A Brief World History

The First Age – The Dawn of Civilization

In her treatise The Origins of Civilized Peoples, the legendary sage Borja Mavian, high priestess of Lilnana and chief scribe of the 7th-century king of the Eirbrony, Froech Cailidin IV, estimates nearly 100,000 years passed after the almighty Equilbrium decreed an end to the Brother God’s War which shaped the world at the dawn of creation. However, Mavian admits in later writings that her estimate may have been grossly inaccurate, tainted she said, “by the naivete of youth.”

Nevertheless, this age (regardless of its actual length) is most importantly marked by the dearth of our knowledge and understanding of how the peoples of the lands lived and interacted with one another. The peoples of this period left no written records and scantly enough archeological evidence to even prove they ever really existed. It can be surmised that the people of this time lived in small family or tribal groups as simple hunter-gatherers.

Sages generally concur that the first signs of civilization began to emerge among the elder (demihuman) races of elves, dwarves and gnomes. Archaeological evidence unearthed in the Rone Hills suggests the emergence of both elfin and gnomish civilizations and digs in the Black Mountains of Het show evidence of an early dwarven kingdom.

The case for an early civilization of dwarves and gnomes is based largely on the existence of a few artifacts and simple ruins magically dated to around 49,000 P.T. However, a stronger case for the emergence of true civilization can be made for the elves, specifically the Paladian subrace.

The Dawning of the Second Age – The People of Calaphy

Every child has heard the story of Calaphy the great warrior king of the Paladian. Calaphy, as a young elf, possibly 100-150, left his home on a pale winter night after seeing a star falling from the sky. The star left a trail like a shimmering thread in the midnight cloak of night, but his kinsmen feared it and urged him not to seek its resting place.

Ignoring their warnings Calaphy followed the path of the falling star for 32 days and nights across treacherous frozen lands until he found it atop a high bald hill. The star shimmered with a pale blue, inner heat which melted the surrounding snow. So awed was he by the stone that he stayed with it throughout the winter, warmed by its inner heat.

When he finally returned to his people in the spring, many did not recognize him. The stone had changed his spirit in some undefinable way. He never spoke of the winter he spent camped by the fallen star, but his tribe speculated as to the nature of his encounter. Some said he had been visited by gods, others that he had looked into the well of eternity itself. Still others doubted he had found the star at all. They said he made his story of wintering with it was just that, a story.

Regardless of the truth, Calaphy returned from his quest wiser than any of his kinsmen. He spoke to them in terms they hardly understood, about things called honor, law and valor.

Some elves did not agree with the teachings of Calaphy and declared his words not only unwise, but foolhardy. These elves left the tribe and went forth into the world to make their own future, eventually becoming the Variquesti, Elberethi, Oldanquasti and Oceanus. Those who believed stayed and hearkened to Calaphy’s teachings. Then when the tribal elder died unexpectedly during a bear hunt they made Calaphy their king.

As their new king, Calaphy led his people through the wilderness to the place where the star had fallen from the sky. With his newfound knowledge he taught them how to build a city and a shrine around the fallen star. They called the city, Talish tani Mirinarti, the Star That Falls From Heaven.

The people of Calaphy prospered and had many children. They forged an empire, defeating all who resisted their rule. Leading the elfin armies rode the Questi Talishini, The Knights of the Star. All who lived in the great Empire of Calaphini prospered and lived in luxury beyond imagination. Calaphy ruled this empire for a 1,000 years and upon his death his eldest son, Tasonwyl, took his place on the Star Thrown.

The hereditary line of Calaphy lasted more than 20,000 years, but eventually time took its toll, and during the last 3,000 years of the its history the Empire of the Star became decadent, its people living in debauchery and stagnation.

During the first 20,000 years of the empire’s history only 42 hereditary rulers had reigned from the Star Thrown. Thirty-one of these emperors had died of natural causes, four accidentally and seven on the battlefield. During the final 3,000 years of the empire’s history at least 192 emperors sat upon the Star Thrown and nearly all died by questionable means.

The Third Age – The Ascendancy of Humanity

Thus, the stage had been set for the fall of the great empire. During the reign of Eliwas III, a capable if somewhat naive ruler, a human tribe known as the Tarsoms, led by Azul the Bear joined with the treacherous forces of the elfin noble, Larissa Drowin, to seize control of the faltering empire.

The Drowin family venerated the most beautiful of all the elfin deities, the goddess Lolth. Through her aid, Larissa and her children successfully defeated the unprepared armies of Eliwas.

The victory, however, was not an easy one. Nearly two decades of bloody civil war left the empire weak and vulnerable to attack. The Tarsoms, who had initially sided with Larissa, saw an opportunity to increase their gains by taking the mighty empire for themselves. The human forces had grown increasingly strong in comparison to the elfin forces that were unable to replace their loses through new births at the same pace as the humans.

The pain and suffering inflicted by the Tarsoms on the People of the Star remains legendary even to this day. The few elves that did escape the wholesale slaughter scattered to the far corners of the world, leaving their smoldering and ruined cities behind.

The Drowin family fled to the Everdark where they remain today. The other elfin deities, appalled by the Drowin family’s role in the fall of the elfin race, laid a curse on them so that never again would they see the light of day without feeling pain. The gods then cast Lolth from their realm, condemning her to live in the underworld with her chosen followers who are remembered today by the name Drow.

Azul the Bear lived for only six years after his conquest of the elfin empire. His son, Anaird the Destroyer, inherited his throne to the bane of all nonhuman races.

