A Brief History of the Drifting World
Contents
Origins of the World and the Intelligent Races
The most widely accepted accounts of the creation of the world are, of course,
elvish. Elvish lore holds that the world is of infinite age but undergoes
periodic reformations. The most recent reformation took place twelve to
fifteen thousand years ago. It is generally believed that the elves existed
in the previous world and were "reborn" in a somewhat altered
form with the last reformation. As a consequence, they are universally accepted
as being the oldest of the races, older than the hills. Dragons are also
held to be carry-overs from the previous world, and are perhaps even older,
but their exact nature is known only to the dragons themselves and, as the
proverb has it, "he who seeks answers of dragons will celebrate his
new wisdom in the afterlife."
Initially, the elves are said to have kept to their "homeland,"
the forest cities of Manai-Tir-Quelli. After perhaps five or six thousand
years, however, their numbers eventually grew great enough that they began
to expand to the south and east, setting up small villages and widely scattered
homesteads. Elven travelers in the Syrmidon mountains soon encountered primitive
dwarvish tribesmen, living in caves and subsisting on mountain goats and
subterranean fungi. The first elf-dwarf contacts have been represented as
peaceful, with exchanges of gifts of immense power. The dwarves are also
said to have learned writing and other items of basic wisdom from the elves
(both dwarves and civilized humans learned writing from the elves, so their
scripts still bear similarities to elven usage).
Men appeared perhaps a thousand years later, riding horses on the edges
of the Nuramian plain. By the time the elves found them, they were already
building villages in the low hills at the foot of the Lustua mountains and
pressing out against the scattered tribes of centaurs living in the plain
proper. A growing body of elven lore soon brought news of reptile men living
in swamps of the Epaline wilderness, minotauri in the western part of the
Kubrukh-Mar mountains, trolls and more humans in the Mastiqua reach, and
gargoyles and more dwarves in the Kubrukh-Mar highlands. Except for a few
excursions by individuals, the dragons remained in their caves in the Great
Buruch and the roughest areas of the Kubrukh-Mar and have since remained
completely aloof from the affairs of "lesser races."
Up until this point, the new contacts were relatively peaceful. This changed
when elven settlements began to spring up beyond the Kubrukh-Mar. Elf homes
and villages were suddenly beset with tribes of orcs attacking from the
twin deserts of the Zuznun. The elves abandoned the few settlements that
had not been abandoned outright and fell back along the Mastiqua reach and
along the narrow coastal shelf south of the Kubrukh-Mar. The mountains,
inhabited by dwarves, gargoyles, and dragons, formed an effective barrier
to the west, but the prolific orcs soon expanded across the Myalli sea into
the Mastiqua reach, where they came to constant fighting with the equally
prolific humans.
The exact origin of the younger races is a matter of some contention. Orthodox
elvish belief holds that they were all created and endowed with speech and
the power of thought at the world's reformation, a position also held in
slightly variant forms by the dwarvish lays and the Vissanist religion.
Elves of the early Thytota'u heresy hold that the humans and dwarves were
created as intelligent beings, but the others originated as animals. They
only gained the power of speech later and never truly achieved more than
a shadow of true thought. Elves of the late Thytota'u affirm that the elves
are the only truly intelligent beings. Little of significance is known of
the beliefs of the uncivilized races and the humans of the far north.
The Expansion of the Younger Races
While elven settlements were scattered across the world, they were both
small and far apart, connected by a web of travelers and magical communication.
This left a great deal of land to be filled. The other intelligent races,
known collectively as "the younger races," expanded into those
spaces. In particular, humans, dwarves, and orcs advanced their civilizations
and filled the empty land. Lizard men and gargoyles could not thrive outside
of their limited environments, minotauri were caught between humans and
dwarves, and the centaurs retained their small corner of the plains only
at the sufferance of human rulers.
The humans of the southwestern part of the continent eagerly adopted ideas
from the elves and incorporating them into their own tribal structures.
Humans settled down to grow crops and build their first villages. In time,
they built Sefraites, their first city, and so the chiefs of Sefraites slowly
became the first kings. In the centuries that followed, other cities sprang
up and the Nuramian plain and Vefrites plateau were soon filled with squabbling
petty kingdoms and city-states. Eventually, the petty kingdoms grew as one
city grew wealthier or another came to be ruled by a particularly able warrior.
During this period, human power struggles came to be dominated by three
cities: Eldemar on the fertile plains near the Epaline wilderness, Nurmar
on the Sybine river, and Loturia in the foothills of the Lustua mountains.
