Tiamat

Tiamat (pronounced TEE-a-maht ), also known as the Nemesis of the Gods, is the queen of evil dragons and a servant of the greater god Bane. Like most other draconic deities, she is the offspring of the dragon creator deity Io. Tiamat is also the eternal rival of her brother Bahamut, ruler of the good metallic dragons.

Appearances
Tiamat has one head for each primary color of chromatic dragon (black, blue, green, red, white), and each head has the powers of a member of the respective race of dragonkind.

Worshipers
Tiamat had a reputation amongst the people of the new state of Unther for battling with the other members of their pantheon and was blamed for every one of the many setbacks Unther experienced.

Relationships
Being a member of certain pantheons though has made her some enemies, including Bane and Ilmater.

History
Like other Untheric deities, she was brought to Faerûn when the Imaskari planar barrier fell, allowing the avatars of the gods of their slaves to come to Faerûn via the Astral Plane. Tiamat was also one of the first deities to have aspects, or lesser avatars. These aspects may appear as powerful versions of her chromatic children or as versions of her own five-headed form.

Unther
Tiamat gained a negative reputation in Unther after the arrival of her cult of followers (in the first millenium of Unther's history, around -2087 DR onwards), being accused of being the “Nemesis of the Gods” and being blamed for Unther's setbacks. Tiamat was killed by Marduk (who was also killed), while she was fighting Gilgeam in the Battle of the Gods in -1071 DR. Although her power was reduced by this, her cult survived and some of the people of Unther turned to her when Gilgeam became more tyrannical.

Despite her reputation among the inhabitants of Unther, Tiamat was much more concerned with expanding her influence over the rest of Faerûn, converting chromatic dragons to her worship. The first notable problem she caused was when she ate the dragon god Tchazzar who was worshiped by the people of Unther. Because she kept out of the affairs of Unther, her cult survived while the other Untheric powers became more tyrannical and destructive. This gave her the power to defeat Gilgeam during the Time of Troubles which threw Unther into chaos and helped dissolve the whole pantheon. Now she is a member of both the Faerûnian pantheon and the Draconic pantheon, despite the fact that she lives on the same plane as the Mulhorandi pantheon.



Inconsistencies
Tiamat was killed in the adventure The Throne of Bloodstone at the behest of Bahamut by Gareth Dragonsbane's party as Tiamat's heart was needed to destroy the Wand of Orcus. When the adventure was originally written, the date was 1148 DR. Obviously far too early for Dragonsbane to be included in the modern Forgotten Realms, the date was retconned and the death of Tiamat has not been mentioned since, though the destruction of the wand is still a canonical event.

Faiths and Avatars suggests several theories for the survival of Tiamat. One is that the multi-headed dragon Dragonsbane and his party kill for Bahamut may not be Tiamat herself. It could have been Takhisis, a deity from a different Crystal Sphere, an avatar of Tiamat (doubtful, as Tiamat's avatar was recently killed by Gilgeam in the retconned timeline) or simply a creature that looked like Tiamat. Another theory is that a god (with the exception of during the Time of Troubles) can only be truly killed on their home plane. This would of course mean that Tiamat was resurrected on Dragon Eyrie.

Dragons of Faerûn states that Gareth Dragonsbane and his adventuring party did in fact destroy an avatar of Tiamat. This act did not utterly destroy her, it just slowed her plans for a time.