History of Ancathra

The indigenous treants and giantkin were the first to speak and use magic. Over millions of years, otherworldly rifts have brought fey, undead, dragons, and humanoids to join them in the world.

In the Beginning Were the Yesreni

An ancient world whose written history spans two hundred thousand years, Ancathra (also commonly known as 'Arana', 'Ahn', and 'Ter'esreal') is a rich menagerie of peoples and magic. The enormous continent of Jehaan is the only known landmass, surrounded by a dozen sea kingdoms. three moons - Hinshira, Tiwaz, and ringed Matija - illuminate the night sky.
The indigenous people of the world are the treants and the 'yesreni' - the giantkin and those who evolved from them, the ogres and goliaths, dwarves, gnomes and others.

From Other Worlds

The history of Ancathra is one of repeated migrations (or invasions) of people from other planes. Almost a million years ago it is said a rift to the feywild opened, bringing fey creatures who gradually spread across the world. It is rumored that an undiscovered rift opened somewhere at some time after that, infecting Jehaan with the undead. The yesreni have no myths about the undead from before the fey appeared, leading many sages to conclude that the fey came first.

Age of the Five Dragon Emperors

Two hundred thousand years ago another rift opened, lasting long enough for hundreds of dragons to invade with slave armies of elves, humans, and orcs. After millennia of infighting five Dragon Emperors emerged triumphant, defeating both the yesreni resistance and other dragons and forging five empires.

Liberation of the Ausrani

The Five Emperors were overthrown sixteen thousand years ago in a rebellion led by the half orc Mother Ausra. The newly freed elven, human, and orcish slaves - and their mixed-breed children - abandoned the draconic palaces and became nomads. Calling themselves 'ausrani' after Mother Ausra, they have evolved and magically cross-bred into halflings, goblins, ogres, trolls and other humanoids.
It was during the thousands of years the ausrani traveled across the continent of Jehaan that envoys of the Sea Kingdoms first made themselves known. They were often storm giants whose ancestors had taken refuge under water when the dragons conquered Jehaan.

Birth of the Caisheni

Seven thousand years ago, the archdruid Caishen learned to magically breed ausrani with awakened animals. These experiments led to animal-hybrid creatures. Lycanthropes, gnolls, centaur, and the rest have called themselves 'caisheni' since they first appeared. When introduced to the other nomadic ausrani at their annual Gathering, some thought them abominations. The elven supremacist Halas led his followers to destroy the caisheni at the Gathering of 5587 B.C., but he was deafeated soon after.

A Golden Age

Five thousand years ago, a faction of the ausrani caravans, led by Cheiftain Alousa, settled down and formed permanent communities based on the examples of Tanatra and Cernoa. The earliest villages were founded in the delta of the Aus River in what would become ancient Alousia. Among them was Cinri, which could become the capital of both the first and second Alousian Empires. Within a few generations of Alousa's founding of Cinri, her followers and descendants had founded other settlements up and down the river valleys of the west.
Four hundred fifty years after the founding of Cinri, Alousa’s grand-daughter Durenna gathered the chiefs and leaders of all the Alousian lands and proclaimed herself Empress. Leader of the greatest military power in the region, and a gifted warrior herself, no one challenged Durenna’s claim. Durenna's heirs ruled the Ancient Alousian Empire until its destruction just over a thousand years ago.
The example of Cinri spread quickly to other ausrani caravans. Within a few hundred years, ausrani towns began to thrive, often in wetlands or river deltas. One of the earliest was Nishima, soon to be the capital of the Magisterium of Godossea, the second ausrani empire of this Golden Age. Godossea absorbed the ancient fey homelands of Cernoa as well as surrounding ausrani territory from Kuroshar to the caisheni lands of the Southern Covenant. The magewrights of the Magisterium are legendary for having invented many magic items, constructs, and other creations. 
At the height of Godossea's power, ancient records mention a place called "Ishtria" several times over the course of a few centuries. Stories of the Lost City of Ishtria are still told by bards to this day. Little is known of the most famous lost city in the world, except that it was built (or trapped?) 'between twilight and the fey.' Most stories assume that to be references to the Shadowfell and the Feywild, but no one knows for sure.
From its beginnings as an informal conclave of magic-users in what is now Fealand to its sudden collapse four thousand years later, Godossea was ruled by the most powerful magic-users in the Magisterium. The Incantor - the mage-emperor who ultimately ruled - was assisted by twelve 'Magisters'.

