History

The Founding

The gods came from beyond and looked upon the realm, seeing potential for great beauty, strength and the chance to learn their own place in creation. Divine hands formed the First Children, the elves, created with physical grace reflecting the gods' own divinity. A second creation was wrought-the dwarves, a hearty people intent on taming the land, filled with the craft and invention of the divinity. A third people, humans, were endowed with hearts of passion that burned as brightly as their spans of life were short, filled with the celebration and laughter of the hands creating them.

Other creations followed and were given form from the boundless inspiration of the gods. These Children of Creation walked the land, and as their knowledge grew they attempted to build. The land was fierce and treacherous, and the children were dashed and consumed by the elements. The gods gave to them gifts, lending their own power to their children to create and shape the world around them.

Beneath the elements, unknown to the creators beyond the skies, lived ancient beings who had already taken this world as their own: the Primordials. These then rose from their unseen domain to sunder the land once more and the gods watched as their children were largely dashed against the broken rock or fed to formless terrors unleashed in the wake of the destruction.

Some gods were so full of grief and anger they wished to abandon this world for another. Others wished to remain and subdue these primordials, to tame the land for the sake of their creation and joy. This caused a divide among the gods, joining their song and sword to that of chaos and destruction, taking and twisting their children in the image of their intent. Celestial sentinels locked into war with the chaotic forces of the Abyss fell to hate and tyranny, forging the Hells under a fallen angel now claiming lordship.

The remaining creators, wishing to salvage their home, their creations and their realized selves were forced to take up arms and learn new methods of protection to defend the faithful among their creations. With these newly granted capabilities, the good children drove away their traitorous kin, banished the Betrayer Gods to their own planes, and ultimately destroyed the primordials while scattering the chaotic elements to their own planes of existence.

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The Age of Aranum

Over time, some of the peoples grew arrogant. Seeing their arcane gifts as proof the gods held no sway over their fate, some began to believe that with enough understanding they could become as powerful as the gods themselves. Many begun to shun faith for their own pursuits.

Great kingdoms sprang up, castles built in a day accelerated by the arcanists' newfound power. As mages practiced and perfected their powers of creation, they soon unlocked the secrets of life itself, giving birth to new forms of life and power.

One powerful archmage, Vespin Chloras, sought the guidance and power of the banished gods, and released them unto the mortal world. The prime deities descended to trade blows with their former brethern and the battle between divinity and mortalkind, heroes and demons rages ceaselessly for twenty days and nights until the dark forces were forced to retreat.

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The Calamity

No record remains of the terrible war that followed, but its effects are still felt today. It completely rearranged the known flow of magical ley energy across Exandria. So great was the loss of life during the war that historians believe no more than a third of Exandria's population survived.

The world entered a long, dark period of recovery where history had to be recovered and purpose had to be restored. The gods left their children to fend for themselves and returned to their own realms. The disappearance of the gods is also known as the "Second Spark" for those who study the arcane, the "Penance" for those who seek closeness with their gods, and the "Divergence" for this time of warfare and separation.

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800 years ago included the rule of Warren Drassig, the greatest warrior of Emon and a loudmouthed braggart and cunning oligarch. He seized power and transformed the realm into the Kingdom of Drassig, with himself as the supreme monarch. He severed any connections with the elves and made new alliances with the dwarves, marrying his autocratic power with the dwarves immense material wealth.

The Scattered War

This war lasted for thirty-two years. The settlements, towns and cities had no means of long-range communication and could not warn each other. Drassig attacked each one with little resistance. He taught his soldiers to infiltrate the enemy to uncover their weaknesses and determine the best points of attack. Cities crumbled beneath his attacks.

Eventually he sent his troops to what was believed to be an abandoned village, rumored to be a haven for refugees. In the town square he delivered an inspiring speech on the utility of fear and shadow in his victories. During the speech he was hit by an arrow and they were attacked by the elves and rebellious humans of the scattered colonies.

After he fell, he was replaced by his son, Neminar Drassig. Neminar became knkown for his dabbling in necromancy that left one arm withered and useless. The Drassig war machine was elevated with his militarizing of infernal magics and forbidden rites. He introduced tactics and magics to fuel his soldiers beyond human limits, leaving their bodies altered and mutated by foul, dark, necromatic magics with minds warped and twisted to favor mindless bloodshed and domination.

