.
Nalahar took notice and sent his champions forth.
It was that day, the start of the golden war had truly begun.
The kings declared a unity of all the kingdoms and marched out with Hadar the Golden to face
the chosen champions.
In Nalahar’s opinion the kings riding to battle was ruining the fun.
Going for the kill meant there was no chase, no squirming, no game.
But what happened next both infuriated and thrilled the cruel Nalahar.
The champions stood against the five kings and Hadar.
Great draconic wings sprouted from the backs of the kings as they were enwreathed in flames.
Together the five kings strode forward in unison cutting through the armies of Nalahar.
They planted the banner of the Platinum Dragon into the center of the blood soaked battlefield.
But as the people looked on from the safety of the kingdoms walls and Nalahar who magically
watched from his lair As Nalahar’s champions drew their weapons,
Hadar the Golden put himself between the exhausted kings and the champions.
An inhuman, guttural roar ripped from his throat.
His skin flashed gold, his eyes blazed and a gout of flame shot from his open mouth.
A golden dragon erupted from it’s armored humanoid form.
The towering golden dragon lunged forward, teeth as long as swords sank into the red
scales of the nearest champion.
Effortlessly, Hadar tossed the champion into his golden maw and devoured it whole.
The Golden War had truly begun.
Despite the reveal of Hadar the Golden, and the five kings secretive bloodline, the war
had only just begun.
The battles raged on as the people fought for their safety, freedom, and their homes.
Nalahar sent his minions to attack the cities, wreaking havoc and reigning terror upon the
people, hoping to break them and force them to flee.
But to his annoyance, Hadar would arrive and annihilate the attackers.
It wasn’t long before Nalahar was running out of minions and starting to lose the war
through attrition.
He was a deceitful hate filled trickster at heart, he had not planned on being discovered
much less waging a war and a siege.
But he knew the truth.
He was losing.
In a final act of desperation he burst from the peak of his mountain and roared a challenge
to the kings and Hadar below.
While he was a trickster, he was still a hulking juggernaut of red scales and unholy magical
blessings of his mother Tiamat.
The kings and Hadar answered the challenge and flew to the peak of the mountain, engaging
the demigod red dragon in combat.
Legends still sing of the days they spent fighting above the mountain.
They spent five days fighting, claw, tooth and breath and on the fifth and final day
the night sky turned to blinding daylight.
They claim it forever blinded those who looked directly into the light.
As the light faded onlookers looked to the skies and saw only the empty starry night.
Only the bravest of knights and paladins moved into the mountain to search for the leaders
of these kingdoms, what they found brought both pain and joy.
Their kings and the champion were alive….
Barely.
The kings returned to their thrones crippled from their battle, missing limbs, shattered
bodies and so damaged that could never be healed.
When Hadar the Golden was found, his claws were plunged through Nalahar’s chest into
the beast's heart.
But Nalahar’s horn had pierced through Hadar’s right eye.
It took weeks of healing and work, cutting through the ancient red dragon’s horn to
free Hadar.
He was extremely weak and forever wounded, the horn had penetrated his brain and remained
stuck inside, unable to be removed without killing him.
The following months were an endless celebration.
Hadar was declared the Golden King, The Protector of the Five Kingdoms.
A golden throne was built from Nalahar’s treasure horde.
It took a long time for Hadar to recover, but eventually he took to his new title and
took up the duties as protector of the five kingdoms.
The horn plunged into his eye was enchanted and carved to look like an eyepatch, he became
more than just iconic, the Golden King quickly built a temple to Bahamut and began training
Paladins, choosing mostly the orphans of the war to forge into weapons of justice against
evil.
Years, decades, and centuries passed.
No one in all the lands does not know of the hero, the One Eyed King, Hadar the Golden,
Hadar the Humble, Hadar the Kind.
Mostly found either training Paladins, caring for the world’s orphans, or forging armor
in his holy forge.
