View source for Asgorath

{{Deity
| image               = io-by-joshua-raphael.jpg
| name                = Asgorath
| caption             = Io, the World Shaper
| title               = The World Shaper<ref name="Draco2e">{{Cite book/Draconomicon (1990)|25}}</ref> <br/>The Concordant Dragon<ref name="RotD">{{Cite book/Races of the Dragon|155-156}}</ref><br/> The Great Eternal Wheel<ref name="RotD"/><br/>Swallower of Shades<ref name="RotD"/><br/>The Ninefold Dragon<ref name="RotD"/><br/>Creator of Dragonkind<ref name="RotD"/><br/> Lord of the Gods<ref name="MM" />
| aspects             = Io<ref name="CotD"/><ref name="MM">{{Cite book/Monster Mythology|104}}</ref><ref name="FRHoF-Chapter1"/>
| primordial          = yes
| status              = Deity<ref name="HotEC-p32"/>
| pantheon            = [[Draconic pantheon]]
| power2e             = [[Greater deity]]
| alignment2e         = [[Neutral]]<ref group="note">''[[Cult of the Dragon (sourcebook)|Cult of the Dragon]]'' states that Asgorath was regarded as Neutral, but in fact he encompassed all alignments. ''[[Draconomicon (1990)|Draconomicon]]'' states that Asgorath alignment is unknown.</ref>
| symbol2e            = An unadorned circle
| homeplane2e         = [[Outer Planes]]<ref group="note" name="note1">''[[Draconomicon (1990)|Draconomicon]]'' and ''[[On Hallowed Ground]]'' state that Asgorath/Io's home plane is unknown. ''[[Cult of the Dragon (sourcebook)|Cult of the Dragon]]'' states that he is a power of the Outer Planes, but his domain is unkown. The 3rd edition Core source ''[[Races of the Dragon]]'' places him in the [[Outlands]]. Asgorath does not appear in the [[World Tree cosmology]].</ref>
| realm2e             = 
| serves2e            = 
| servedby2e          = 
| portfolio2e         = Creation
| spheres2e           = 
| worshipers2e        = Dragons of every species
| cleric alignments2e = 
| holy days2e         = 
| class2e             = {{Class table|edition=2e|[[Wizard]]|20|[[Cleric|Priest]]|20}}
| refs2e              = <ref name="CotD">{{Cite book/Cult of the Dragon|120}}</ref><ref name="Draco2e">{{Cite book/Draconomicon (1990)|25}}</ref><ref name="MM"/>
| power3e             = [[Greater deity]]<ref group="note">Although Io is listed in non-Realms products as an intermediate deity, Asgorath is listed in specific Realms products as a greater deity.</ref>
| alignment3e         = [[Neutral]]
| symbol3e            = A multicolored metallic disk
| homeplane3e         = [[Outlands]]<ref group="note" name="note1" />
| realm3e             = 
| serves3e            = 
| servedby3e          = 
| portfolio3e         = Dragonkind, balance, and peace 
| domains3e           = [[Dragon domain|Dragon]], [[Knowledge domain|Knowledge]], [[magic domain|Magic]], [[spell domain|Spell]], [[strength domain|Strength]], [[Travel_domain|Travel]], and [[Wealth domain|Wealth]].
| worshipers3e        = [[Dragon]]s, [[Draconic creature (template)|Draconic humanoids]], some members of the [[:Category:Reptilian humanoids|reptilian]] races
| cleric alignments3e = {{alignment grid|on|on|on|on|on|on|on|on|on}}
| favored weapon3e    = Claw ([[Scimitar]])
| holy days3e         = 
| class3e             = 
| refs3e              = <ref name="RotD"/>
| power4e             = [[Dead power]]
| alignment4e         = 
| symbol4e            = 
| dominion4e          = 
| realm4e             = 
| serves4e            = 
| servedby4e          = 
| sphere4e            = 
| domains4e           = 
| worshipers4e        = 
| cleric alignments4e = 
| channel divinity4e  = 
| holy days4e         = 
| class4e             = 
| refs4e              = <ref name="DP">{{Cite book/Divine Power|40}}</ref>
}}
'''Asgorath''' ({{Pronounce|AZ|gore|ath|refs=<ref name="Draco2e"/>}}), more commonly known as '''Io''' in the [[Outer Planes]],<ref name="CotD"/> was the [[dragon]] [[deity]] of creation.<ref name="CotD"/> He (or she, as some traditions suggested<ref name="Draco2e2">{{Cite book/Draconomicon (1990)|2}}</ref><ref group="note">At least two sources list Asgorath as female. However, as most of the sources list Asgorath as a male, for organization purposes the article will refer to him as a male unless the information is from one of the sources that list Asgorath as a female.</ref>) was regarded as the creator of the multiverse<ref name="MM" /><ref name="Ed_1">{{cite web|author=[[Ed Greenwood]]|title=Ed's Twitter|url=https://x.com/TheEdVerse/status/1225010688743084032|accessdate=2026-01-06}}</ref> and of dragonkind, and he manipulated the destinies of all dragons by operating in a way that nobody suspected his involvement.<ref name="RotD"/> Asgorath was supposed to encompass all alignments, but was often regarded as neutral, and his holy symbol, an unadorned circle, represented totality.<ref name="Draco2e"/> 