During his reign, Anaird launched a campaign to rid the world of the unfit, the demihuman and humanoid races, whom he had learned to hate after spending a lifetime under their rule. His warriors roved far and wide destroying settlements and slaying all non-humans they encountered without mercy. Having ascended to the throne on his 16th birthday, his genocidal war against the elder races left their populations so depleted that, by the time of his death at 95, they would never fully recover.

Following the conquest of the Paladian by Azul the Bear in P.T. 11965, the human nations began a more than 4,000 year rise to a highly advanced civilization. During this period of human ascendancy, the remaining demihumans, including Paladian, who survived the persecution of Anaird the Destroyer, lived in relative obscurity in small groups intermixed with the general human population.

At various times within the reigns of future human kings, persecutions and pogroms threatened the non-human races, but the greatest threat the non-humans faced was being bred out of existence. Human populations greatly outnumbered the depleted demihuman races, and the humans, in general, reproduced faster than the demihumans. The race of Paladian elves may have been little more than myth today, had it not been for the human defiance of the deities which caused the Devastation.

The Fourth Age – Age of Darkness and Rebirth

The Devastation brought down by the deities focused on humans – greatly reducing their population, and putting them again on equal ground with the elves.

Out of the Dark Years of the Devastation, the elfin children of Caliphy once again began a rise to power. While the human population of Fälgorna had suffered greatly during the years following the Devastation (the Devastation was brought down by the deities on the humans for their arrogant belief that through the powers of the mind they could become like unto the gods), the elves, especially the Paladian elves, had grown in strength now that they were once again free of human persecution.

Their war leader recorded only by his first name, Llewdban (Pronounced: chLew-VON), gathered the far flung families of the Paladian who had survived centuries of human rule and persecution into an army during the second millennium of the Dark Quintmillennium and led them toward what he believed was the ancient homeland of the Paladian, the ancient kingdom of the star, Talish.

The area he believed to be their ancestral home in the Rone Hills bordering the Spineridge Mountains was only sparsely populated by humans, even at the height of their civilization. The elves with their force of nearly 3,000 warriors made quick work of the few broken human settlements remaining in the region. The elves forced those humans not killed in the ensuing battles to leave the area for other lands and not return. Those who did would suffer the consequences.

Llewdban, mortally wounded in an insignificant battle at a human town known as Pressmord, never fulfilled his dream of sitting upon the star thrown (the artifact had somehow survived in the hands of one noble family), but he had seen victory on the horizon for his people, and died assured the Paladian would once again have a homeland.

From the noble houses remaining, a new leader was selected to lead the Paladian as they rebuilt their home. They selected Vlewyws Sidhe (Val-LEW-uss SHE) as their new leader and he began the rebuilding of the kingdom, beginning with the elfin capital of Lydia (located at the site where the heaven star was believed to have fallen).

Under Vlewyws' rule, the borders of the new homeland were sealed against non-elves by force of magic and force of arms. All who sought entry were turned away, forcibly if necessary. This condition lasted for close to 3,000 years. The Paladian wished to be sure they were secure in their new home before allowing others to enter. They also held long standing hatred for those who once persecuted their people.

With the rise of the Empire of Roland to the west, the Paladian began to soften their resolve and began once again to allow humans into their lands. In previous centuries agreements had been reached with the Heselgartle dwarves in the Spineridge Mountains and the Gnomes of the Rone Hills. Halflings had always been favored by the elves to some degree and were mostly free to enter the elfin lands at their leisure.

The Paladian saw the Empire not as a threat, but as a plea for sanity among the humans. It was a bastion of order in a world reeling in chaos for more than five millennia. It also pleased them to see, the new emperor bore some elfin blood and therefore was not unlike themselves. In addition, he had made no move to conquer the elfin lands or persecute the elfin people.

The elves were again on the defensive with the coming of the Arrakian invasion. Caught unprepared for an invasion by sea, the city of Nimarando and Edbrania (present day Vebronia) fell to one of the early invasions from the north in P.T. 1423. The Paladian quickly took back Nimarando, but the Arrakians fought valiantly against the elves in Edbrania and decisively defeated the force sent to retake the city at the edge of the elfin kingdom. By P.T. 1377, Arrakians who had landed at Nimarando and Edbrania only 40 years earlier had taken roughly a third of the elfin kingdom from its former owners, including much of present day Eirbron.

The elves deciding that it would be more prudent to make peace with the invaders than to risk the loss of more land, met with the Arrakian leader, Bradwyn the Wise, at the town of (Obdanwyll) in P.T. 1373 to sue for peace. The proceeding talks which resulted in the Treaties of Benefice solidified the current balance of power in the region. In theory, these treaties granted lands to the Arrakian invaders, but as vassals to the Paladian ruler. In reality, the overlordship of the Paladian existed only on the vellum pages of the treaties. The treaties also called for mutual defense against the barbarian hordes of the Juads whose migrations were making their way toward Arrakian lands.

The treaties would be tested in P.T. 1324 when Juad and Arrakian forces met at the Battle of Crystal Lake. While the Arrakian forces where initially defeated, the Paladian remained true to their promise and came to the aid of the besieged forces in Vebronia. Their intervention stopped a total defeat and set the stage for a future alliance between the two human nations. In P.T. 1258 peace was made between the Juad and Arrakian peoples and sealed with the marriage of Björn Osternyk, a Juad prince, to the Arrakian righ's eldest daughter.

The Fifth Age – The Modern Age

In P.T. 1234 with the assassination of Emperor Martin I in Roland, Eirbron and Paladondia would more tightly seal their alliance with the Treaty of Lydia, agreeing to mutually defend the Spineridge passes from the forces of the sorceror-king usurper in Roland.