Tal'Dorei
The continent of Tal'Dorei lies west of Wildemount, nearly connected by a land bridge that stands sundered by the Shearing Channel. The independent city-state of Whitestone lords over the northeastern reaches of Tal'Dorei from deep within the chilled woods of the Parchwood Timberland. Farther west, the endless, green fields and forests of the Dividing Plains form a landscape of farmland, rivers, and untamed wilderness.
To the north, the Cliffkeep Mountains shelter hidden valleys, swift and deadly predators, and the mighty dwarven stronghold city of Kraghammer, beneath which lie mines and caverns that connect to the Underdark. To the south of the Dividing Plains, travelers might find themselves traversing the rocky spires of the Stormcrest Mountains or attempting to navigate the vast forest known as the Verdant Expanse, home to the beautiful elven city of Syngorn. Beyond the Verdant Expanse lies the southernmost peninsula of Tal'Dorei, a land enveloped by the volatile Rifenmist Jungle.
Along the eastern shore of Tal'Dorei stands the capital city of Emon, a glorious metropolis and the political nexus of the continent. Within Emon, the governing oligarchy known as the Council of Tal'Dorei maintains law and order across the many territories of the republic, partnering with the governing bodies of Kraghammer, Syngorn, and Whitestone to help maintain the safety and well being of all who call this land their home.
Following the creation, and subsequent razing, of Exandria, a post-Divergence world was now left to rise from the ashes and begin a new era. While every region had its own rebirth following the terrible destruction of the Calamity, the continent that now bears the name of this setting shall remain the focus.
The modern calendar began in the year 0 P.D. (Post-Divergence), over eight hundred years before the writing of this text. Though the modern nation- state of Tal’Dorei did not emerge for some time after year 0, the history of Tal’Dorei truly began with the founding of Gwessar.
At the dawning of modern history, what is now known as the continent of Tal’Dorei housed the germinating seeds of civilization. It was the hardy, dependable dwarves who best weathered the war between gods and mortals, beneath the Cliffkeep Mountains. Dozens of dwarven redoubts rose and fell in the tumult of the Calamity and the uncertain era that followed it. For many years, dwarves lived in the tunnels beneath the Cliffkeep Mountains, leaderless and chaotic, until the various clans unified to form the subterranean city of Kraghammer. Proud of their grand new home, the dwarf clans were content to remain beneath the earth. They saw the war-scarred surface world as a source of naught but misery and death, and their new underground domain as a place of undiscovered prosperity. This city was dug underneath the mountains, and its deep roots, though young, survived where more ancient ancestral halls were annihilated. Clan Jaggenstrike were the architects of Kraghammer’s hardy, unassailable redoubts, and easily became the first ruling clan of the Kraghammer dwarves.
While the dwarves busied themselves excavating the world below, a group of elves appeared suddenly in the south. At the outset of the Calamity, a society of elves used a powerful, obscure ritual to transport many of their people to safety on another plane: the Fey Realm, a plane of primordial beauty where elven legend says the Arch Heart lovingly fashioned their people before placing them upon the face of Exan- dria. They returned at the turning of the ages under the guidance of an elven sorceress named Yenlara Alderwreath.
The elves rallied around her both for her defiant strength and for her compassion in the face of adversity. It was under Yenlara’s wise rule that elven society once again began to reform. Upon returning to Exandria, Yenlara led her people westward to the Verdant Expanse, an untamed forest born from the residual elemental power that lingered after the end of the Calamity.
So beautiful was the forest they settled in that Yenlara’s people were the first elves known to bear the now-widespread name of syn'alfen—wood elves, in Common parlance. Likewise, the beauty of their forest home inspired the name of their first settle- ment: Syngorn, the great elvenhome that stands proud within the Verdant Expanse to this very day.
As Yenlara’s people began to explore beyond the forest, they found vast fields of grass emerging from the ash-darkened ground, with tall, snowcapped mountains visible on the horizon. Overwhelmed by the beauty of the restored world, the syn'alfen called their new land Gwessar, the Fields of Joy, a name by which elves (and those enamored with elven culture) still call the continent of Tal’Dorei to this day.
The dwarves and elves are long-lived people, and when they struggled to rebuild their civilizations, there were those among them who still remembered the world that was. Humanity was not so fortunate. Human histories, written by wasteland warlords in fading ink on waterlogged parchment and vellum, did not survive the years. Yet, somehow, humanity endured. Several centuries after the Jaggenstrike dwarves began this period of renewal, a clan of humans braved the angry Ozmit Sea and sailed to Gwessar’s western coast from the continent of Issylra, though whether or not they came from Vas- selheim itself is unknown.
The rise of human colonies irritated the elves of Syn- gorn. Forests that had stood for centuries fell under the axes of rash, short-lived beings who sought to exploit, expand, and propagate thoughtlessly. These tensions did not build to war, for long were the mem- ories of the elves, but humanity remained a thorn in the side of elfkind, chafing at their hard-won efforts to protect their society and threatening to encroach upon their sacred woodlands.
As the first human civilization on this part of the world after the Calamity, Emon gave rise to a handful of self-entitled noble houses who went on to establish civilization in the name of the Lawbearer—but those who wrote the game stacked the deck in their favor. Corruption spread through the upper echelons of Emon, and power-hungry politicians seized each new and valuable resource that was discovered in their bountiful new kingdom. They turned their citizens against each other, forcing them to fight for scraps while they hoarded the lion’s share.
