from The World of the Wilderlands:

Rule of these islands was long contested by Ghinorians, Orichalans, Valonar, Karakhans, Skandiks, and others over long millennia. Each faction sought to control the islands and thus trade across the Sea of Dawn (as the waters of the Winedark Sea around the isles are known). All such competition ended more than a thousand years ago when, in 3020 BCCC, the great red wyrm Nergathrandax, Last Guardian of the Dragon Emperor, ravaged the Isle of Dawn and conquered all the isles in the area. For centuries he ruled, taxing all vessels that passed through the area of gold and maidens, and gorging himself on the populace of his islands (those who were not lucky enough to flee to the Silver Skein Islands in time). In 3920 Sindelerien Half-Elven, brother of Gilgalion Half-Elven, and a great hero in his own right, challenged and defeated the dragon, whose skeleton can still be found where it fell on Strata Island. Sindelerien was unanimously declared king by the surviving peoples of the islands, and with the dragon’s treasure he built a great new city upon the ruins of the former capital, which had been destroyed in the initial invasion of the dragon. Men of the Silver Skein Isles, descendents of the refugees, returned and helped build a kingdom anew; to this day there remains antagonism between the Old Clans and the New Clans.

Today, Dragonscar is a great center of culture and civilization, though the Sindelerien Dynasty no longer rules, and the influence of the Dawn King is weak; the great hero’s descendents live in rustic peace and harmony in Birchall, while the descendents of his dwarven squire, Dourden, still live in their independent clanhold on Kaiban Isle. The city does not tax trade and so waxes rich on merchants and their ship crews passing through seeking free trade between the Wilderlands and Karak; this has earned the Dawn King the undying enmity of the Governor of Piguzhou to the north, who seeks to tax and control all such trade. The Patriarch of the North, brother in faith to the lost Patriarch of the South of the Silver Skein Islands, seeks to do what he can to ameliorate the suffering and chaos to the south; his influence in those unhappy lands is limited, unfortunately, as the people’s love for their faith is tempered by the fear of losing their freedom to the sovereignty of the Dawn King.