Narfell and Raumathar Having recently re-read the Horde boxed set, I was struck again by the many references to the ancient Raumathar scattered through the text. That, along with the increased interest in the ancient empires in general, has led me to put together this brief history of Narfell and Raumathar. I used passages from official texts (referred to in the footnotes), and extrapolated the rest. If anyone has any further "official" info on these two empires (especially Narfell), please let me know.

First, an overview of the two fallen empires (from A Grand Tour of the Realms, p.125):

NARFELL: Occupying the land at the foot of the Great Glacier, Narfell was a great and cruel empire whose leaders made dark pacts with creatures from other planes. Their chief rival was Raumathar, and the two destroyed each other in battle a thousand years ago. The horsemen who occupy the land now claim to be the descendants of the last battle with Raumathar.

RAUMATHAR: A great eastern empire that once included Rashemen and Thay, Raumathar is two millenia old and almost a thousand years dead, perishing in battle with its foe Narfell. Its people were known as powerful battle-wizards.

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A Brief History

The great empires of Narfell and Raumathar were warlike nations that coalesced out of the migrating northern tribes that were paid to fight as mercinaries in the Orcgate Wars. They had weapons of iron (unlike the Mulhorandis' bronze ones) and soon developed powerful magic of their own. They quickly subdued large tracts of land, replacing the Mulhorandi culture with their own.[1]

With the Great Glacier at that time enveloping all of Vaasa and Damara in the west, covering Icelace Lake and the Teardrops, and reaching to the Icerim Mountains in the east [2], the northward-migrating tribes found themselves limited in their choices; both further westward and further northward travel was denied to them.

It was at this time that the tribes, united in their desire to find a new homeland, splintered. Rauthok, a charismatic and intelligent man who had studied much of the Mulhorandi arts, persuaded many of the tribes to follow him east across the great lake (Lake Ashane), where he promised open land and warmer climes (which he knew from studying Mulhorandi maps of the area). The other tribes, still following their shamans and demonologists, opted to stay where they were, attacking and enslaving many of their new neighbors (the natives of the Great Dale).

The Narfellians quickly became the dominant power in the area, as their mounted horsemen easily defeated their enemies (it has been speculated that the Narfellians, if not the Raumatharans, originate in the same southern area as the ancient Arkaiuns of Dambrath. The similar horse strains would seem to support this theory).[3] After conquering the areas known today as Narfell, the Great Dale, and Ashanath, they followed their former allies eastward, pushing the Raumans (as the eastern tribes were now calling themselves) before them, and conquering huge swathes of the northern steppes.[4]

At the Battle of Riualyn, the Rauman finally defeated the Narfellian horsemen. The Rauman battlemages took center stage, as their magics proved the deciding factor. Riualyn was a turning point in the history of the Rauman, as they drove the Narfellians back across the Ashane and established the mages as the ruling class (up till this point in history, Rauman mages were mostly practicing tattoo- and rune-magic, which are limited in both power and effectiveness. It is unknown just how they gained their mastery of more conventional magic - especially the schools of invocation/evocation and conjuration/summoning - but many scholars speculate that their knowledge came from the northernmost ruins of the Imaskari, in the area of Priador).[5]

After Riualyn, the Rauman soon capitalized on their success, establishing the Raumathar Empire. This nation drove into the Endless Wastes, eventually extending as far as Sossal in the north and the Lake of Mists in the south.[6] Their battlemages proved an even match for the Narfellian horsemen and demonologists, and the two powers settled into an uneasy period of empire. Although separated by several natural barriers (including the Great Glacier, the Ashane, and the Priador), the two empires clashed continually in border skirmishes and raids.

The two early empires had a great effect on other peoples, besides themselves. Many of the natives of the Great Dale, long a subject people of the Narfellians, migrated west across the Easting Reach where they fought the teeming goblin hordes in the mountains, and later formed the peoples of Impiltur and the Vast (many sages believe that a later wave of these peoples, fleeing the imminent destruction of the two empires,crossed over the Dragon Reach and became the ancestors of the Dalesmen).[7] In Raumathar, raids by the various nomad tribes of the steppes were a constant problem (In later years, the Suren, in particular, were a problem. Pushed out of Kara-Tur by the Kao, the Suren expanded to the west and for years harried the eastern border of Raumathar. When the final war between Narfell and Ramathar occured, the Suren drove the Raumatharans from the steppe. Continuing their advance, the barbarian horde even overwhelmed most of modern Narfell before it was stopped).[8] However, relations and trade with the Sossarim to the north and the dwarves of the easternly Firepeaks were more relaxed. In fact, the Raumatharans had such a good relationship with the dwarves of the Firepeaks that the stout folk were often seen in the cities and towns of the Empire, and many of them fought in the army of Raumathar [9] (including the company led by Theodo Greataxe, famed in legend as the ghosts of Dead Dwarf Bridge).[10]

