Bahamut

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The Platinum Dragon, Bahamut is the god of justice, protection, nobility, and honor. Lawful good paladins often revere him, and metallic dragons worship him as the first of their kind. Monarchs are crowned in his name. Bahamut is often depicted in tales and legends as a great platinum dragon whose scales shine with divine power and whose gaze is said to pierce any veil of evil or trickery. Bahamut is the brother of Tiamat, goddess of dragons.

One story that is told about the creation of the universe concerns the dragon-god Io. The dragons, this legend says, were his particular creation, lovingly crafted to represent the pinnacle of mortal form. Though they were creatures of the world, the power of the Elemental Chaos flowed in their veins and spewed forth from their mouths in gouts of flame or waves of paralyzing cold. But they also possessed the keen minds and lofty spirits of the other mortal races, linking them to Io and the other gods of the Astral Sea. Io’s arrogance was his downfall. While the other gods banded together to combat the primordials during the Dawn War, Io spurned the help of other gods. He was so confident in his own might that he faced a terrible primordial called Erek- Hus, the King of Terror, alone. With a rough-hewn axe of adamantine, the King of Terror split Io from head to tail, cleaving the dragon-god into two equal halves. Erek-Hus did not have the chance to celebrate his victory, however. No sooner did Io’s sundered corpse fall to the ground than each half rose up as a new god—Bahamut from the left and Tiamat from the right. Together the two gods fought and killed the King of Terror. The legend continues to explain that Io’s qualities were split between the two gods who rose from his death. His hubris, arrogance, and covetous nature were embodied in Tiamat, who is revered as a goddess of greed and envy. But Io’s desire to protect creation and his sense of fairness took root in Bahamut, now worshiped as god of justice, honor, and protection. The two dragon gods both shared one of Io’s worse qualities, however—his preference for working alone. After they defeated Erek-Hus, they locked in battle with each other, ignoring the pressing threat of the primordials. Only when Tiamat fled the battle did the two gods turn their attention back to the larger war, and each still preferred to work alone.