History of the Continent

The Origin of Sentience

More than 100,000 years ago, this continent was home to many isolated bands of hunter-gatherers. Sometime between 100,000 and 80,000 years ago, a change took place in the behavior of these bands that still puzzles archaeologists today.
In short, the various species (including primitive humans and elves, giants, a sort of proto-goblin, and several diminutive races that variously combined or split and eventually became halflings, dwarves, and gnomes) began to behave very differently. This change took place roughly simultaneously on an archaeological scale; it may have originated with one species and spread from there, or it may have come up organically, as it were, in many at once.
This change in behavior involved certain signs of social consciousness: skeletons from those times have been found with healed wounds, even wounds that would have rendered someone useless to their tribe while they were recovering, such as broken legs. There are also ancient pieces of art, like cave paintings and small sculptures, objects that were not useful as primitive tools but displayed significant craftsmanship. Tool use also became more advanced, with simple sticks and rocks being replaced with flaked obsidian and carved stone. Bodies began to be buried with items that could be useful to a tribe.
Before these developments, the proto-races were essentially indistinguishable from equivalent non-sentient animal races: proto-goblins operated in the same niches as bears and wolves, humans were similar to types of apes, etc. After this development, most everyone agrees that the races developed what, for lack of a better term, we call "sentience."
The earliest site for artifacts of this kind comes from caves deep under the mountains of Iopetre. Whether this is because Iopetre was truly the origin of this revolution or whether Iopetre just gives archaeologists more money remains to be seen.

Geographical Origins of Species

Humans

Humans seem to have originated from the area of land stretching from southern Iopetre through Mercurial and west into Maris.
As late as 2,000 years ago, Maris was dominated by farmland, fueled by the Andraste and the numerous other rivers slicing through the area. Agriculture was first developed by humans along the Demon River, which flooded in an unusually precise pattern from year to year, leaving significant rich mud deposits along its banks.
Many varieties of wheat are native to the banks of the river and would have been susceptible to selection based on hunter/gatherer practices, i.e., gathering seeds, scattering those seeds along set pathways and in midden areas, thereby accidentally creating closer and thicker growth of wheat species.
The two oldest human settlements on Trinity are without a doubt Phobos and Demos, surrounding the Demon River. These sites seem to have first been more like camps on the river for a yearly wheat harvest by hunter/gatherers who only remained stationary part of the year, but gradually seem to have turned into permanent outposts for growing the wheat along the banks of the river. By 10,000 years ago, they were permanent and growing into bustling cities.
Between 8,000 and 4,000 years ago, human society gradually expanded until it stretched across the whole continent. Population expanded and contracted with droughts and food surplus but gradually increased on average until it hit a pre-historical peak at about 3,000 years ago. After that, population in Maris crashed, along with the environment. Depletion of forest resources, overfarming, and population pressure combined to make a series of wars especially devastating, resulting in widespread famine. Maris's environment has been desert ever since, with only the periodically refreshed river banks currently useable for any sort of food-growing. There have been attempts to restart irrigation in ancient systems present around Phobos and Demos, but crops do not grow. More recently, this has been determined to be the result of salt levels in the soil, which must be higher than they were in ancient times.
The collapse of the ancient society on the Demon River spurred on a massive migration of humans to every end of the continent.

Elves

Elves and humans share a closer evolutionary ancestor than most other races, but they still did not originate in the same area. Elves seem to be native to northern Dionne, possibly resulting from a pre-human race coming into contact with energies from the Feywild.
Elves did not practice traditional agriculture the way humans did. Rather, they cultivated the jungle around them to produce only useful plants. Many types of vegetation went extinct in the thousands of years after elves began to display signs of sentience, and, today, the jungles of Dionne contain very little that can't be used.
Until recently, it was believed that elves simply remained hunter-gatherers even into currently known and recorded history. However, closer examination of the Dionne jungles have proven this false: there are signs of purposeful terracing, irrigation, and cultivation in every slope. The long lives that elves lead caused them to make changes slowly and deliberately, emphasizing balance and ecological preservation.
Today, Dionne is mostly uninhabited, as it cannot support the large-scale agriculture necessary to have a modern population. Hunting and gathering remains the most cost effective way to utilize the land.
A mass migration of elves made an oceangoing leap up the coast to Venezia around -3000. They established a cultural center in Venezia and began to expand southwards, meeting the coming tide of human expansion and the erratic orc expansion as they went.

Dwarves, Halflings, and Gnomes

There were no less than seven sentient races with average heights between 2 and 4 feet. These originated in a broad belt across Juno, Neptea, and Ceres.
Dwarves originated from an offshoot that broke off from coastal Neptea. Around 60,000 years ago, dwarves expanded across the strait to modern-day Vulcan. They stayed at low population levels for thousands of years, eventually receiving the package of domesticated species of plants and animals from the mainland. The result was a population boom.
Vulcan presented unique challenges. Its soil was fertile, as it was often renewed by volcanic eruptions from the major peaks at either end of the crescent-shaped arc of land. However, most of this land was incredibly steep. The low valleys and river mouths therefore were the only place where agriculture took hold. The mountains, though, were the source of an incredible wealth of mineral resources, starting with copper, tin, gold, and iron, currently including aluminum, platinum, and mithril-silver, among others. The mountains couldn't feed themselves, and the rivers couldn't make the sophisticated tools that the mountains had to offer. This interdependence produced a remarkably cooperative interlinked society of clans and tribes.
Halflings, on the other hand, seem to be a fusion of three separate races that lived in Ceres. One race developed agriculture, and within a thousand years, the whole of present-day Ceres was divided into fields and villages, with the three races thoroughly intermixed. Unlike in other areas, the development of agriculture didn't give rise to nearly as much large-scale conflict. Elsewhere, agriculture was a trap: the more food there was, the more population expanded to take the available surplus, and the more hands were needed to make extra food, and so on. Instead, halflings seem to have neglected to multiply to the point of straining Ceres' resources. Whether this was from the careful necessity of three races jostling one another for available land or for some other reason is unknown. Regardless, the underutilization of Ceres nearly resulted in halflings being wiped out by human expansion an amazing three separate times. Humans did eventually wind up outnumbering halflings on their own land, but halfling communities are still many and quite populous.
Gnomes took the middle ground, quite literally, developing sailing abilities far beyond what any other race achieved and trading between the dwarves and halflings. Gnomes also expanded upwards into current Astraan, displacing two other small races and potentially leading to their extinction.