Emon was a political war zone, and the greatest warrior of them all was a loudmouthed braggart and cunning oligarch named Warren Drassig. The chaos and mistrust in Emon allowed Drassig and his agents to seize power and transform the realm into the Kingdom of Drassig, with Warren himself as its supreme monarch. Drassig was quick to sever any remaining connections with the elves of Syngorn and make new alliances with the dwarves of Kra- ghammer, marrying Drassig’s autocratic power with the dwarves’ immense material wealth.
The elves were furious, but the ambassador from Syngorn to Emon, an idealistic grandson of the still-living Yenlara, hoped to resolve this diplomati- cally. Upon arrival, he was apprehended, tortured, and slain. This final act of treachery drove Syngorn to arms, and the continent erupted into a terrible, protracted war between Yenlara’s kin and Drassig’s bloodline known as the Scattered War.
The Scattered War lasted for thirty-two years, and is recalled in bardsong as the Time of Shrouds. The war spanned the Cliffkeep Mountains and parts of the Verdant Expanse, with the human colonies spread throughout the soon-to-be-warring territories. King Drassig encountered little resistance as he conquered each village, town, and city in turn, giving these isolated settlements no way of warning one another of the warlord’s advance.
No common warmonger, Drassig was a cunning, heartless master of psychological warfare. Weeks in advance of his armies, he seeded spies throughout the land. They traveled swiftly through the secret dwarf-tunnels that crisscrossed the Cliffkeep Moun- tains, and infiltrated settlements throughout the region, turning the people of each settlement against their own leaders, eating at them from within, poisoning them against one another. By the time Drassig’s armies reached their targets, they were already poised to fall. The lights of human towns and elven groves were snuffed out with equal savagery. Yet, a mere nine years after the war began, King Warren Drassig died.
It happened at Torthil, an abandoned village in Gwessar’s heartlands. For years, rumors had grown that Torthil was a haven for war refugees. The king and his soldiers fell upon the village with a vengeance, seeking survivors to slaughter. As they regrouped in the town square, Drassig stood among them, blade raised, eyes wild, and voice booming, to rally their bloodthirsty spirits. It was at the height of his wicked speech that the first arrow struck, fol- lowed shortly by a volley that clouded the sky. After nine years of suffering, Yenlara’s wood elves and the rebellious humans of the scattered colonies had joined forces and formed an alliance against their common enemy.
After Warren Drassig fell, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Neminar Drassig. Neminar shunned the crude, brutal methods of his father, instead finding his interests in more sinister powers. He became known as “Neminar the Black-Fingered,” as his forays into necromancy left one arm withered and tainted. Nevertheless, his weaponization of forbidden magic elevated the threat of Drassig’s war machine.
King Neminar, bent on bloody-minded vengeance, led his army back to Torthil, where the corpses of the elven and human traitors were piled high upon the outer walls. Their pyres ignited the night as the entire city was reduced to rubble. And so the Scattered War continued, unabated by the death of Warren Drassig.
The rule of Neminar marked the darkest days of the war. He introduced tactics and magic that drove his soldiers beyond human limits, leaving their bod- ies altered and mutated by foul necromancy. Their warped minds craved bloodshed and domination, and their bodies needed no sustenance to fuel their bloodlust. Drassig’s forces became the perfect weap- ons of war, their ranks blessed by the divine touch of the Strife Emperor—the first Betrayer God to extend his power to mortals beyond the Divine Gate. All the gods soon learned that though they could not walk upon Exandria themselves, they could still grant magic to their faithful.
In the face of such terrible power, the alliance of humans and elves bolstered their ranks with venge- ful orphans and eager heroes of all ancestries who suffered under Drassig's tyranny. One such hero who came to be instrumental in the coming conflict was Zan Tal’Dorei. A human who rose from the harried streets of Syngorn, Zan quickly showed her mettle as both a warrior and an inspirational leader. Rallying the broken ranks of the resistance, Zan lured Nemi- nar and his lead forces into the Verdant Expanse. Neminar’s undoing was an arrogant attack upon the Shifting Keep, a Syngornian outpost protected by the slippery magic of the Fey Realm. The illusory fortress vanished, leaving the Drassig army without a target and vulnerable to ambush. The forest itself seemed to lend its fury to the weapons of Zan’s war- riors, and Neminar and his blighted soldiers were crushed in one swift stroke.
Word of Neminar’s defeat and death spread like wildfire across Gwessar, and the banner of Zan Tal’Dorei’s rebel army became a symbol of hope for all of the oppressed peoples of the realm. Even so, the last years of fighting were still ahead of them, for the late King Warren Drassig’s youngest son still stood to take power, and swore to avenge his family.
King Trist Drassig, second-born son of the despotic Warren Drassig, took the throne with unearned con- fidence. So enamored was he with arrogant visions of victory that he ignored the truth of his tenuous rule: he was neither as brilliant nor as charismatic as his father, his armies were stretched thin, and his people rioted. The rebels, led by the young warrior Zan Tal’Dorei, won battle after battle, and before long, King Trist found his army backed against the imposing base of the Cliffkeep Mountains.
In the wake of certain victory, Zan and her rebels, allied with the elves of Syngorn, pursued Drassig to this valley, but were met with fiends amidst the ranks of their enemy. King Trist had a secret weapon— through his family’s dealings with the Strife Emperor, the spawn of the Betrayers had returned to the world. They spilled into the battlefield like a river of nightmares, and in minutes, the surrounding hills ran dark with blood and ichor, and the bodies of humans and demons alike littered the battlefield. Yet, despite all odds, the hero Zan defeated King Trist, ending the Drassig bloodline—and with it, the demonic pact the Drassigs had made. It is said that the grass and flowers of the Umbra Hills grow black and burnt as an echo of this battle, their sap coursing with the fiendish blood that was spilled that day.
