What follows is the currently known history of the Great Disc and in specific the region known modernly as The Lower Realms officiated by the Archivists of the Holy Church.
You may also see the timeline of events
Here.
The Creation
The earliest legends and stories speak of a world born of conflict. The forces of Order and Chaos clashing across the horizon of where the Astral Sky meets the Elemental Chaos. A conflict for control that waged on for eons referred to in myth as The Dawn War. Angels and Elementals locked in eternal conflict, until the arrival of the Gods - celestial beings who came upon our war-torn universe and used their immeasurable power to end the conflict. They forged the Great Disc as a treaty between the two forces: one side ruled by the forces of Order, and the other controlled by the forces of Chaos. They raised the Elder Elemental, a being of Chaos, and the Guardian, a being of Order, into their ranks to give representation to the two sides in the matters of the cosmos.
The Great Disc was forged using the Gods powerful magicks of creation that saturated the land and soil. They molded life across the surface of the Disc: the elves, the humans, and the halflings. In the Deep, the cavernous center of the Disc, were born the Dwarves. On the Underworld, beneath the tempestuous fiery sky of the Chaos, the titans were born along with their lesser kin the giants and genasi. With the world seeded and the magic thriving leading to new creations and life wherever it danced, the Gods stepped away from their new world to observe, to plan and to discuss the laws by which this Disc would operate. With the departure of the Gods, the world entered its First Age: The Age of Magic.
The Age of Magic
Little is known about the First Age. Scholars debated to this day about the length of time it occupied in our history. Some say it was relatively short, that it occupied just enough time for the great work of the Gods to begin and for life as we know it to propagate. Others speculate that it lasted millennia, and that it was the longest age in the history of the Disc by magnitudes. What we do know is this. While the Gods deliberated about how this newfound world would operate and the immutable laws that it would function by, the Godsborn Races went to work to begin shaping the Disc and utilizing raw magic of creation to form new life all across the world. However, these children of the Gods grew curious what else they could do with this powerful force known as magic, and like children they began to experiment and play. Unfortunately this gave rise to abominations born of the abuse of magic: orcs, goblins, tieflings, and countless other malformed creations that made a mockery of the Gods perfect world.
Another title for the First Age that is sometimes used is The Age of Legends, for it was during this time that some of the greatest myths and stories of the ancient world were born. The formation of the Tower of Storms, the warring Titan brothers whose final clash formed the Kal'nor and Kal'ta mountains with their fallen bodies, or how the sun was banished from the skies of the Dark North.
When the Gods finally finished their deliberations and returned to the Great Disc, they found a world rife with magical abuse. They knew that something had to be done and so they began to cut the fabric of reality itself, and divide the very nature of the world into pieces. This act would become known in the annals of the Holy Church as the First Punishment, or more commonly - The Sundering.
The Sundering & The Betrayal
The Gods quickly realized that the heart of these blasphemies on the world were born of the abuse of magic and thus it was magic that was the root cause that must be addressed. There was little time to discuss and debate, so a plan was formed quickly to address the matter. The Gods would divide the world into four planar reflections: an Aetherial realm were magic would exist in its raw components, a Wild realm where the raw components would be born into magic, the Material world as it existed, and a Shadow realm of dead magic that would act as a vacuum to pull magic from the Wild realm, through the Material world, and into the Shadow realm where it would die and break down back into the raw components that would fade into the Aetherial. This cycle of death and rebirth would be known as The Flow of Magic and it would ensure that the people would always have access to magic the Gods intended, without having enough to abuse. This division became known as the Sundering and marked the first changing of the age.
However, not all the Gods were pleased with this decision. Without time to discuss, they acted. Doing what was necessary to preserve the stability of the Disc. This drew the ire of the Watcher, a God who had kept their eye on the Disc even when the Gods had departed to discuss, as was their gift to do. They did not believe the Gods acted justly but rashly and should have let the world proceed without interference. After all, the Gods had departed the world and left their gifts with their children. Who are they to judge how the Godsborn acted in their absence with the tools they were left? Fearing the other Gods would continue to adjust and change the world, the Watcher called upon all of their power and sealed the world away from the Gods. Trapping the Great Disc behind a spherical Veil that would rob the Gods of all their celestial power if they chose to enter it and thus cut off the Disc and its people from the Gods for all time. Some like the Order of the Watcher believe that this was the correct choice. That Gods are by their very nature tyrannical and dominating. Others like the Holy Church view the Gods as caring parents who wished to guide their children to their full potential, as a parent's love is wont to do. To many the Watcher went behind their fellow Gods' backs and forever changed the path of the world - like a tyrant. Thus the Watcher was forever branded The Betrayer.