Edelmar's wealth was based largely in its access to exotic woods and plant
extracts culled from the Epaline wilderness. Nurmar's coastal holdings and
traditionally large fleet gave it substantial control over long-range shipping,
but it was challenged by Loturia's proximity to the elven north. For several
years, Nurmar gradually lost influence to Loturian influence among the mass
of semi-independent city-states between them. Determined to defeat his city's
traditional enemy, Calanxes, monarch of Nurmar, taxed his subjects to near-bankruptcy
and used the proceeds to rally the remnants of the centaur herds that used
to wander the Nurmarian plain, now fallen to banditry. Using the centaurs
to confuse the Loturians and disrupt their trade and supply routes, Calanxes
marched his troops north and, at the end of a lightning campaign, burned
Loturia to the ground. He ordered that the ruins of Loturia be maintained
as a symbol of Nurmar's power and a warning to potential enemies. In return
for their aid, the centaurs were granted a moderately-sized area of Nuramian
plain. After securing his position by striking alliances with the minor
kingdoms of Sefraites and Wynadon, he was poised to turn his attention west.
Calanxes died suddenly at this point (legend has it that he had too much
to drink one evening and, overlooking the Sybine from a balcony in the royal
palace, fell into the river and drowned), but his son Calanxatus proved
a more than worth successor. After taking a few years to stabilize Nurmar's
economy (largely by extorting tribute and increased tariffs from Loturia's
former allies), Calanxatus methodically either converted or crushed Edelmar's
allies, eventually forcing Edelmar to accept Nurmarian hegemony. Calanxatus
elevated himself from monarch of Nurmar and became Calanxatus I, the first
emperor of the Nurmarian empire. Over the next few centuries, the Calanxian
dynasty and its successors would extend the empire's reach from the rocky
Tevari islands to the foothills of the Kubrukh-Mar.
In the southeast, the fecund orcs grew even more warlike and aggressive,
perhaps as a consequence of their growing numbers. They first began to expand
westward, into the dwarven areas of the Kubrukh-Mar. The dwarven resistance
was whole-hearted, but unorganized as single families and clans defended
their individual holdings. In time, many were crushed under the weight of
orcish numbers. As dwarven chieftains began to recognize their crumbling
strategic position, they started to form alliances. Soon, dwarf clans were
building collective fortress-towns, called "darrows," into the
mountainsides. The darrows, which quickly evolved schemes to efficiently
utilize collective mining labor, proved to be economically powerful entities
as well as remarkably safe against orc raids. Extensive tunnel networks
allowed the dwarves to move their forces quickly and launch devastating
hit-and-run attacks against orcish incursions, and the main darrows' massive
fortifications, mostly carved out of solid rock, were all but invulnerable
to lightly armed orcish raiders. Despite the dwarves' well-known resistance
to compromise, the darrow-republics became the dominant dwarven social organization
through the Kubrukh-Mar, although dwarven clans remained independent in
the Syrmidon. Only a trickle of orcish expansion moved along the southern
shores of the Myalli sea. Some of the most impressive feats of dwarvish
engineering were carried out during this period. An increased need for water
power for trip hammers and blast furnaces led to the construction of the
Gurunbat dam, which turned the valleys near Darrow Gurunbat into the Grand
Reservoir.
Blocked in their western expansion, the orcs turned north. The Keshvir tribe,
which had managed to achieve a measure of stability in the sheltered "hook"
of the Greater Zuznun, built on its position by building ships for other
tribes and providing extensive port facilities. The Keshvir performed little
conquest and, probably, little more raiding than any other tribe. However,
Keshviri ships captained by Keshviri officers carried eager raiding parties
across the Myalli to the Mastiqua reach. The occasional raids of earlier
generations turned into a flood of pirates and reavers, some of whom stayed,
and a great deal of the plunder that returned to the Zuznun went through
Keshvir's markets and taverns. As a consequence of their generations of
struggle against the dwarves, the orcs were more organized than the human
tribes they fought. In time, they controlled all of the Mastiqua reach south
of the Josanta river and were making raids as far west as the Sea of Time.
The Rise and Fall of the Elven Empire
The elves played the smallest possible role in the affairs of other races
up to this point, occasionally offering advice to supplicants but largely
restricting their territory to the scattered enclaves that they had established
thousands of years earlier. Elvish settlements were concentrated in the
northwest, spreading as far east as the Myalli sea, with additional large
settlements in the forests of the Yana'a-Quelli by the crook of the Kubrukh-Mar.
This was initially made possible by the elves' slow population growth and
the equally sparse distribution of other races. However, as the younger
races multiplied to fill up the landscape and even the elves began to expand
their own territory, conflict was inevitable.