Some sages believed that Asgorath was an aspect of the [[World Serpent]] concept,<ref name="MonMyth-p97">{{Cite book/Monster Mythology|97-98}}</ref> while others thought Asgorath was actually a [[primordial]] that had ascended to godhood after the [[Tearfall]].<ref name="HotEC-p32">{{Cite book/Heroes of the Elemental Chaos|32}}</ref><ref group="note">Although the ''[[Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide]]'' list this primordial as "Asgoroth", this seems to be a typo, as the roll of primordials in ''[[Heroes of the Elemental Chaos]]'' list him as Asgorath.</ref> It was even possible that Io was similar to [[Ao]], a kind of all-powerful yet detached [[overgod]].<ref name="FRCS2E">{{Cite book/Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 2nd edition (revised)/Running the Realms|64}}</ref>

{{quote
|Io, the Ninefold Dragon, the Concordant Dragon, the Great Eternal Wheel, moves his majestic form silently through the ether and detritus of the worlds, and he is content.
|Dragon-sages.<ref name="MM" />
}}

==Description==
Asgorath never manifested himself before his worshipers. However, he made his existence felt as a powerful presence in their minds.<ref name="Draco2e"/>

Asgorath, however, could manifest physically if he wanted to, taking on the form of any dragon, and even in forms of other draconic creatures, such as [[pseudodragon]]s.<ref name="Draco3">{{Cite book/Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons|34}}</ref> The oldest myths of dragonkind claimed that Asgorath manifested physically only once, during the act of creating the multiverse.<ref name="Draco2e"/> Those who believed in this myth believed Asgorath was so huge, that even his scales were larger than the largest mortal dragon that ever existed.<ref name="MM" />

==Personality==
Despite technically being [[true neutral]], Io transcended the concept of alignment in the sense he contained all alignments within his being. He was simultaneously possessed of the greatest of [[Bahamut]]'s virtues and the worst of [[Tiamat]]'s vices. Individual avatars of the Ninefold Dragon were known to manifest as specific alignments.<ref name="MM" /><ref name="MonMyth-p97" />

==Realm==
Asgorath's home plane was unknown.<ref name="Draco2e"/> He was known to roam across the [[Outer Planes]].<ref name="CotD"/><ref group="note" name="note1" />

==Worshipers==
[[File:Io Symbol - Dennis Crabapple McClain.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The holy symbol of Io.]]
Asgorath was revered by dragons of all kinds.<ref name="Draco2e"/> He was also worshiped by some [[half-dragon]]s, [[kobold]]s, [[lizardfolk]], [[troglodyte]]s, [[human]]s,<ref name="RotD"/> and even a few [[dragonborn]].<ref name="SCAG">{{Cite book/Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide|112-113}}</ref>

Asgorath had no enemies among the other gods, because of his neutral point of view. Even those of opposing alignments could find common cause under the banner of the World Shaper.<ref name="RotD"/>

===Clergy===
Asgorath had fewer clerics than most draconic deities, though even the most devout cleric of other dragon gods (and many of [[Kurtulmak]]<ref name="RotD-2">{{Cite book/Races of the Dragon|142}}</ref>) gave him some homage. Clerics of Asgorath had no hierarchy or fixed dogma; each interpreted the World Shaper differently, worshiping him in one of his many aspects. Red dragons worshiped him as an evil being, while gold dragons revered him as a paragon of good. Those who would become Asgorath's clerics sought to rid themselves of all such biases, though some never succeeded.<ref name="RotD"/>

Half-dragons who chose to become clerics of Asgorath were usually ascetic priests,<ref name="RotD"/> while kobolds who worshiped Asgorath sought out to challenge their own racial preconceptions, seeking to judge members of other races, even their hated foes, with objectivity.<ref name="RotD-2"/>

===Dogma===
Asgorath cared only for dragons and other draconic creatures, and their continued existence in the world. That means Asgorath could take the side of the dragons if they were threatened by other races, but also that Asgorath could help the non-draconic races to put down dragons who jeopardized the survivability of the race as a whole.<ref name="RotD"/>

While Asgorath preferred to remain neutral in the conflicts between dragons, if such conflict threatened to escalate, he acted without hesitation to stop it, usually sending a servitor but in rare occasions intervening personally.<ref name="RotD"/>