Society had all but collapsed once more amidst the Scattered War. Within the Verdant Expanse, the triumphant rebels assembled a council of trusted and proven minds, but the people were accustomed to a singular leader, a king. In the hearts of the people, it was not the crown that had failed them, but the bloody-minded family that wore it. The council assented to the will of their people, and nominated the war hero Zan Tal’Dorei to take the throne. She humbly accepted the role, but refused to take the title of king or queen. Her name, she asserted, was Zan. After some debate, she eventually relented to being called Sovereign Tal’Dorei, if such formality was required.
Again in spite of Zan’s protestations, the council unanimously agreed the realm should be renamed Tal’Dorei in her honor. Power was divided between the sovereign and the council, both of whom ruled from Emon. From there, Emon’s leaders expunged any remnants of Drassig’s reign from their city, while the allied armies of Tal’Dorei and Syngorn did the same throughout the realm. The leading clans of Kraghammer pleaded for clemency, claiming they were coerced to serve Drassig. They spent many years paying reparations and making amends, but the fractured trust between Gwessar’s peoples took generations to heal.
Not two years into Sovereign Zan’s reign, a cataclys- mic evil tested her mettle and the skill of the council. A creature from the Elemental Plane of Ice slunk into the Material Plane through a hitherto unknown rift between the planes. It appeared in a mystical forest of eternal winter known today as the Frost- weald. From its hibernal abode, this elemental spirit spied upon the untested realm of Tal’Dorei and saw an opportunity. The spirit dove back to its extrapla- nar home and informed its master of a land ripe for conquest. Errevon the Rimelord, a cruel elemental so mighty that he is speculated to have been a scion of the Primordials, one that escaped the gods’ wrath in the Founding, seized this opportunity.
On the next winter solstice, Errevon tore wide the Frostweald rift and commanded the endless blizzards of his home plane to ravage the prosperous land around it. Tal’Dorei’s southern reaches, thus weakened, were easy pickings for the Algid Legion, a mighty army of frost giants and animate blizzards led by the Rimelord himself. Their relentless advance covered all they touched in snow and death.
Countless brave warriors and civilians alike fell to the invaders’ gelid weapons, for they were unprepared for such an onslaught so soon after the Drassigs’ protracted war. The storm of ice widened year by year, consuming the Tal’Dorei heartland as Errevon claimed all lands that fell beneath the ice as his own. North of the rift, he built a towering citadel of frost, forcing those he conquered to swear fealty in exchange for warmth and liquid water. The Rimelord’s tyrany lasted for three long years as the nascent Council of Tal’Dorei struggled to convince Syngorn and Kraghammer to ally for the sake of the realm. This monumental diplomatic mission com- pleted, the combined might of Tal’Dorei, Syngorn, and Kraghammer assaulted Errevon’s Citadel and forced the Rimelord back to the rift from whence he came. It was in this time of need that the druidic Ashari people first revealed themselves to the people of Tal’Dorei, and used their unrivaled elemental magic to seal the rift once and for all. The snow began to melt, the fortress toppled into the nearby Foramere Basin, and the people celebrated their freedom from the oppressive cold. This victory is now celebrated annually throughout Tal’Dorei as the Winter’s Crest festival.
Zan Tal’Dorei passed peacefully after a long and happy rule, and was succeeded by a long line of her descendants. Many generations of peace ensued, and the Tal’Dorei Empire formed as dozens of tiny city- states across the Dividing Plains flocked to the stable rule and heroic reputation of Tal’Dorei in the wake of the Icelost Years.
The adroit statecraft of the Council of Tal’Dorei maintained cordial alliances with both Syngorn and Kraghammer, but, despite their best efforts, couldn’t keep the elves and dwarves from regress- ing to hostility over ancient quarrels. In the time of Sovereign Odellan Tal’Dorei, word of a shadow in the south came to the ears of the council. Contact with numerous outlying townships at the edges of the empire halted abruptly, and traders that made circuits from Emon to the Rifenmist Peninsula in the south vanished without a trace. The council was slow to act in defense of territories that routinely flaunted imperial law, but were finally driven to action when allied villages south of the Verdant Expanse begged for protection against a “nightmare of fire and malice.” The dour Sovereign Odellan blocked the council’s relief efforts, claiming the economic cost of sending a regiment that far south to outsider commu- nities was a misuse of resources, especially without proof of a threat. It wasn’t until two years later, when reports of a powerful red dragon reached the ears of the sovereign, that the Council of Tal’Dorei was able to act.
By then, much of the Mornset Countryside had been reduced to ash by a self-obsessed and power-hungry red dragon named Thordak, who pre- ferred the self-styled moniker of “the Cinder King.” According to Cobalt Soul records from the Temple of the Mentor in the lands of Marquet, the Cinder King was presumed dead nearly two hundred years prior, killed by the brass dragon Devo’ssa—yet it could not be denied that Thordak survived, and that he sought new peoples to enslave, ones with fewer defenses. The mighty armies of Tal’Dorei marched finally south, but morale was low. They marched toward fiery, painful death, and soldiers grumbled of a heartless sovereign who luxuriated in his castle in Emon while his people put their lives on the line for the realm. They finally clashed with Thordak and his mercenary armies south of the Stormcrest Moun- tains, but the forces of Tal’Dorei were soon forced into a panicked, disorganized retreat as the rocky, exposed terrain worked to the advantage of their airborne foe.