The Age of the Star
With the Flow of Magic established, the Godsborn also lost their eternal lives granted by the Magic of Creation. Those with the strongest ties to the magic - the Elves - not only continued to have extraordinary long lives but had great mastery over the Flow. With their lives now finite, the Elves priorities had shifted however. They began to build and create grand legacies that would stand eternally now that they would not. Forging magically enchanted empires, grand cities made of shining crystal or flying in the sky, and expanding their knowledge of this new Flow of Magic and how to use it. However, the taller and grander their crystal towers grew, the greater shadows it cast. The various kingdoms and empires of the Elves began to war with each for power and control. They utilized their power over the Flow to forge weapons to use against one another. The conflict engulfed continents and all life would suffer from the clashing of Elven pride.
While the complete history of the Age of the Star has been lost to time, many explorers and archaeologists have delved deep into the ruins of the Elven Empires to seek out new information and lost knowledge from this period of history. Some information that we have learned was that many of the other mortal races were bound in servitude to the Elves, a fact that many Clerics of the Holy Church feel may have invited additional ire against the Elves from the Gods. At one point in the Age of the Star, an Elven Magistrix had her entire population of servants severed from the Flow of Magic. This led to many of them dying off without that connection. The only known survivors of that horrific experiment were the Magistrix's human servants, but this would only be a momentary success when a generation or two later the magic-less humans would rebel and escape beyond the northern mountains only to later form their own society - The Veston Imperium.
Not all Elves were malicious in their studies and experiments though. History has shown that many valued the pursuit of knowledge over land or titles which led to things like early planar exploration which would be logged in the now-missing-to-time tome referred to in archaeological records as The Manual of the Planes. Records have been found detailing another arcanist who was working to chart and catalog the raw data of the basic life essences of every living creature on the Disc. While such documents have never been recovered, all historical records point to them existing and still being out there somewhere - all conceived during the Age of the Star.
The Starfall
The Gods, unable to interact with the world due to The Betrayers' actions, worked tirelessly to find a way to end the world-wide conflict and end the abuse of magic once and for all. It was The Devil who found a solution and crafted a platinum star that He hurled through the Veil and into the heart of the Athasian Expanse. The explosion turned the once dense jungles of the Expanse into a lifeless wasteland, and from the flames came forth the world's Second Punishment: The Dragons. The winged beasts were stronger than anything the world had seen and set out to every corner of the Disc to bring the Mortal Races into submission. The Elves would flee to the farthest reaches of the Disc and the Planes to hide from the Dragons, but the rest of the world were left to the beasts.
The Age of Fire
The rule of the dragons was formed around a league of Dragon Lords known as the Tyranny of Dragons, a ruling order made up of powerful ancient dragons of each metallic and chromatic color. They divided the Disc into domains where they executed brutal and merciless control over the populations. Forced labor doing meaningless and unnecessary tasks were commonplace. The Dragon Lords that ruled over the Lower Realms were Iyauranor the Black Dragon who ruled from the high peaks of the Kal'Nor Mountains, his consort Arkhos the Red Dragon who made her lair in the fiery pits beneath the Tower of Storms in the Southern Wilds, Astarot the Golden Dragon who was said to make his lair in the shadows of the Forbidden Lands, and finally Herenserg the Bronze Dragon who made her lair in an underwater palace said to be off the coast of the Estwind Falls. These four Dragon Lords enslaved and brutalized the native populations of the Lower Realms and Southern Wilds.
In these dark and uncertain times, the faith of the Mortal Races burned brighter than ever. Seeking to prove their love and loyalty to the Gods in the wake of a punishment brought about by the hubris of the Elves, they formed the earliest foundations of the Holy Church. The first Grand Cleric, a halfling by the name of Zalnar Elderfound, began to travel between the slave camps and preach about the teachings of the Gods. From these teachings rose the earliest scriptures that would later be bound as the Holy Tome of the Church. Through these sessions of reflection and prayer, the Mortal Races found something they could all unite behind in the wake of the Dragon's onslaught. Some historians in the Holy Church claim that it was the first positive thing that united all the remaining Godsborn and that their prayers together is what brought forth the miracle that changed the tides of the Age of Fire.