The Fall of Alousia & Godossea

In 124 B.C. a rift to the lower planes opened in the breadbasket of the Ancient Alousian Empire. The rift happened to appear at the site of a pitched battle in the endless Blood War between demons and devils. That war spilled into Alousia, sending demonic and devilish soldiers raping and pillaging their way across Alousia. Mercifully, the rift closed quickly, stranding only a few thousand demons and devils on this side of it. Most have since been hunted down, but many left behind a legacy of tiefling bastards. The Ancient Alousian Empire was destroyed almost overnight by the brief invasion, its agricultural heartland in ruins and its capital of Harappana razed by a brief alliance of Abyssal and Infernal forces.
Dependent on Alousia for food imports and other trade goods, Godossea fell a few generations after Alousia did, though it took decades for the Magisterium to fully splinter. First to secede was the ancient fey homeland of Cernoa, which reclaimed its independence within a few years of the Fall of Alousia. Within a few decades of Cernoan independence, the elven principality of Halaan broke away from the Magisterium, forming a racial caste system in their new kingdom, as well as a sometimes violent elven supremacist ideology. The last remaining Goddossean territory was also its first - around the imperial capital of Nishima in what is now Fealand. Feanese royalty still claim 'Incantor of Goddossea' among their titles, and the region continues to be known for their magical constructions and mastery of the arcane.

The Halaanic Wars

For thousands of years, the territory between the western Ancient Alousian Empire and the eastern Magisterium of Godossea had remained the lands of traditional ausrani caravans and a scattering of free city-states. Two hundred years after the fall of Alousia and Godossea the Halaanese armies conquered them all, taking their land and enslaving the survivors. Halaan expanded west to the remains of the Ancient Alousian Empire, which even centuries after its fall was strong enough to withstand the elven attacks. By c. 200 A.C., the Halaanese had expanded west as far as their supply lines could handle. Emperor Actheon, however, was eager to continue their rapid expansion, and began eyeing the caishenic kingdoms of the South. Southern conquest became a popular cause among the Halaanese court. For a nation built on elven supremacy, defeating the caishenic kingdoms and exterminating the filthy became a moral imperative.
Thinking themselves safe from the Halaanese as they expanded west, the invasion caught the the southern, caishenic kingdoms unprepared. In their previous wars, Halaan had been brutal as they conquered ancient ausrani territories. Now, though, faced with the ‘degenerate’ races of the southern caisheni, the Halaanese turned genocidal.
The remains of Goddossea (soon to be re-named Fealand) largely kept the Empire at bay, bottlenecking them in the valleys between the Tanatran Alliance and the Sylvan Kingdom of Cernoa, undercutting the Halaanese numerical advantage. While the Feanese cavalry of warforged eldritch knights are their most famous soldiers, much of their success can be credited to the artillery: war mages, elementals, golems, summoned demons, and giant spell cannons worked by teams of sorcerers.
Very quickly, the leaders of the other southern nations went to war -- Goddossea/Fealand, Tanatra, the Nymera, K'Shanah-Ch'rth, warriors from the Carentan Forest and even far off Mazdaramite wizard-monks joined forces to stop the Halaanese genocide. These nations formed a Southern Covenant under the tabaxi Nymeran High King Faendral VII.
The war ground on for more than 75 years, with the Halaanese Empire repeatedly breaking through Covenant lines. They even reached far enough south in 261-263 A.C. to lay siege to the Nymeran capital of Indrasen.

Today, A Thousand Years Later

In the north, the Empire of Halaan long ago conquered what they could. With the Tanatran Mountains to the south, the Second Alousian Empire to the west, the undersea Laharan Empire to the north, and the ancient fey kingdom of Cernoa to their east, there is nowhere left for the Empire to expand. At least not without a fight they may lose. . .
Far to the west, the fragments of the Ancient Alousian Empire exist in a world of their own. Wealthy and powerful, they are isolated from the rest of the world by the impassable Tanatran Mountains, though the Halaanese trade with the Second Alousian Empire in the north. Only Shanite trading vessels can sail the seas above the sprawling undersea Empire of Embriel, leading to a Shanite monopoly on shipping in the southwestern seas. . .
To the east lies the vast expanse of the Tarqan Plains and the xenophobic goblins who travel the wastes in their massive wheeled towns drawn by mammoths and wooly rhinos. Groups of outriders orbit the mobile towns, composed of nomadic clusters of wagons protected by screens of mounted warriors. Beyond a few places like the famous Gaiyaan Desert, what lies beyond the plains is a mystery to the rest of the world. . .
In the south - still recovering from the the Halaanic Wars of twelve hundred years ago - the caishenic nations of the Southern Covenant are always prepared for invasion from the Empire of Halaan to the north. While the world is at peace, some wonder how long that can last...
And in the oceans ringing the continent of Jehaan, a dozen undersea kingdoms remain quiet, rarely interacting with the surface world. As they always have...

The Continent of Jehaan

The Sea Kingdoms

The Sister Moons Hinshira, Tiwaz, and ringed Matija, creators of the world who invited in the first gods.

The Warden of Summer's End, one of the first archfey to migrate to Ancathra 800,000 years ago.

Killed by the dragon Tarcellian, Emperor of the Wind during the draconic conquest 200,000 years ago.

The Nimrys Market in the Nymeran capital of Indrasen is the largest market in the world

The bardic colleges of Midrian are world famous

Most dragonborn are found in the kingdom of Baatherys.

The Undersea Kingdoms are little known by those who live on land.

No one knows when the first undead appeared, but it was sometime after the fey.