Despite their vastly superior magical expertise, the elves felt threatened
by the three major younger races. The orcs were threatening the elven settlements
on the eastern end of the Sea of Time, bringing back memories of the first
orcish massacres. Dwarvish demand for wood to build their mills and heat
their forges and smelters brought them out of the mountains to tear down
the elves' precious forest homelands. The building of the Grand Reservoir
had particularly serious environmental consequences in the Yana'a-Quelli.
The human kingdoms of the Nuramian plain and Vefrites plateau, having been
united under the Nurmarian empire, were starting to conquer outlying dwarvish
settlements and push north through the Lustua mountains.
The elves' first response was simply to fortify their settlements while
remaining aloof from the affairs of the younger races, but it became evident
that such a policy would fail in the long run. Vocal factions arose in elvish
society demanding that a far more active role be taken in protecting their
race. The elves split into two factions: the conservative Manai'u, who continued
to champion a hands-off policy, and the Thytota'u, who demanded that aggressive
steps be taken against the younger races. After a number of successful attacks
on traditionally lightly-defended Manai'u settlements by orcish raiders
and human armies, the Thytota'u decisively gained the upper hand in setting
elvish policy. Their plan was nothing less than to create a world-wide elvish
empire.
The stated goals of the empire were threefold: First, to limit expansion
of civilized humans to their current borders. Second, to prevent further
dwarvish depredations to the environment, particularly the great forests
of the Yana'a-Quelli and Manai-Tir-Quelli. Third, to push the orcs back
to their original territory in the Zuznun. The uncivilized human tribes
of the Hetchat Byaz and northwestern Mastiqua would be allowed to expand
into the area left open. An elvish administration was to be established
to enforce these policies.
Although elven warriors were individually excellent, elven armies were so
small as to be nearly insignificant when compared to the weight of dwarvish
numbers and Nurmarian legions, let alone potential orcish hordes. However,
they had a far more potent weapon on their side: a ten-thousand-year acquaintance
with magic and millennia-old wizards to cast amazingly potent spells. The
Nurmarian empire prepared to throw its armies against the imposition of
elven authority, but they were thrown back, broken and reeling, by plagues
and unnatural storms. Blights and clouds of insects destroyed Nurmarian
fields, and earthquakes crushed their cities. The empire collapsed and elven
overseers moved in to direct rebuilding.
The stubborn dwarves proved far more difficult to subdue, particularly since
the elvish intent was not simply to limit their expansion, as it was with
the humans, but to change their way of life. In addition, subterranean dwarves
were not nearly so effected by elven weather control and, unlike the Nurmarian
empire, no central authority to offer capitulation on behalf of the entire
dwarvish population, so the darrows had to be reduced one at a time. Between
earlier human attacks and later elvish pressure, the Syrmidon mountains
ended up nearly free of dwarves, with refugees fleeing to the east. Elvish
pressure against the dwarves became even more intense when the dwarves took
steps to cut off water from the Kubrukh-Mar to the Yana'a-Quelli. Nevertheless,
it took nearly a century and a half for the elves to complete the conquest
of Darrow Skrae, the last of the free darrows, and even then they were faced
with constant revolts and guerrilla warfare.
The elves preceded their military action against the Nurmarian empire and
the dwarves with diplomatic overtures and set up their own administration
as quickly as possible once their opponents had been defeated. They made
no such effort with the orcs. They were faced with the full might of the
elves' considerable magical power. Hideously powerful storms lashed at their
villages and sank their ships, hillsides shook and fell on them, and plagues
struck down huge numbers of them. It was as though nature itself had risen
up against them. All but a few small bands were exterminated or driven south
across the Myalli sea. For good measure, the port of Keshvir and a newer
port, Garmag, were decimated.
Over human territories, elvish government was fairly light. After the collapse
of the Nurmarian empire, human civilization was again composed of a great
many independent city-states. Elven administrators and diplomats were for
the most part able to play one city against the other while keeping all
subject to elven authority. The barbarians of the north merited closer attention
but little direct action when sizable settlements sprang up at Dwerinshalle
and Land's End. Due to their stronger resistance, the dwarves were subject
to tighter controls, and the elves occasionally had recourse to human agents
and mercenaries to supplement their sparse numbers. The deserts of the Zuznun
were not occupied, but the orcish coasts were patrolled by elven ships and
magicians, and even quarreling elves and dwarves maintained the eastern
frontier of the Kubrukh-Mar. This border fended off a number of major attacks,
many of which were launched from the stronghold Basai in the Lesser Zuznun.