He was the herald of a golden age of prosperity, a saint that was not beyond the reach of the
common man.
Thousands would take up pilgrimage to see the Golden King, and they would always succeed,
receiving his wisdom, and his kindness.
But all good things must come to an end.
It may have been caused by Nalahar’s horn still occupying his skull, or his old age,
but for a brief, regrettable moment, he believed a common beggar asking for a blessing and
a meal to be one of the champions of Tiamat.
Thankfully, he only frightened the man half to death, but sadly the one most frightened
was Hadar.
It was only the first of many close calls and scares that told him that his time in
this world was drawing to a close.
He withdrew from the world and began to seeth in endless fear.
Not just fear that he could injure someone innocent, but fear of what would befall the
world when he left it.
The fear of losing his legacy or even his life was nothing compared to all those he
cared for and loved falling to some threat the moment he died.
He sadly became even more reclusive and obsessed.
The pilgrims and even the local Paladins saw nothing of him for the few short years when
these problems started boiling to the surface.
The Paladins and kings of the age, dismissed the actions regretfully as they assumed that
their king was dying.
Their approach was more or less to give him room and overlook the fact that he was slowly
descending into madness.
A kindness that nearly cost the world a thousand times over.
It was an early morning when a young bright eyed squire, desperate to see the legendary
Hadar snuck into the mountain and found something.
Coming from a family of wizards the young man vaguely understood the research set out
on the table.
His eyes widened in horror at the realization of his discovery.
He fled the mountain and returned to the Paladins.
The boy was almost killed on the spot by the Paladin order for even suggesting it was possible,
but the boy had taken the research papers with him as proof.
It wasn’t long before the Elders of the Paladin order as well as the current kings
themselves came to confront Hadar.
They wished with all their hearts that he would clear it up, tell them it was not true.
Brush it off as anything else, but when they found him and...it...their hearts sank.
The papers and research were correct, Hadar the Golden was creating a machine, a device
that in his madness he didn’t even recognize for what it was.
“Oh… you’re here… come… see it…
I won’t have to fear dying… you will all be protected… the machine, it will burn
the souls of the guilty, it will protect the innocent from those who would commit evil!”
The madness in his voice and eye were unmistakable.
He had convinced himself that this solution would save and protect those he loved.
The machine would look into the hearts of every living creature in the world.
If it discovered even the slightest evil in their hearts it would kill them.
The souls of the wicked would power the machine and the bodies would be reanimated to serve
the “greater good”.
But Hadar didn’t understand, even after his centuries-long life that no heart was
completely pure.
Completely devoid of evil.
It would be a global genocide.
It was a sin that could not be avoided or ignored.
Tears streamed down the king’s faces as they attacked Hadar the Golden.
Despite his ancient age, the golden king was endlessly powerful.
The battle raged and the kings managed to take Hadar to the ground.
They strained to keep him down as he thrashed and screamed beneath them.
But the kings were weakening, they knew that once Hadar broke free he would kill them all...and
everyone else.
The guilt stricken young squire watched the kings fight in horror.
Then he heard a strange voice whisper two words in his mind.
The horn.
Slowly took a step toward Hadar.
Then another.
He understood what he had to do to save the world.
Trembling fingers pressed against the eyepatch that was Nalahar’s horn.
The boy choked out an apology and pressed with all his might.
Horn ground against bone as it sunk deeper into Hadar’s skull.
Hadar thrashed and roared in agonizing pain until he convulsed one final time and lay
motionless.
After the death of Hadar the kingdoms wept.
They mourned the loss of their great hero but with his death the kingdoms also died
a little.
Their trust in each other waned with each passing year until the kingdoms were once
again at war with each other.
In the end Hadar had only delayed Nahalar’s victory…
I can’t help but feel sad for Hadar.
Did he go crazy because of age?
The horn in his head?
Who do you think was whispering in the squire’s mind?
Was it Nalahar?
Please let us know what you think and comment below!
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