This is an altered version of the beginning of War of the Worlds. Anyone who wants to use this can. I'm not proposing this as a setting idea for myself as right now I can't be part of any prolonged setting development.
No one would have believed in the last years of the Empire that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than Elf, Human, or Dwarf and yet as mortal as our own; that as we busied themselves about our various concerns we were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a wizard with a magoscope might scrutinize the subtleties of a magic field. With infinite complacency we went to and fro over this globe about our little affairs, serene in our assurance of our empire over matter.
No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as surely inferior to our own. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. We saw our sister worlds, the life obvious upon them, yet we were not curious enough to explore them. In our folly, we opened no gates to see what their life might be like. Instead, we fancied them inhabited by mere animals or, if by races, by ones far inferior to ourselves since we saw no cities when we scryed them.
Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this world with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And then came the great disillusionment, for then came the Dragons.
Any thoughts on this?
Sounds like a good way to introduce a settings main antagonists. I like it.
Work quite well with just about any big bad in place of dragons, as well.
"And then... the dragons came."