The Arrival of the Dwarves
In the 421st year of the 3rd Age, the people of the Great Disc were granted their miracle. From the depths of the Disc, the Gods' final creations emerged - the Dwarves. These early hardy warriors were infused with the very stone of the Great Disc and wielded a unique form of magic that did not require the Flow. These early dwarves proved to be greatly resistant against the threat of the dragons, and because of that the Mortal Races who sought to resist the Tyranny rallied around these new saviors. The resistance began to push back against the dragons, purging hordes of lesser dragons from the lands to secure bases and free lands.
In the year 3A444, the Great Disc experienced a strange event known to historians as the Great Conjunction. We now know that was in fact the fourth Conjunction that the Great Disc, but this was the first that we have a recorded history of. The Disc seemed to shift and alter as wild and dead magic exploded and strange beasts, monsters and aberrations wandered out of nothing and wreaked havoc. The chaos and strife of this year long phenomenon provided the opening for the Rebellion, who used the situation to force their way into the mountain lair of Iyauranor and slay the great wyrm. This act changed everything. The Tyranny had been pierced.
For the next 50 years, the Rebellion would continue their hunt. Drawing out Dragon Lord after Dragon Lord, luring them to the Lower Realms from across the seas and skies only to battle them to their deaths. The Rebellion would suffer terrible loses but each battalion that fell would only invigorate those who remained. Finally, in the year 3A494, the war against the dragons reached its pinnacle when an elaborate series of traps would be planned and prepared to draw out the final Dragon Lord: Arkhos - and lure her to the valley between the Kal'Nor and Kal'Ta mountain ranges. This tactical contest of wits would later be the inspiration for the board game Dragonchess. In the year 3A500, the trap was sprung and Arkhos was fatally wounded at the Battle of the Gate, delivering the world from the threat of the dragons once and for all. This five year plan to defeat Arkhos became the event known as the Dragonbreak with the Battle of the Gate marking the formal end of the 3rd Age and the beginning of the Age of Heroes.
The Age of Heroes
The people of the Rebellion would turn to the commanding officer at the Battle of the Gate and the brilliant mind behind the Dragonbreak - the Dwarven knight Aldamerus Goldenbraid - to lead the Realm into the future. Aldamerus saw the need for everyone to be united as a single land just like they all had to join together to defeat the Tyranny of Dragons. He built a city at the heart of this new Kingdom of Aldamere and the people named it Aldamera to honor both their new nation and its first king. King Aldamerus would bring his 11 greatest allies to join him in the capitol to form his royal knights, known to history as
The Twelve Legendary Heroes who would be tasked with establishing and defending the realm.
Around this time, the original dwarves that had emerged from The Deep back during the Third Age were beginning to crumble. The war had taken its toll and without a way to carve new brethren from the ancient runic stone of their native subterranean home, their numbers were dwindling. However, new hope had come in the form of a union between a dwarven man and his human lover, giving birth to their daughter Nevelin Beastblade, the first female dwarf. This new revelation shifted the entire nature of dwarven society. Once only male, born of enchanted stone, they now had found the means to procreate on their own. Many dwarves in the Holy Church viewed this as a divine blessing from the Gods for lending their aid to the war against the dragons, helping to cull a solution to an ancient problem that had long grown out of control. Dwarven society pivoted to the matriarchal and thus even King Aldamerus declared that the crown would be passed to his own first daughter.
In the early years of the Fourth Age, the King commissioned that a great wall, no less than a thousand feet in height, be constructed across the valley between the Kal'Nor and Kal'Ta mountains. This barrier - dubbed the Guardian's Wall - would forever stand as the first shield against any threat left behind by the dragons that fled into the Expanse to follow the dying Arkhos. Along the southern side of the wall, an immense city would grow to facilitate the kingdom's expanding military. It would be dubbed Ashfall after the poetic descriptions of the Battle of the Gate that occurred there years before. The cities of Brighthurst, built around the magical academy and research center, and Yhuson, which facilitated the kingdom's growing shipping trade, also were established in the days of King Aldamere.
The Fourth Age would also see the formation of a number of institutions that continue to the modern day including the Holy Church who built their Cathedral in the capital of Aldamera, while building the first Paladin academy in Ashfall. The Mages' Guild was established to help implement the kingdom's laws on the controlled use and study of magic. The Rangers were formed by one of the Twelve Legendary Heroes using their fortress of Heroes' Vigil as their base of operations. The Rangers would act as a group to patrol and monitor the wilderness of the Kingdom and keep the local beast and monster population in check. The Rangers would later form the basis of the Adventurer's Guild which was formally formed following the chaotic year of a Fifth Grand Conjunction.