===Rites===
{{Fq
| width  = 400px
| float  = right
| source = Invocation of [[Persephariel]], great [[gold dragon|gold]] [[Dragon aging|wyrm]]<ref name="MM" />
| text   = Io, Swallower of Shades, shine in the face of your servant, for he worships you in the morning, he propitiates you in the evening. I breath the air, the North Wind which comes from you. Be content, Lord of the Gods, for you are exalted in the firmament, and your rays over my breast are like the day. 
}}
Asgorath's rituals involved the blending of many things in a whole, reflecting Asgorath's own nature. One common ritual involved drinking wine with a drop of blood from each participant dissolved in it. <ref name="RotD"/>

Prayers to Asgorath were deep and resonating, taking the form of supplication or (for half-dragons) plaintive questions. Although Asgorath never answered prayers, he always listened to them.<ref name="RotD"/>

===Temples===
Asgorath had few temples. Shrines built in Asgorath's honor usually took the form of open-air constructions surrounded by pillars and topped with domes. These shrines were placed in open terrain—the middle of a desert, the center of a valley, atop the peak of a mountain, or on a vast, treeless plain.<ref name="RotD"/>

==History==
In the final period of the [[Days of Thunder]], Asgorath was released from her imprisonment, along with the rest of her kin, by the [[Batrachi]]. Asgorath would prove to be the downfall of her liberator's entire civilization when she hurled an ice moon down to the surface of [[Abeir-Toril]] in an event known as the [[Tearfall]], wiping out the Batrachi and creating the [[Sea of Fallen Stars]].<ref name="FRCG">{{Cite book/Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide|41}}</ref><ref name="GHotR8">{{Cite book/The Grand History of the Realms|8}}</ref><ref name="Draco2e3">{{Cite book/Draconomicon (1990)|4}}</ref> It was this action that finally spurred Ao to clone the planet, giving the original world, [[Toril]], to the [[god]]s, and the new one, Abeir, to the primordials.<ref name="FRCG41-43">{{Cite book/Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide|41–43}}</ref> The Tearfall also coincided with the hatching of a multitude of dragon eggs, giving rise to the belief that Asgorath was the creator of their race.<ref name="GHotR8" />

The debate over Asgorath's alignment and nature was responsible for the most far-reaching of the [[Draco Holy Wars]]. Every species of dragon and other dragonblooded creatures was certain that Asgorath represented the pinnacle of their particular race. While [[silver dragon]]s could grudgingly accept the [[gold dragon]]s' insistence that Asgorath was a lawful good gold dragon, neither could tolerate the [[red dragon]]s' claim that Asgorath was a chaotic evil red. At one time the resulting wars threatened the entire dragon race with extinction. Perhaps it was the subtle influence of [[Zorquan]], god of dragonkind, but eventually most dragons turned away from the war and from religion in general. It was only after the last [[Rage of Dragons]], that dragons drifted back into religious observance.<ref name="Draco2e29">{{Cite book/Draconomicon (1990)|29-30}}</ref><ref name="DoF-p7">{{Cite book/Dragons of Faerûn|7}}</ref>

Beset by mighty [[primordial]]s, Asgorath was eventually destroyed.<ref name="DP"/> Despite his death, he was still worshipped as a deity by draconic creatures and [[dragonborn]].<ref name="FRHoF-Chapter1">{{Cite book/Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn|?|chapter=1}}</ref><ref name="HotEC-p32"/>

==Myths and legends==
{{Fq
| width  = 400px
| float  = right
| source = A dragon sage.<ref name="MM" />
| text   = So, why do many myths which other races have of creation not feature great Io? Because the nature of his role in creation is deep and implicit in establishing a substrate for other powers. We dragon-sages make a distinction between the Two Voids; the First Void, wherein only Io had existence, and the Shadow Void, where Io's willingly shed blood created the potential for existence and creation to come into being. Most non-dragon races only know of the Shadow Void, and they do not know of the earlier time outside time when only the Ninefold Dragon existed.
}}

In draconic mythology, Asgorath created the multiverse itself, although his role in the creation was mysterious and couldn't be understood by mortal minds. According to those myths, Asgorath existed before the multiverse, in a place called "the first void", that was different from the "shadow void" from which the multiverse arose after Asgorath willingly shed his blood to give the potential to exist to all creation.<ref name="MM" />

According to the philosophy of the [[Sign of One]], Asgorath was the entity responsible for linking and birthing all planes and cosmologies across the multiverse. The [[Sign of One|Signers]] believed that Asgorath possessed the power to transform one [[Cosmology|cosmology]] into another.<ref name="Ed_1"/>