The imperial period saw a growing division in elvish society. Elven cities
outside of the forests grew and multiplied as more Thytota'u went out in
the world to carry out the elvish administration. Eventually, the Thytota'u
became quite urbanized. The Manai'u who remained behind were probably just
as happy to see them go, and the deep forest settlements became increasingly
estranged from the outside world.
After nine hundred years of empire, a growing split became apparent within
the ranks of the Thytota'u. A radical faction, known as the late Thytota'u,
pointed to continuing dwarven resistance, orcish problems, and human infighting
and argued for the extermination of the younger races. Their argument was
bolstered on religious grounds: certain ancient sources suggested that another
reformation of the world was less than three thousand years off, and only
one of the intelligent races would survive the change. For the elves to
survive, they argued, the other races must be wiped out.
Arguments became acrimonious, with radical late Thytota'u demanding the
destruction of the younger races, more conservative "early" Thytota'u
supporting the preservation of a benevolent elven hegemony, and even a few
Manai'u proselytizers urging the elves to give up their empire and, if necessary,
pass away during the next change of the world. With surprising speed, these
arguments turned violent. The violence unleashed by the elves' factional
wars made the rise of the elven empire pale in comparison. Strongholds of
the Thytota'u factions hurled powerful spells at one another across human
and dwarvish lands, destroying cities and collapsing darrows. True to form,
most of the Manai'u remained in their forests, but some worked covertly
against both sides. Most of the elves' eldest and most powerful magicians
were killed. A particularly powerful series of spells and counterspells
destroyed the settlements in the Yana'a-Quelli and left the area haunted
and cursed. The few elves remaining there fled, renaming it the Deserted
Quarter. While minotauri are known to roam its outer edges, it has remained
uninhabited by humans, elves, and dwarves ever since.
The destruction of the Yana'a-Quelli shocked all three elvish factions.
The remaining elders of the Manai'u called for and got negotiations between
the factions to end the war. After difficult negotiations, the decimated
factions reached an accommodation: The Manai'u remained in their forests,
while the Thytota'u divided the elvish cities between them. The early Thytota'u
were to keep the northern cities, particularly thickly distributed around
the Sea of Time, while the late Thytota'u kept or built cities in the south,
particularly around the Tevari islands and along the southern edge of the
Kubrukh-Mar. All the elves were forbidden the use of open warfare save against
direct attack. With the elves divided, their numbers reduced, and their
finest dead, the empire would be impossible to maintain and so was dissolved.
The Aftermath and the Present
In the centuries since the collapse of elven rule, the younger races have
slowly recovered. Major human kingdoms are centered around Medau-a-Ver,
Pendolo, Wynadon, and Lesser Mannan (once a colony of now-subordinate Greater
Mannan). Nurmar is still an important player, although it is much reduced
from its previous estate. A Nurmarian "empire" still exists, but
covers a much-reduced empire, encompassing the Sybine river valley and a
section of the Nuramian plain still held by Nurmar's centaur allies. Nevertheless,
it has not seen rulers of Calanxatus's ilk for over a thousand years.
The restoration of independence to the dwarves brought political confusion.
Their anger against their former occupiers was now unchecked, but with the
elves gone, they had no one to direct it against. Soon enough, political
opportunists were able to direct that anger against former collaborators
in a number of large darrows. Harsh "investigative councils" and
other crusaders for loyalty to the darrow were able to take control in a
number of darrows. In Darrow Uluset, Darrow Karambad, and Darrow Skrae,
those opportunists and their families were able to make their extraordinary
powers permanent, becoming the first dwarvish kings. However, Darrow Gurunbat
and Darrow Bluchnus retained their republican character.
The orcs have become more cautious and deliberate than before the elven
empire. Most of the tribes of the Lesser Zuznun have been united under the
headman of Basai, the largest orcish city, and the Basai rulers have assembled
an alliance that extends into the Greater Zuznun. Keshvir and Garmag have
been rebuilt, and orcish pirates are beginning to cruise the Myalli sea.
There have not yet been any major raids along the southern coast of the
Mastiqua reach. The orcs are perhaps reluctant to return to the land they
were driven from so brutally a millennium earlier.
The current world situation is the result of accumulating grievances: The
dwarves hate the elves and have become generally distrustful of foreigners.
Many elves harbor the same resentments that led to the rise of the empire.
Most of the human kingdoms aspire to inheriting the imperial mantle of old
Nurmar. The orcs still burn to break out of the deserts of the Zuznun. And
over all of this are rumors of the impending reformation of the world. Many
ignore it, and some feel defeated by a sense of futility at the coming end
of the world, but a few search for lost wisdom that might let them prevent
or live through the crisis.
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