The valiant soldiers of Tal’Dorei would surely have been brought to utter ruin were it not for the heroic intervention of a band of young—yet able— adventur- ers. Led by Arcanist Allura Vysoren, who sits today upon the Tal’Dorei Council, they cornered the Cinder King alone and defeated him—though his power was so great that they could not manage to kill the dragon outright. Instead, Allura and her companions used powerful magic to imprison Thordak within the Elemental Plane of Fire forever. The Fire Ashari of distant Issylra vowed to watch over Thordak’s prison until age could consume even him.
Forever lasted a mere sixteen years. In that time, life returned to mundane quarrels over the price of bread and taxes. During this time of quietude, an old and unexpected ally of Thordak’s, a green dragon called Raishan the Diseased Deceiver, found Thordak and conspired to release him from his prison so he could conquer the land that had once rebuked him. Raishan formed a plan and forged an unprecedented alliance with three other power-hungry chromatic dragons: Umbrasyl the Hope Devourer, Brimscythe the Iron Storm, and Vorugal the Frigid Doom.
After infiltrating the Fire Ashari of Pyrah for nearly five years, Raishan finally unlocked the seal between the planes that bound Thordak and set him free. Thordak’s physical body was warped by the fiery energies of his prison. Now stronger than ever, he rallied his draconic allies, the Chroma Conclave, to destroy or conquer Tal’Dorei as they saw fit— starting with a retributive assault of catastrophic proportions on Emon. Nearly three centuries of Tal’Dorei rule in the realm ended under the rule of Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei II, his life cut short when much of Emon was reduced to rubble.
The attack not only killed the Sovereign Uriel, but also scattered the Council of Tal’Dorei, throwing the realm into chaos. The remnants of the civilized lands were divided up and taken as trophies by the Conclave, while the capital Emon was ruled by the Cinder King himself, with Raishan secretly manipu- lating the course of his rule from the shadows. The Alabaster Lyceum need hardly introduce the heroes of this story. One by one, the members of the Conclave fell to the might and cleverness of a band of misfit warriors known as Vox Machina, their might bolstered by a number of the lost Vestiges of Divergence, artifacts of incalculable power forged amidst the chaos of the Calamity. After many adven- tures, these heroes gathered their allies and stormed the capital of Emon, slaying Thordak the Cinder King and freeing its people. Upon discovering the machinations of the real mastermind, Raishan the Diseased Deceiver, with whom Vox Machina had held a tenuous alliance, they gave chase and finally slew this last standing member of the Chroma Con- clave, ending their reign over the land and restoring rule once more to the Council of Tal’Dorei.
The final act of Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei II’s life was to abdicate the throne and end the line of sov- ereigns—permanently. To analyze the historic Last Sovereign’s final acts is the duty of biographers, not chroniclers, yet it can readily be surmised that he saw flaws inherent to his station. Uriel was the son of Odellan Tal’Dorei, the sovereign who singlehand- edly prevented the council from swiftly handling the Cinder King when first he rose in the wilderness south of the empire.
How could the Last Sovereign not feel that it was his office’s immense power to overrule the council that ultimately cost thousands of loyal citizens their lives? How could he not compare the singular power of the sovereign to the abuses of power committed by King Drassig in ancient times?
Regardless of his private feelings, Uriel II’s last act as sovereign transformed his family’s imperial dynasty into the Republic of Tal’Dorei. Zan Tal’Dorei was reluctant to accept the singular role of rulership at the dawning of the nation, an ideal she had to compromise upon to ensure stability for her fledgling nation. Uriel’s relinquishment of power is seen today as a fulfillment of that ideal. It will be the duty of future historians to judge if his decision stood the test of time.
The Tal’Dorei Council has guided the fate of the nation since Vox Machina slew the Cinder King. For most of the past two decades, the goal of the council has been to rebuild that which was lost—and to assure far-flung territories that the nascent republic is just as stable as the empire ever was.
Recovery has been slow in both Tal’Dorei’s heart- land and its most distant reaches. Even though cities like Kymal and Stilben were not direct targets of the dragons’ rampage, the age of unrest that followed made these small cities easy targets for ransacking by roving bandits and corrupt magistrates alike. Even today, outlying settlements are slow to trust the good intentions of the Tal’Dorei Council.
Major cities like Westruun and Emon have been the greatest beneficiaries of the Time of Regrowth, for even though they suffered the worst of the Con- clave’s destruction, the dragons also kept their lairs close by, allowing vast amounts of plundered wealth from their treasure hoards to flow rapidly back into these cities’ coffers. Over the last twenty years, these cities have hired legions of arcanists to magically restore much of what was lost.
However, perhaps the one city that can say it directly benefited from the Chroma Conclave’s reign of chaos is Whitestone, a formerly indepen- dent city-state that is now a member of the republic. Whitestone took in countless refugees from Emon after the Conclave’s initial attack, and countless more in the aftermath. Sequestered in Tal’Dorei’s cold northeastern reaches, Whitestone is an isolated city, but it has rapidly become a powerhouse of politi- cal, cultural, artistic, and economic influence—to the chagrin of some traditionalists in Emon.
