Dragonfall

the Fall of the Areian Nations

According to Ethae history, mythical or factual, in the year 3000sc, during the Kephic Age, a thousand strong Dragon horde descended upon the forests of Karasaanu, home of the Areian Nations, burning all to ash. The dragons, apex creatures of the ancient world, in fear and jealousy, saw the rise of the Elf as their greatest threat. The would-be gods had long been marginalized as the Areian Nations rose to power across the continent. Elves mastery of Daanan grew beyond the dragon's own Magic. Their own power waning over the centuries, the creatures took a last desperate measure, uniting with their own hated kin to attack and bring down the areians.

Benet accounts record the horde of dragons swarming over Yaren Juhl before spreading and striking across the eastern borders of the forest. The flames so bright, some as far as the Cutting Mountains thought the sun rose in the west that day. The attack lasted days, if not weeks, as the dragons spread west across the vast forest, burning all as they went.

Many of the older, wiser dragons seemed to linger longer in the east, cleaning up any remaining elven defenses, letting the younger, brasher dragons pushed west for their own glory. This is understood to be a lie and manipulation to historians today that studying the event. The front lines of the dragons were slaughter after the elves rallied. This tactic worked for the elder dragons. With Karasaanu burning around them, their bodies exhausted from fighting the dragons, the surviving defenders fell to the more powerful dragons, fresh from their days of lingering behind and waiting.

While the Dragonfall event is seen as victory for the dragons, it cost them the war in the long run. It is believed that every dragon on the continent was involved in the fight, with most dying through the days of battle with elves. Other died in the aftermath, as the strongest took what they wanted as spoil, killing any that challenged them. However, the largest cost to the dragons was the elven resolve for revenge. Centuries, millennia, ages have passed and through all that time the elves hunted the dragons. There is no mercy or forgiveness, the elves hatred for dragons is ingrained in their culture to the modern day. And in this modern day it is common belief that there are no more dragons in the world, so complete has elven revenge been. The learned however know this is not quite true, dragons do still survive. Most are in hiding, protected by their cults of worshippers, but those few remnants are still hunted by the elves.

Outside the loss of the Areian Nations and their control of the continent, the destruction of such a large area of forest as karasaanu in fire had other far-reaching effects. Smoke reached as far as Dergonhad, covering the skies in black clouds that blotted out the sun for a year. The decade that followed saw the world's weather altered, crops world-wide struggling to grow in the colder weather as smoke lingering in the atmosphere. The once fertile lands of Anbar were transformed into an arid region. Ash, melted stone, and glassed soiled slowly crumbled into waves of sand by time and weather. The glaciers in the Cutting Mountains western peaks melted with the warmer temperatures that now ravage Anbar, flooding regions that are still underwater today. Several rivers that had made Craddle Valley so fertile in the past dried up, altering the region forever.

Not all natural changes are considered devastating, however. The drastic shift from a vibrant rainforest to an arid desert changed the weather over the rest of Ethae as well. Novyum, especially the western lands, shifted from rainforest of their own to a more temperate climate, providing a more stable environment for cultures to flourish. The seas between Anbar and Novyum, such as what is known today as the Pryde Waters and Capedian Sea, dominated by storms through history became more navigable, aiding the rise of Human such as the Capedian and the Lakortha.

The results of Dragonfall transformed Ethae forever. It is no wonder that some historians view the event as the transition from the ages of elf and Dwarf into the age of humankind. The old mythical world into the modern world.