Against him, the rebellious humans and elves bolstered their ranks, led by Zan Tal'Dorei, a human who rose from the streets of Syngorn. Rallying the ranks, he lured Neminar into the Verdant Expanse, a realm where fey magic worked in favor of Syngorn. Neminar was defeated but Warren's youngest son then took power.

Battle of the Umbra Hills

King Trist Drassig, second-born son of Warren Drassig, took the throne and envisioned the end of the Scattered War. He was neither brilliant nor as charismatic as his father and his armies were stretched thin. Zan and her rebels, allied with the elves of Syngorn, pursued Drassig to a valley in the Umbra Hills. Fiends, spawns of the Betrayer gods, fought back against the rebels and the hills ran dark with blood and ichor.

Against all odds, Zan ended the Drassig bloodline and the infernal pact it had made. The grass and flowers now grow black and burnt as an echo of this battle.

The Rise of the Tal'Dorei

Society had all but collapsed during the war. The council nominated the war hero Zan to take the seat as the king and renamed the realm Tal'Dorei. With power divided amongst the Sovereign and the council, Emon's leaders cleared their realms of most corruption and brutality. The leading clans of Kraghammer claimed they had been manipulated and spent many years years making amends, but trust between the kingdoms was long to heal.

The Icelost Years

Two years into Zan's reign, a cataclysm struck. An agent from the Frostfell, the elemental plane of ice, slipped through a secret tear between the worlds housed in the forested region now known as the Frostweald. This unknown agent watched as the realm was torn and distracted by the aftermath of war, returned to inform its master, a cruel elemental behemoth of incredible power called Errevon the Rimelord. An army of frost giants marched through the chasm, accompanied by sentient blizzards led by the rimelord himself.

It built a great fortress of frost north of the rift and forced conquered folk to swear fealty in exchange for warmth and unfrozen water. This violent rule stood for several years before the Council of Tal'Dorei conviced Syngorn and Kraghammer to ally with them for the sake of the realm. They combined their resources to battle Errevon back to the rift from whence he came and cast him back into Frostfell.

The Cinder King

After many generations of peaceful rule, there spread a shadow in the south that threatened outlying townships. Trade caravans began to vanish and villages sent for aid against a "nightmare of fire and malice." Fields covering the Mornset Countryside were turned to ash and the outerfolk of the regin were bent to slavery under this new threat. Calling himself Thordak the Cinder King.

With the martial forces of the capital city of Emon unleashed, a terrible struggle erupted south of the Stormcrest Mountains, leaving many a soldier reduced to bone and ember. It wasn't until a band of renowned adventurers entered the fray that the battle was won, sealing the unstoppable wyrm within the Elemental Plane of Fire.

The Chroma Conclave

Sixteen years after the sealing of Thordak, daily life had long returned to the normal quarrels over trade pricing and kobold infestations. During those years, an old ally of Thordak's, a green dragon named Raishan, established communication from between the planes and plotted the red dragon's return.

After infiltrating the Pyrah Ashari for nearly five years, Raishan finally unlocked the seal between the planes that bound Thordak and set him free, which allowed the entire circle of ancient dragons called the Chroma Conclave to unleash an assault of catastrophic proportions on Emon and the countryside. Three centuries of Tal'Dorei rule ended under the Uriel Tal'Dorei II when he was killed in the destruction.

The attack also scattered the Council of Tal'Dorei, throwing the realm into chaos. The remnants of the lands were divided up and taken as trophies by the Conclave, while the capital of Emon was ruled by the Cinder King himself.

One by one the members of the Conclave fell to the might and cleverness of adventurers known as Vox Machina, who eventually gathered allies and stormed Emon, slaying Thordak and freeing the people.

Tal'Dorei Reborn

Major cities like Westruun and Emon are especially fortunate, for the vast amounts wealth plundered from the dragons' ancient hoards have allowed them to hire legions of arcanists to magically restore much of what was lost.

The landscape of Tal'Dorei has been forever scarred. The hellfire marks from the Cinder King have left magical wounds that will never heal, bleeding fire and oozing chaotic magic. Smaller cities have begun to succumb to sinister influences. The Betrayer Gods sense weakness within the world.