The world was troubled by a disturbance in Issylra a year after the Chroma Conclave’s defeat, as a lich attempted to achieve godhood and crush the Dawn City of Vasselheim in one fell swoop. His success would have meant catastrophe for the Material Plane, leaving him the sole god on this side of the world’s impenetrable Divine Gate. However, beyond hearing news of Vox Machina’s involvement in this conflict, few in Tal’Dorei were concerned by rum- blings on the other side of the world.
Though the lich’s defeat confined him to a remote demiplane, there is no way to strip him of his stolen divinity. Occult worshipers yet scurry throughout Tal’Dorei’s darkest corners, seeking the favor of a lich-god known as the Whispered One.
A generation has passed in relative peace. Yet all who have studied history know that each age’s conflict sows the seeds of the next. The Republic of Tal’Dorei has proven it can prosper in peacetime, but it has yet to be tested by the pressures of war or a supernatural cataclysm.
After two decades of expensive reconstruction and princely investments in skyship moorings, the Republic of Tal’Dorei is deeply indebted to arcanists across the land. Chief among them is the League of Miracles, a consortium of thaumaturgists who have claimed untold fortunes from reconstruction boun- ties all over the country.
The simple fact is that the cost of rebuilding Tal’Dorei was far more than the council or local leaders could afford to pay. Far be it from the Ala- baster Lyceum to cast aspersions on so beneficial an organization, but there are fears among the Tal’Dorei people that the league has already begun to collect on what they are owed in forms other than gold, as more and more league mages receive preferential treatment from local margraves and even members of the Tal’Dorei Council itself.
Beyond Emon, the landscape of Tal’Dorei has been forever scarred by the presence of the Conclave, especially the Cinder King. His hellfire left marks on the land that will never heal—magical wounds that bleed fire and ooze chaotic magic. Smaller cities beyond the reach of the council have begun to succumb to sinister influences. Demons and devils crawl into the world, summoned by occult powers answering fell voices from beyond the Divine Gate. The Betrayer Gods sense weakness within the world. The entropic fury of the Chained Obliv- ion churns beneath Gatshadow. The lost blade of Neminar the Black-Fingered calls from the Umbra Hills for a new master. The Cloaked Serpent raises armies south of Syngorn. Cults of the now-divine Whispered One spread like poison through the veins of Tal’Dorei’s cities.
Yet despite these threats, the legendary heroes of Vox Machina have largely set down their blades, guns, and spells and taken up the mantle of lead- ership. More than twenty years have passed since their greatest adventures, and though the surviving members of Vox Machina are still canny rulers and cunning warriors, the Tal’Dorei Council can no longer rely upon their skills as readily as they once did. Rumors of the heroes’ permanent retirement swirl, inspiring fear and nostalgic sorrow in many of the people—but adventurers across the land see this as an opportunity to rise to the level of Vox Machina and beyond.
To the north, the Cliffkeep Mountains shelter hidden valleys, swift and deadly predators, and the mighty dwarven stronghold city of Kraghammer, beneath which lie mines and caverns that connect to the Underdark. To the south of the Dividing Plains, travelers might find themselves traversing the rocky spires of the Stormcrest Mountains or attempting to navigate the vast forest known as the Verdant Expanse, home to the beautiful elven city of Syngorn. Beyond the Verdant Expanse lies the southernmost peninsula of Tal'Dorei, a land enveloped by the volatile Rifenmist Jungle.
Along the eastern shore of Tal'Dorei stands the capital city of Emon, a glorious metropolis and the political nexus of the continent. Within Emon, the governing oligarchy known as the Council of Tal'Dorei maintains law and order across the many territories of the republic, partnering with the governing bodies of Kraghammer, Syngorn, and Whitestone to help maintain the safety and well being of all who call this land their home.
History
Following the creation, and subsequent razing, of Exandria, a post-Divergence world was now left to rise from the ashes and begin a new era. While every region had its own rebirth following the terrible destruction of the Calamity, the continent that now bears the name of this setting shall remain the focus.
The modern calendar began in the year 0 P.D. (Post-Divergence), over eight hundred years before the writing of this text. Though the modern nation- state of Tal’Dorei did not emerge for some time after year 0, the history of Tal’Dorei truly began with the founding of Gwessar.
Gwessar
At the dawning of modern history, what is now known as the continent of Tal’Dorei housed the germinating seeds of civilization. It was the hardy, dependable dwarves who best weathered the war between gods and mortals, beneath the Cliffkeep Mountains. Dozens of dwarven redoubts rose and fell in the tumult of the Calamity and the uncertain era that followed it. For many years, dwarves lived in the tunnels beneath the Cliffkeep Mountains, leaderless and chaotic, until the various clans unified to form the subterranean city of Kraghammer. Proud of their grand new home, the dwarf clans were content to remain beneath the earth. They saw the war-scarred surface world as a source of naught but misery and death, and their new underground domain as a place of undiscovered prosperity. This city was dug underneath the mountains, and its deep roots, though young, survived where more ancient ancestral halls were annihilated. Clan Jaggenstrike were the architects of Kraghammer’s hardy, unassailable redoubts, and easily became the first ruling clan of the Kraghammer dwarves.
While the dwarves busied themselves excavating the world below, a group of elves appeared suddenly in the south. At the outset of the Calamity, a society of elves used a powerful, obscure ritual to transport many of their people to safety on another plane: the Fey Realm, a plane of primordial beauty where elven legend says the Arch Heart lovingly fashioned their people before placing them upon the face of Exan- dria. They returned at the turning of the ages under the guidance of an elven sorceress named Yenlara Alderwreath.