The "Blending", a creation myth popular among half-dragons, told about how in the beginning all the potential for "existence" was enclosed by a "shell" of nothingness and darkness. Asgorath was born in the boundary between the "shell" of nothingness and the "yolk" of existence, and saw all the things inside existence waiting to be born. Asgorath then decided to grow in size, until he blended with both existence and nothingness, and then began to spin, slowly at first but progressively quicker, until he created all worlds and stars. While he was spinning, streaks of color and metal appeared and became two different rings that also spun and transformed into Bahamut and Tiamat. After that, dragons were created, followed by other living creatures.  However, a small bit of nothingness remained within Asgorath. Half-dragons believed that Asgorath was still spinning but he was slowing down, and  when Asgorath eventually stopped all of creation would be returned to the "egg" of nothingness, where Asgorath would sleep among potential new worlds.<ref name="RotD-63">{{Cite book/Races of the Dragon|63}}</ref>

According to the mysterious creation text, the ''[[Book of the World]]'', Asgorath cast down the god [[Zotha]] and observed the two elements of existence: the world that she had made and the Crystal Sun that Zotha had made. She wrapped herself around the Crystal Sun and breathed on it. This caused the sun to shatter with fragments that pierced her flesh and killed her. Drops of her blood fell down upon the world and where they landed, [[red dragon]]s were brought into existence. The new creatures lamented the loss of their creator, all except one, who pulled a fragment of the Crystal Sun out of Asgorath and cut himself with it. The blood fell to the earth and also created life, though this life was metallic in color, rather than red. Asgorath began to stir so the "''Renegade''" and his progeny fled to the farthest corners of the world.<ref name="Draco2e2" />

Analysis by the scribes of [[Candlekeep]] of this text reached the conclusion that this was the red dragons creation myth, and that the Asgorath depicted on it was in fact [[Tiamat]], while the Renegade was [[Bahamut]]; many counter-theories existed, however, and no hard evidence was available to prove anything.<ref name="Draco2e2-3">{{Cite book/Draconomicon (1990)|2-3}}</ref>

Common dragon myths hold that Asgorath was able to predict the future, knew every known [[spell]] in existence, and owned at least one of every [[:Category:Magic items|magic item]] that ever existed in any [[Prime Material Plane|world]].<ref name="MM" /> There was even a myth that claimed Asgorath was the one who created the [[Lady of Pain]] by hatching her from a [[dabus]] egg.<ref name="DR">{{Cite dragon/359/Unsolved Mysteries of D&D|31}}</ref>

[[File:Io vs Terror.jpg|thumb|324x324px|Asgorath vs [[Erek-Hus]]]]
Dragonborn of [[Abeir]] also had myths about Asgorath, though they knew him by the name of Io. The few dragonborn that believed in gods, believed that Io was the one who created them, though there were many conflicting traditions on how the event happened. Some stories tell that Io created the dragonborn at the same time he created the dragons, establishing a natural order: dragonborn were created to serve dragons. Other stories said that Io created the dragonborn before the dragons or any other humanoid race existed, as the pinnacle of perfection the other gods used as inspiration to create the humanoid races, pale imitations of dragonborn. There was even one story that tell dragonborn weren't created by Io, but instead were born of his blood when Io was killed in the [[Dawn War]] by a primordial named [[Erek-Hus]].<ref name="SCAG"/>

Asgorath was also prominent in kobold traditions. According to their old myths, after Asgorath discovered [[Darastrixhurthi]] was destroyed, he sought to compensate the kobold race for what happened, even when the dragons who destroyed Darastrixhurti were innocent victims of the [[Rage of Dragons]].<ref name="tGHotR-p9">{{Cite book/The Grand History of the Realms|9}}</ref> He asked [[Kurtulmak]] if he wanted to recuperate its fortress or transform into a permanent champion for his race. Kurtulmak chose the latter and Asgorath elevated him to godhood.<ref name="RotD2">{{Cite book/Races of the Dragon|50-51}}</ref> He also elevated [[Kuraulyek]] to godhood as way to protect the first [[urd]]s from the mad dragons and the rage of Kurtulmak.<ref name="tGHotR-p9" />

==Appendix==
===Notes===
{{Notes}}

===External Links===
* {{EW|Io}}

===References===
{{refs}}

===Connections===
{{Draconic pantheon}}
{{Deity list}}
{{Primordial list}}
[[Category:Draconic pantheon]]
[[Category:Dragon domain deities]]
[[Category:Knowledge domain deities]]
[[Category:Magic domain deities]]
[[Category:Spell domain deities]]
[[Category:Strength domain deities]]
[[Category:Travel domain deities]]
[[Category:Wealth domain deities]]
[[Category:Greater deities]]
[[Category:True neutral deities]]
[[Category:Primordials]]
[[Category:Inhabitants of the Outlands]]
[[Category:Inhabitants of the Outer Planes]]
[[Category:Inhabitants of the Great Wheel planes]]
[[Category:Clerics]]
[[Category:Wizards]]
[[Category:Overgods]]