Goblinoids

Goblinoids evidently were present in pre-history on Rusana and through Iplit and Arth. There are competing theories on origin. One states that goblinoids originated on Rusana and spread west, and the other states that they originated in Arth and spread both east and west. Regardless, by the invention of agriculture, the divides were stark: hobgoblins and bugbears mostly existed along the coastlines of Arth and Rusana, goblins were scattered in what is now southern Minerva, and orcs had migrated upwards into the mountains splitting the continent, dominating the part of the range stretching from Minerva to Iopetre. (Of course, orcs, being poorly organized and rarely united between tribes, were often pushed off the most fertile and productive land; as a result, they inhabited the mountains but, for example, did not occupy the Andraste river valley.)

Other Races

Most other races have been established more or less conclusively as having originated outside of Trinity. Whether that means a chain of islands beyond the storm belt or it means the Feywild, the Infernal or Celestial planes, or elemental planes, the fact remains that until about 7000 B.E., the world was only inhabited by the races mentioned above.

The Age of Gods

Religion began to develop as early as sentience did. However, the first real evidence of gods taking an active hand in civilization comes much later, millennia after agriculture became the dominant mode of food production. In about 7000 B.E., large religious monuments start to appear, including large temples (Venezia), step pyramids (east Dionne, Maris), and stone circles (Ceres). In addition, this time started to see the gods united into pantheons.
With this, the world changed.
The uniting of pantheons with champions and heroes allowed groups of people to form into civilizations. Though many gods began as expressions of racial and species identity, the most powerful were those who spread beyond that and appealed to many different sorts of sentient creatures. Soon there was an idea of identity beyond appearance, beyond culture. The result was that warfare became larger and bloodier, and magical and technological development both accelerated.
It took thousands of years for truly multiracial empires to form. After the desertification of Maris, humans scattered from their former lands and began to migrate in all available directions. This pushed the orcs back east, while simultaneously dwarves were beginning to expand back onto the main continent westwards. Elves were coming south from Venezia. Predictably, the Andraste River Valley became the very unpredictable center of the world.
Fascinating alliances grew out of these clashes of culture. Elves and orcs united to form a mountain kingdom that lasted centuries, and built countless fortresses. Goblins and halflings were staunch allies until, very suddenly, they were dread enemies. Dwarves and orcs clashed incessantly, as both wanted the same sorts of territory. Humans clashed with everyone, forming various alliances and enmities as the political winds changed.

A Note on the Origin of Gods

A great deal has been written on how the gods came to influence our world. The original arrival of these beings from the Celestial plane seems to have happened at the same time as behaviors of worship began among hunter-gatherers. So, which came first? It has long been supposed that gods broke into our realm and began to induce worship from there.
However, more recent theories have supposed that it was the other way around. After all, how is it that some of these gods were such perfect fits to the societies they wriggled into?How was it that their legends matched so perfectly to the terrain, values, and ideas represented by their worshippers? (A prime example of this is the Demon River goddess, her name now lost to history, who had three children, each matched to a mountain representing a different father-god. After an earthquake wiped the third tributary off the map, the child-god apparently died, though fruitless worship continued for almost a century.)
Some researchers suppose that gods may have conformed themselves to what they encountered, but later inflexibility belies that: gods tended to be wiped out rather than alter their legends in any significant way. The disastrous attempt of the halflings of southern Ceres to mingle their mother goddess figure with the apparently similar northern mother goddess figure comes to mind; though the two shared a common archetype and could have gained a great deal of power by unifying, the two goddess resisted adopting any traits of their counterpart. Both were eventually killed by the invasion of the trickster-led elf-orc alliance.
In fact, the Celestial plane does seem to be influenced by the thoughts and beliefs of those in this world. If nothing else, the fact that the plane has been sealed for so long based on the sheer determination of Imperial society demonstrates this.
Could it be, then, that the gods are creations of our collective minds and wills? If so, it makes the stories of exploitative deities ravaging our world for five thousand years seem a little hollow.
This train of reasoning, however, is anathema to the Empire, and has been met with stiff opposition even in the campuses of Minerva.

The Age of Monsters

Perhaps it was inevitable that, eventually, the battles of the gods would result in the creation of monsters.
A horrific curse created the Yuan'ti; goblinkind were twisted by a dark and manipulative pantheon of bloodthirsty gods; the thinning of the walls of our world opened us to hags, Beholders, dragons, and creatures much darker. There came a time after the exodus of humans from the Maris territory that monsters became as powerful as the gods, and our world broke in the conflict.
We cannot know the extent of the damage today. There are tales that there were other continents reachable by sail, that contacts were regular and frequent; the storm belt has rendered that impossible. There may have been more territory in our continent. Certainly Vulcan was nearly twice the size, and there were numerous other islands to the north.
This was when three gods -- perhaps four -- decided to ally with mortals, and rid the world of the rest of the chaotic pantheons, and make a safe place for the mortal races to live and thrive. 

The Age of Empire

Since the dominion of Ananda, Bella, and Morbin, we have enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace and security. The price we paid was isolation, on our own world and between planes of reality.