The elves rallied around her both for her defiant strength and for her compassion in the face of adversity. It was under Yenlara’s wise rule that elven society once again began to reform. Upon returning to Exandria, Yenlara led her people westward to the Verdant Expanse, an untamed forest born from the residual elemental power that lingered after the end of the Calamity.
So beautiful was the forest they settled in that Yenlara’s people were the first elves known to bear the now-widespread name of syn'alfen—wood elves, in Common parlance. Likewise, the beauty of their forest home inspired the name of their first settle- ment: Syngorn, the great elvenhome that stands proud within the Verdant Expanse to this very day.
As Yenlara’s people began to explore beyond the forest, they found vast fields of grass emerging from the ash-darkened ground, with tall, snowcapped mountains visible on the horizon. Overwhelmed by the beauty of the restored world, the syn'alfen called their new land Gwessar, the Fields of Joy, a name by which elves (and those enamored with elven culture) still call the continent of Tal’Dorei to this day.
The dwarves and elves are long-lived people, and when they struggled to rebuild their civilizations, there were those among them who still remembered the world that was. Humanity was not so fortunate. Human histories, written by wasteland warlords in fading ink on waterlogged parchment and vellum, did not survive the years. Yet, somehow, humanity endured. Several centuries after the Jaggenstrike dwarves began this period of renewal, a clan of humans braved the angry Ozmit Sea and sailed to Gwessar’s western coast from the continent of Issylra, though whether or not they came from Vas- selheim itself is unknown.
These people had the sea in their blood and sailed from island to island for generations, but something called them to Tal'Dorei. The ruins of their first settlement still stands today: the port city of O'Noa. From O'Noa the seafarers expanded outward until all the western shores fell under their banner. In the north, they found fertile fields unsalted by the nearby sea against an inlet unmarred by looming rocks and dangerous reefs, and they began to build. They did not know their city would become the heart of a great empire. They did not know the glory and sorrow that would surround their city of Emon.
The Iron Rule of Drassig
The rise of human colonies irritated the elves of Syn- gorn. Forests that had stood for centuries fell under the axes of rash, short-lived beings who sought to exploit, expand, and propagate thoughtlessly. These tensions did not build to war, for long were the mem- ories of the elves, but humanity remained a thorn in the side of elfkind, chafing at their hard-won efforts to protect their society and threatening to encroach upon their sacred woodlands.
As the first human civilization on this part of the world after the Calamity, Emon gave rise to a handful of self-entitled noble houses who went on to establish civilization in the name of the Lawbearer—but those who wrote the game stacked the deck in their favor. Corruption spread through the upper echelons of Emon, and power-hungry politicians seized each new and valuable resource that was discovered in their bountiful new kingdom. They turned their citizens against each other, forcing them to fight for scraps while they hoarded the lion’s share.
Emon was a political war zone, and the greatest warrior of them all was a loudmouthed braggart and cunning oligarch named Warren Drassig. The chaos and mistrust in Emon allowed Drassig and his agents to seize power and transform the realm into the Kingdom of Drassig, with Warren himself as its supreme monarch. Drassig was quick to sever any remaining connections with the elves of Syngorn and make new alliances with the dwarves of Kra- ghammer, marrying Drassig’s autocratic power with the dwarves’ immense material wealth.
The elves were furious, but the ambassador from Syngorn to Emon, an idealistic grandson of the still-living Yenlara, hoped to resolve this diplomati- cally. Upon arrival, he was apprehended, tortured, and slain. This final act of treachery drove Syngorn to arms, and the continent erupted into a terrible, protracted war between Yenlara’s kin and Drassig’s bloodline known as the Scattered War.
The Scattered War
The Scattered War lasted for thirty-two years, and is recalled in bardsong as the Time of Shrouds. The war spanned the Cliffkeep Mountains and parts of the Verdant Expanse, with the human colonies spread throughout the soon-to-be-warring territories. King Drassig encountered little resistance as he conquered each village, town, and city in turn, giving these isolated settlements no way of warning one another of the warlord’s advance.
No common warmonger, Drassig was a cunning, heartless master of psychological warfare. Weeks in advance of his armies, he seeded spies throughout the land. They traveled swiftly through the secret dwarf-tunnels that crisscrossed the Cliffkeep Moun- tains, and infiltrated settlements throughout the region, turning the people of each settlement against their own leaders, eating at them from within, poisoning them against one another. By the time Drassig’s armies reached their targets, they were already poised to fall. The lights of human towns and elven groves were snuffed out with equal savagery. Yet, a mere nine years after the war began, King Warren Drassig died.
It happened at Torthil, an abandoned village in Gwessar’s heartlands. For years, rumors had grown that Torthil was a haven for war refugees. The king and his soldiers fell upon the village with a vengeance, seeking survivors to slaughter. As they regrouped in the town square, Drassig stood among them, blade raised, eyes wild, and voice booming, to rally their bloodthirsty spirits. It was at the height of his wicked speech that the first arrow struck, fol- lowed shortly by a volley that clouded the sky. After nine years of suffering, Yenlara’s wood elves and the rebellious humans of the scattered colonies had joined forces and formed an alliance against their common enemy.
After Warren Drassig fell, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Neminar Drassig. Neminar shunned the crude, brutal methods of his father, instead finding his interests in more sinister powers. He became known as “Neminar the Black-Fingered,” as his forays into necromancy left one arm withered and tainted. Nevertheless, his weaponization of forbidden magic elevated the threat of Drassig’s war machine.