Perhaps the greatest effect the two empires had on a people was that of the nation of Rashemen. This region, caught between the two powers, spent many years as disputed ground. Armies of both lands marched and retreated through Rashemen, and the native Rashemi themselves developed a warrior culture while fighting one or the other of the two warring states. Years after the collapse of both Narfell and Raumathar, the Rashemi united to form a new nation with the assistance of the mysterious witches.[11]

At thier height, both empires had many wondrous achievements, especially in regards to architecture. Most traces of Narfellian buildings are lost today, but several Raumatharan ruins still exist today. [12] (that these sites happened to survive would seem to point to the Raumathari as prodigious builders, given the extent of the devastation that affected the Wastes).

Eventually, Narfell and Raumathar escalated their border skirmishes into all-out war with each other. It was a bitter and bloody struggle, full of the tales of great heroes: Rauthok, Jesthren, Halduplac, and many others whose names are lost to the sands of time.[13] The two empires held one final cataclysmic battle and destroyed each other utterly. Netherworld fiends fought against dragons, cities were burned, and in the end, Narfell and Raumathar were no more.[14]

Many contemporary historians are quick to judge Narfell the "victor" in the war, for the land of Narfell still exists today as do its' people (albeit in a more primitive form), whereas "Boundless Raumathar" today has been blasted into the barren, forboding land of the Endless Wastes. However, it should be pointed out that descendants of the Raumatharai, the Raumvira, do live on; a stocky, thick-bearded race that lives around the shores of the Lake of Mists (especially in the city of Almorel), these people trace their ancestry back to the fall of the Raumathar empire (although the nomads who surround the Lake of Mists have had their effect, too).[15] As well, the Rashemi people exhibit these physical traits, much more so than those of the Nar peoples.

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Footnotes

[1]. FR10 Old Empires, p.3

[2]. The extents of the Glacier comes from FR9 Bloodstone Lands and the Horde Boxed Set.

[3]. Pure specuation on my part, though FR9 does make a point of stating how good the Nar horsemen (and horses) are. Since we know the Nars ancestors come from the south, and we also know (from FR16 Shining South) that the Arkaiuns were warlike and posessed the finest horses in the region, it seemed to fit. Also, in 202 DR, southern barbarians (including Arkaiuns) attacked Mulhorand and Unther - could these have been a second wave of northward-migrating peoples?

[4]. The Horde box set (p.15) mentions Narfell as controlling large portions of the northern Endless Waste, a claim that is disputed by all other published material I can find. Still, I managed to fit it in.

[5]. Again, speculation on my part. Still, the Horde box set states (p.19) that the Imaskari empire extended into Thay and the southern steppe, so ruins aren't all that unlikely. Also, I was hard pressed to explain how southern "barbarians" became such mighty battle-mages in such a short period of time (there is only about 160 years between the end of the Orcgate Wars and the rise of the two empires, so some outside influence seems likely to me).

[6]. Horde Boxed Set, p.19

[7]. A Grand Tour of the Realms, p.119 (under the heading "The Great Dale")

[8]. Horde Boxed Set, p.19

[9]. Extrapolated from the Horde Boxed Set. Although it doesn't detail the dwarves relationship with the Raumathari, it states (p.47); "...the Firepeaks are home to an ancient dwarven kingdom. In ages past, just as the might of the dwarves peaked, an adventurous band left the west and made their way across the "flat world" to settle in the Firepeaks. These settlers were the last wave of the great dwarven expansion." Thus, we know that there was a dwarven civilization within the boundaries of Raumathar. We also know that dwarves served in the Raumatharan army (see [10], below). To me, it seems like the two races had much contact.

[10]. The tale of Dead Dwarf Bridge is told on p.37-38 in the Horde Boxed Set.

[11]. Spellbound Boxed Set, Campaign Guide p.69.

[12]. In particular, Beacon Cairn (Horde, p.26-27), the Many-Windowed Tower (Horde, p.80- 81), and Winterkeep (Horde, p.108), as well as the Raumkreml, the fortress that stands in the heart of Almorel (although the Raumkreml, as well as the entire city, is almost certainly a replica of the original, given its' wooden construction (Horde, p.24)).

[13]. FR10 Old Empires, p.3

[14]. FR10 Old Empires, p.4

[15]. Horde Boxed Set, p.76