The Sundering and Conquest of Sarlona Begins

Metaphysical / Paranormal event

More Quori enter Eberron with different intentions from the previous group.

Over fifteen hundred years ago, the quori began the conquest of the twelve human kingdoms of Sarlona by using their psionic powers to make contact with the rulers of the Sarlonan nations. The quori slowly influenced them while their minds were present in the Dreamspace every night into beginning a series of devastating wars that made the continent ripe for eventual consolidation into the Empire of Riedra under the control of the Inspired, who were actually quori-possessed humans. This process was known as the Sundering of Sarlona.

By the time Sarlona’s history was finally codified by the human inhabitants who had long called the continent their original homeland after the Rhiavhaaran pirate Lhazaar had led her expedition to Reloren, the continent’s dozens of human city-states had become a land of twelve kingdoms, remaining so through long years of interstate conflict. The provinces of Riedra today bear the names of eight of those original kingdoms—Dor Maleer, Rhiavhaar, Khalesh, Nulakesh, Borunan, Ohr Kaluun, Pyrine, and Corvagura. Where the steppes of Syrkarn spread at present, the four kingdoms that once stood there exist now only as names—Mae Khree, Sunyagir, Khunan, and Lamecha. In northern and eastern Sarlona, the largest powers were the Empire of Nulakesh and the Kingdom of Corvagura, each the conqueror of a dozen smaller Sarlonan states and city-states whose names are lost to history. For much of the Twelve Kingdoms’ early history, Nulakesh was the dominant military force in central Sarlona, building its power through a reliance on a fanatical and disciplined military caste. Though the sorcerer-kings of Corvagura were renowned, it was secretive Ohr Kaluun and majestic Khunan where Sarlona’s arcane might truly rose and ultimately fell. Rhiavhaar on the west coast cemented its rule using a different kind of power, controlling the Sea of Rage largely by means of piracy and slaving.

Having stitched itself together from smaller territories, the inland state of Khalesh continued to practice conquest of a different sort. As a nation dedicated to the worship of the spirits of the couatl, another race once native to Sarlona, Khalesh had a long history of crusades and attempts at conversion (some benevolent, others less so) among its neighbor states. Likewise, Pyrine sought to spread its faith—a pantheon of nine deities known as the Sovereign Host—throughout Sarlona.

In the steppes and savannah of what is now the land of Syrkarn, the kingdoms of Mae Khree, Sunyagir, and Lamecha effectively orbited the more powerful state of Khunan, carving out specific niches for themselves (agriculture for Lamecha, the breeding and training of Sarlona’s finest horses for Mae Khree, and the mining of iron, mithril, gems and other precious minerals for Sunyagir). At the same time, each nation made a point of maintaining armies and magical might just powerful enough to keep Khunan and the larger northern kingdoms from getting any expansionistic ideas.

The most unusual kingdom of Sarlona’s lost past remains the oddest of the modern Empire of Riedra. Borunan was and remains the homeland of “civilized” ogres and the powerful oni (mistakenly sometimes called ogre magi) lords who once ruled over this nation of giantkin. Beyond the twelve kingdoms of old Sarlona lay the frigid Tashana wastes and the mountainous land of Adar. As the wars of the Sarlonan city-states had evolved into the wars of Sarlonan kingdoms, these areas remained largely unaffected. As for the mountainous realm of Adar, it had long been known as a place of refuge, a sanctuary for individuals or entire villages of refugees fleeing from the wars of the other Sarlonan kingdoms. Eighteen hundred years ago, on a date immortalized as 1 Age of Taratai, Adar received its strangest visitors—quori spirits fleeing from the Plane of Dreams, seeking human hosts. A group of Adaran monks agreed to provide shelter for these spirits, and the kalashtar race was born from this mystical union.

The arrival of the kalashtar was the beginning of the end for the Twelve Kingdoms of Sarlona. War raged in Dal Quor, and the enemies of the kalashtar were determined to bring the struggle to Eberron, the Material Realm. The quori that served il-Lashtavar (“the Dreaming Dark”) were not prepared to sacrifice their power and individuality as the kalashtar spirits had, and this prevented them from directly taking human hosts. But they could still manipulate mortals through dreams. They could give a paranoid king nightmares of a treasonous conspiracy against him, leading him to persecute his own people. They could send a charismatic general vision of justice, urging him to rise up against a tyrannical monarch. They could send two people dreams of love, ultimately forming a relationship and a child more biologically suited to quori telepathic manipulation. Starting 1,500 years ago, the quori did all this and more. Exploiting human fears, prejudices, and greed, the quori threw the kingdoms of Sarlona into chaos. For two hundred years, beginning around -500 YK, Sarlona was shaken by war. As one nation became stable, another would attack it, driven by racial prejudice or religious zealotry, or a new rebel group would arise within its borders. Terrible arcane magic was unleashed. No human nation had the power to rival the arcane might of the lost giant civilizations of Xen’drik, but the wizards of Khunan and the sorcerers of Corvagura were mighty in their own right, and the dark lords of Ohr Kaluun were masters of both divine and arcane magic. This period of Sarlonan history was known as the Sundering, and kingdoms were shattered in its wake.

The quori used their psionic power and control over the Dreamspace to set the Sundering in motion, and so they used their power to end it. After two hundred years of careful psionic manipulation, they managed to breed human bloodlines across Sarlona whose members were especially genetically and mentally vulnerable to the quori’s telepathic manipulation and psychic possession—the predecessors of the Riedran caste known today as the Chosen. The quori began a campaign of dreams across the continent, promising salvation to those who would follow their newly forged religion known as the “Path of Inspiration.” Soon, the first Inspired appeared, as the quori were able to possess the minds of the Chosen. These psychically-possessed humans had great charisma and impressive psionic powers, and to the people of the war-torn lands of Sarlona, they were literally the answer to their prayers. The Inspired brought an end to many of the feuds and wars, frequently by uniting former enemies against carefully selected scapegoats. The yuan-ti of Syrkarn, the shulassakar of Khalesh, the oni of Borunan, and the priests and mages of Ohr Kaluun were all targeted in this way. Many were destroyed or enslaved; others fled to Adar, Xen’drik, or Reloren. Throughout these struggles, the Inspired extolled the virtues of unity. Within two centuries, the old traditions and cultures of the twelve kingdoms of Sarlona had been swept away. Where once twelve proud states had stood, now only one remained: the Empire of Riedra.