King Neminar, bent on bloody-minded vengeance, led his army back to Torthil, where the corpses of the elven and human traitors were piled high upon the outer walls. Their pyres ignited the night as the entire city was reduced to rubble. And so the Scattered War continued, unabated by the death of Warren Drassig.
The rule of Neminar marked the darkest days of the war. He introduced tactics and magic that drove his soldiers beyond human limits, leaving their bod- ies altered and mutated by foul necromancy. Their warped minds craved bloodshed and domination, and their bodies needed no sustenance to fuel their bloodlust. Drassig’s forces became the perfect weap- ons of war, their ranks blessed by the divine touch of the Strife Emperor—the first Betrayer God to extend his power to mortals beyond the Divine Gate. All the gods soon learned that though they could not walk upon Exandria themselves, they could still grant magic to their faithful.
In the face of such terrible power, the alliance of humans and elves bolstered their ranks with venge- ful orphans and eager heroes of all ancestries who suffered under Drassig's tyranny. One such hero who came to be instrumental in the coming conflict was Zan Tal’Dorei. A human who rose from the harried streets of Syngorn, Zan quickly showed her mettle as both a warrior and an inspirational leader. Rallying the broken ranks of the resistance, Zan lured Nemi- nar and his lead forces into the Verdant Expanse. Neminar’s undoing was an arrogant attack upon the Shifting Keep, a Syngornian outpost protected by the slippery magic of the Fey Realm. The illusory fortress vanished, leaving the Drassig army without a target and vulnerable to ambush. The forest itself seemed to lend its fury to the weapons of Zan’s war- riors, and Neminar and his blighted soldiers were crushed in one swift stroke.
Word of Neminar’s defeat and death spread like wildfire across Gwessar, and the banner of Zan Tal’Dorei’s rebel army became a symbol of hope for all of the oppressed peoples of the realm. Even so, the last years of fighting were still ahead of them, for the late King Warren Drassig’s youngest son still stood to take power, and swore to avenge his family.
Battle of the Umbra Hills
King Trist Drassig, second-born son of the despotic Warren Drassig, took the throne with unearned con- fidence. So enamored was he with arrogant visions of victory that he ignored the truth of his tenuous rule: he was neither as brilliant nor as charismatic as his father, his armies were stretched thin, and his people rioted. The rebels, led by the young warrior Zan Tal’Dorei, won battle after battle, and before long, King Trist found his army backed against the imposing base of the Cliffkeep Mountains.
In the wake of certain victory, Zan and her rebels, allied with the elves of Syngorn, pursued Drassig to this valley, but were met with fiends amidst the ranks of their enemy. King Trist had a secret weapon— through his family’s dealings with the Strife Emperor, the spawn of the Betrayers had returned to the world. They spilled into the battlefield like a river of nightmares, and in minutes, the surrounding hills ran dark with blood and ichor, and the bodies of humans and demons alike littered the battlefield. Yet, despite all odds, the hero Zan defeated King Trist, ending the Drassig bloodline—and with it, the demonic pact the Drassigs had made. It is said that the grass and flowers of the Umbra Hills grow black and burnt as an echo of this battle, their sap coursing with the fiendish blood that was spilled that day.
Tal’Dorei Ascendant
Society had all but collapsed once more amidst the Scattered War. Within the Verdant Expanse, the triumphant rebels assembled a council of trusted and proven minds, but the people were accustomed to a singular leader, a king. In the hearts of the people, it was not the crown that had failed them, but the bloody-minded family that wore it. The council assented to the will of their people, and nominated the war hero Zan Tal’Dorei to take the throne. She humbly accepted the role, but refused to take the title of king or queen. Her name, she asserted, was Zan. After some debate, she eventually relented to being called Sovereign Tal’Dorei, if such formality was required.
Again in spite of Zan’s protestations, the council unanimously agreed the realm should be renamed Tal’Dorei in her honor. Power was divided between the sovereign and the council, both of whom ruled from Emon. From there, Emon’s leaders expunged any remnants of Drassig’s reign from their city, while the allied armies of Tal’Dorei and Syngorn did the same throughout the realm. The leading clans of Kraghammer pleaded for clemency, claiming they were coerced to serve Drassig. They spent many years paying reparations and making amends, but the fractured trust between Gwessar’s peoples took generations to heal.
The Icelost Years
Not two years into Sovereign Zan’s reign, a cataclys- mic evil tested her mettle and the skill of the council. A creature from the Elemental Plane of Ice slunk into the Material Plane through a hitherto unknown rift between the planes. It appeared in a mystical forest of eternal winter known today as the Frost- weald. From its hibernal abode, this elemental spirit spied upon the untested realm of Tal’Dorei and saw an opportunity. The spirit dove back to its extrapla- nar home and informed its master of a land ripe for conquest. Errevon the Rimelord, a cruel elemental so mighty that he is speculated to have been a scion of the Primordials, one that escaped the gods’ wrath in the Founding, seized this opportunity.
On the next winter solstice, Errevon tore wide the Frostweald rift and commanded the endless blizzards of his home plane to ravage the prosperous land around it. Tal’Dorei’s southern reaches, thus weakened, were easy pickings for the Algid Legion, a mighty army of frost giants and animate blizzards led by the Rimelord himself. Their relentless advance covered all they touched in snow and death.
