Long, long ago, the gods such as they were came together to create the world of Caendor. Each race was endowed with a gift from their god or goddess and as such given some ability beyond to thrive in the chaotic mess that the world was in. The god who created the Humans however, loved innovation and ingenuity and so not only did not tell the First Humans what their gift was, but also did not teach them the secrets of magic. For thousands of years, the gifts of the other races allowed them to flourish while the Humans carved out whatever areas they could hold on to, areas so small they could hardly be called kingdoms.
Then finally, the Humans found their Gift, and a path to magical power together in the same century. Their Gift allowed them to bond with willing mythical creatures and fight together with magic and might. Their path of magical power drew on the powers of the ancestors that came before. Suddenly, the struggling species had so much power they did not know what to do with it. The other races, unused to the humans amounting to much, were shocked when they were suddenly thrust into a war where the Humans were holding their own and managed to claim huge swaths of land so they could flourish too.
For a couple of millennia, everything was relatively peaceful. Then in the Kingdom of Aeslurin, a human mage found a way to create an infinite army of the perfect soldiers. Thus, the Orcs and Goblins were created. At the same time, another mage doing research learned that the Human Gift of Bonding could be mimicked by magic and done this way, the mythical creature did not need to be willing. Using their army, this new found Bond to enslave creatures, and their considerable magical might, the Kingdom of Aeslurin set out to conquer the world.
They succeeded. They drove the Elves and Dwarves into hiding. They hunted the other races nearly to extinction. Even the other Humans were just slaves to the Aeslurins and the Empire ground the entire world under its bootheel for 5 centuries. Then a sly Goblin managed to steal the magical ritual to make more Orcs and Goblins and get it to their magic workers.
After that, the Orcs rebelled. Aeslurin blood ran. All of the non-Aeslurin humans also rebelled and a bloody civil war ensued. Most of the known world was decimated. Slowly, however, the human kingdoms have been rebuilt. The non-human kingdoms have lived in isolation but they are starting to reach out to the humans again despite the fact they still remember the evil of the Empire.
Or so the story goes. — The Malvrari Manual of Myths, Legends, and History
