The Chromatic Dragon, Queen of the Evil Dragons
Lesser Deity
Symbol: Five-headed dragon
Home Plane: Baator
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Portfolio: Evil dragons, conquest
Worshippers: Evil dragons, conquerors
Cleric Alignments: LE, LN, NE
Domains: Destruction, Evil, Law, Trickery
Favoured Weapon: Heavy Pick (Bite)
Relics: Chromatic rod, dragonscale cloak
Tiamat (tee-ah-mat), like her arch-rival, Bahamut, is revered as a deity in many locales. All evil dragons pay homage to Tiamat; green and blue dragons acknowledge her sovereignty the most readily. Good dragons have a healthy respect for Tiamat, though they usually avoid mentioning her or even thinking about her.
In her natural form, Tiamat is a thick-bodied dragon with five heads and a wyvern’s tail. Each head is a different colour: white, black, green, blue and red. Her massive body is striped in those colours.
Tiamat has many consorts, include great wyrm dragons of the white, black, green, blue and red types.
Tiamat concerns herself with spreading evil, defeating good and propagating evil dragons. She enjoys razing the occasional village, city or country, but only as a diversion from her subtle, world-spanning plots. She is the villain who lurks in the shadows. Her presence is felt but seldom seen.
Tiamat constantly seeks to extend the power and dominion of evil dragons over the land, particularly when her subjects find themselves embroiled in territorial disputes with good dragons. Tiamat also unfailingly demands reverence, homage and tribute from her subjects.
Like Bahamut, Tiamat has few clerics and even fewer temples. She accepts only evil clerics. Tiamat’s clerics, like Tiamat herself, seek to place the world under the domination of evil dragons.
Though most evil dragons honour Tiamat, few keep shrines dedicated to her in their lairs because they don’t want Tiamat’s greedy eyes gazing at their treasure hoards. Instead, they dedicate vast, gloomy caverns to their deity and keep them stocked with treasure and sacrifices.
The Chromatic Dragon has enough dark mystique that humanoid cults often worship her. Sometimes she sends a dragon or two to teach new clerics the way of rapacious conquest. Would-be clerics try their utmost to please their instructors, because students who fail are eaten by their teachers.
Tiamat cares about treasure, cruelty, and conquest — and she’s not even particular whether something conquered is retained thereafter. Her followers form cabals that secretly rule cities, raid the treasure-hoards of metallic dragons, and engage in great wars to conquer some new portion of the lower planes, sending its looted wealth back to Tiamat.
Prayers to Tiamat are always spoken in first-person plural, even if the worshipper is alone. They also tend to grovel a lot. “Chromatic Dragon, conquer our weakness…” is a common prayer opening.
Vast, gloomy caverns stocked with treasure and sacrifice are Tiamat’s favourite temples. These caverns draw temple raiders like flies when their location becomes known, but are often guarded by dragons.
Sacrifices are common elements in Tiamat’s few rituals, which almost always bless some new plan of conquest. Her dragon followers generally consume the sacrificial victims.
Tiamat often sends a group of adult chromatic dragons (one of each type) to collectively act as her herald. Allies include succubus demons, glabrezu demons and greater abyssal basilisks.
Note: Cleric Alignments as printed do not follow the alignment rules.
Source: Deities and Demigods (Page 93), Complete Divine (Page 117)