[RPG] the nature of Tiamat’s imprisonment

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Background: In HotDQ, one of my PC's is a Tiefling who grew up orphaned and wandering the Nine Hells. (I find it a little farfetched, but I'm trying not to step on people's creativity unnecessarily.) As a detail of his Hermit background, he gets the "Discovery" feature. He's proposed that somewhere in there, he might have run across Tiamat's prison.

This seems pretty cool to me as something that would tie his character into the story without necessarily giving him an undue advantage… but if we go with it, what are the details? Is Tiamat literally imprisoned, with giant golden chains? Is she metaphorically imprisoned in that she's somehow lost the ability to traverse planes that gods presumably have, but she's free to roam about otherwise? (Or did she never have the ability to travel freely to the Material Plane?) Essentially, where is Tiamat now, and what is she doing while she waits for her followers to summon her?

Best Answer

The information below is taken from Rise of Tiamat, specifically "Hosts of the Nine Hells" (p.10), "Tiamat's Temple" (pp.85-86), and "Victory or Defeat" (p.88).

Tiamat lives in

Avernus, one of the Nine Hells. Specifically, she lives in her temple there, at liberty to move about Avernus. She is not, as you wondered, literally chained to a spot in the Nine Hells.

However, events of the recent past (read: 4e -> 5e, so we've got to undo Sundering and Upheaval!) mean that

"without powerful magic and mortal aid, Tiamat cannot travel from her home in Avernus." (p.10, emphasis mine)

In addition, even if brought to Toril, with the right sequence of events

"the shrieking Dragon Queen disintegrates and is dragged back to Avernus." (p.88, emphasis mine.)

Thus is Tiamat "imprisoned" in Avernus: she needs mortal involvement to travel to Toril, as opposed to the recent past when she could go on walkabout at her leisure. Despite her godhood,

she is bound to Avernus until others actions free her, and can be sent back there.

As for what she's up to these days... the one bit we get in RoT is that

Severin impressed her, and that "she allowed Severin a scrap of knowledge regarding the existence of the five dragon masks." (p.8)

So there's obviously some awareness and communication, but no mention of anything else.

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