The Age would take its namesake from the growing number of heroic figures that would emerge to help protect the kingdom either out of a sense of duty, seeking glory or simply in the desire to claim riches. This wasn't limited to the Twelve Legendary Heroes either. The fabled Ironmast Crew would sail across the western sea to discover lost riches and establish trade routes with far off distant locations like the continent of Udi'ra and the goblinoid controlled archipelago of Yelciik. The first Council of Elders was assembled in Brighthurst to unravel the mysteries of the Age of the Star, including expeditions into The Unarith - a vast underwater complex off the shore of the Golden Marches.
The Night of Ashes
However, it is not always a world shattering event that threatens the peace of the world, but the smallest termites would eventually fell a mighty tree. While the races that formed the rebellion against the Dragons and the alliance that supported the Kingdom of Aldamere enjoyed a bounty of blessings throughout the Age, those who were outside of that circle were left to scavenge and fight for survival with what was left. To survive, they had to turn to other means: the tieflings who were declared by the Holy Church of the time to be the dark twisted children of devils would rebel and pillage, the beastkin of the Southern Wilds would turn to and pledge themselves to the Primordials, and monstrosities and fiends from The Deep and the Underworld would crawl up from below and infest the surface of the Great Disc. These threats in isolation could be dealt with, but over the centuries they would chip away at the institutions of the Kingdom leaving in vulnerable to a singular breaking point.
That point came in the form of an invasion of unified warband of Gnolls formed from dozens of tribes, united under the banner of the primordial Yeenoghu the Consuming Flame. While the threat of primordial cults had been fought time and time again, this time was different. This time the gnolls had united to call forth an avatar of their Primordial God to lead the invasion. With an avatar of destruction leading the charge and infusing its soldiers with its blessings, the attack came quick and fierce. A march that would have taken months normally took mere weeks. They burned a path straight into the heart of the Kingdom and laid siege to Aldamera. The capital fell in a single night. The Queen and her family were killed. The city burned. By the time the sun rose, the seat of government was nothing more than a smoldering heap. History would call this event The Night of Ashes.
The gnolls did not stop at the destruction of Aldamera though. Fueled by the unending hunger of Yeenoghu, the gnolls continued to destroy and slaughter their way until nearly two-thirds of the Lower Realm were brought to ruin. Only with the united effort of the remaining royal knights and the full force of the Mages' Guild, the Adventurers' Guild and the Rangers was the Avatar of Yeenoghu finally defeated, the terrible primordial's heart sinking into the depths of the earth and forming the Chaos Scar. Without their god, the gnolls were able to be driven back into the Southern Wilds and finally the broken kingdom could begin to piece itself back together in a new age.
The Fifth Age
From the destruction of the Kingdom of Aldamere, the Lower Realms was shattered. There was not enough left to rebuild what was lost. With this limitation in mind, the port city of Yhuson declared itself an independent city-state that would be self governed and handled the matters of its own population and citizens. This was shortly followed by similar declarations by the cities of Ashfall and Brighthurst. Seeing the plight of the people who could not satisfy the new city-states' requirements for citizenship, the Holy Church began to rebuild a new city over the ruins of Aldamera that they would eventually name Triswell, the Holy City-State with the hope to find a place for as many people as possible. Everyone outside of the city-states would dwell in the lawless Borderlands where the only governments would be at the village or town level. The Rangers and Adventurers' Guild would expand to work with the people of the Borderlands and try to find help for the multitude of threats the defenseless people faced.
While the old threats of the Southern Wilds and the monstrosities of the last Conjunction still roam the land, new threats have begun to appear across the Realms as well. Be it that the Veston Imperium has made use of the new age to begin a campaign of conquest across the Disc or the Dragonborn of the Athasian Expanse have re-emerged with a new Federation vowing to continue the work of their progenitors. The threats continue to grow, and the dependence on the Adventurers continues to grow.
For over two hundred years, the Fifth Age has continued. The Lower Realms has become a sea of darkness with points of light that provide some minor respite. Traditionally, the Holy Church will not declare a name for the Age until it turns to the next, but many common folk already calling it the Age of Darkness.
It is the year 264 of the Fifth Age. Welcome to the Lower Realms of the Great Disc.