Countless brave warriors and civilians alike fell to the invaders’ gelid weapons, for they were unprepared for such an onslaught so soon after the Drassigs’ protracted war. The storm of ice widened year by year, consuming the Tal’Dorei heartland as Errevon claimed all lands that fell beneath the ice as his own. North of the rift, he built a towering citadel of frost, forcing those he conquered to swear fealty in exchange for warmth and liquid water. The Rimelord’s tyrany lasted for three long years as the nascent Council of Tal’Dorei struggled to convince Syngorn and Kraghammer to ally for the sake of the realm. This monumental diplomatic mission com- pleted, the combined might of Tal’Dorei, Syngorn, and Kraghammer assaulted Errevon’s Citadel and forced the Rimelord back to the rift from whence he came. It was in this time of need that the druidic Ashari people first revealed themselves to the people of Tal’Dorei, and used their unrivaled elemental magic to seal the rift once and for all. The snow began to melt, the fortress toppled into the nearby Foramere Basin, and the people celebrated their freedom from the oppressive cold. This victory is now celebrated annually throughout Tal’Dorei as the Winter’s Crest festival.
Thordak, the Cinder King
Zan Tal’Dorei passed peacefully after a long and happy rule, and was succeeded by a long line of her descendants. Many generations of peace ensued, and the Tal’Dorei Empire formed as dozens of tiny city- states across the Dividing Plains flocked to the stable rule and heroic reputation of Tal’Dorei in the wake of the Icelost Years.
The adroit statecraft of the Council of Tal’Dorei maintained cordial alliances with both Syngorn and Kraghammer, but, despite their best efforts, couldn’t keep the elves and dwarves from regress- ing to hostility over ancient quarrels. In the time of Sovereign Odellan Tal’Dorei, word of a shadow in the south came to the ears of the council. Contact with numerous outlying townships at the edges of the empire halted abruptly, and traders that made circuits from Emon to the Rifenmist Peninsula in the south vanished without a trace. The council was slow to act in defense of territories that routinely flaunted imperial law, but were finally driven to action when allied villages south of the Verdant Expanse begged for protection against a “nightmare of fire and malice.” The dour Sovereign Odellan blocked the council’s relief efforts, claiming the economic cost of sending a regiment that far south to outsider commu- nities was a misuse of resources, especially without proof of a threat. It wasn’t until two years later, when reports of a powerful red dragon reached the ears of the sovereign, that the Council of Tal’Dorei was able to act.
By then, much of the Mornset Countryside had been reduced to ash by a self-obsessed and power-hungry red dragon named Thordak, who pre- ferred the self-styled moniker of “the Cinder King.” According to Cobalt Soul records from the Temple of the Mentor in the lands of Marquet, the Cinder King was presumed dead nearly two hundred years prior, killed by the brass dragon Devo’ssa—yet it could not be denied that Thordak survived, and that he sought new peoples to enslave, ones with fewer defenses. The mighty armies of Tal’Dorei marched finally south, but morale was low. They marched toward fiery, painful death, and soldiers grumbled of a heartless sovereign who luxuriated in his castle in Emon while his people put their lives on the line for the realm. They finally clashed with Thordak and his mercenary armies south of the Stormcrest Moun- tains, but the forces of Tal’Dorei were soon forced into a panicked, disorganized retreat as the rocky, exposed terrain worked to the advantage of their airborne foe.
The valiant soldiers of Tal’Dorei would surely have been brought to utter ruin were it not for the heroic intervention of a band of young—yet able— adventur- ers. Led by Arcanist Allura Vysoren, who sits today upon the Tal’Dorei Council, they cornered the Cinder King alone and defeated him—though his power was so great that they could not manage to kill the dragon outright. Instead, Allura and her companions used powerful magic to imprison Thordak within the Elemental Plane of Fire forever. The Fire Ashari of distant Issylra vowed to watch over Thordak’s prison until age could consume even him.
The Chroma Conclave
Forever lasted a mere sixteen years. In that time, life returned to mundane quarrels over the price of bread and taxes. During this time of quietude, an old and unexpected ally of Thordak’s, a green dragon called Raishan the Diseased Deceiver, found Thordak and conspired to release him from his prison so he could conquer the land that had once rebuked him. Raishan formed a plan and forged an unprecedented alliance with three other power-hungry chromatic dragons: Umbrasyl the Hope Devourer, Brimscythe the Iron Storm, and Vorugal the Frigid Doom.
After infiltrating the Fire Ashari of Pyrah for nearly five years, Raishan finally unlocked the seal between the planes that bound Thordak and set him free. Thordak’s physical body was warped by the fiery energies of his prison. Now stronger than ever, he rallied his draconic allies, the Chroma Conclave, to destroy or conquer Tal’Dorei as they saw fit— starting with a retributive assault of catastrophic proportions on Emon. Nearly three centuries of Tal’Dorei rule in the realm ended under the rule of Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei II, his life cut short when much of Emon was reduced to rubble.
The attack not only killed the Sovereign Uriel, but also scattered the Council of Tal’Dorei, throwing the realm into chaos. The remnants of the civilized lands were divided up and taken as trophies by the Conclave, while the capital Emon was ruled by the Cinder King himself, with Raishan secretly manipu- lating the course of his rule from the shadows. The Alabaster Lyceum need hardly introduce the heroes of this story. One by one, the members of the Conclave fell to the might and cleverness of a band of misfit warriors known as Vox Machina, their might bolstered by a number of the lost Vestiges of Divergence, artifacts of incalculable power forged amidst the chaos of the Calamity. After many adven- tures, these heroes gathered their allies and stormed the capital of Emon, slaying Thordak the Cinder King and freeing its people. Upon discovering the machinations of the real mastermind, Raishan the Diseased Deceiver, with whom Vox Machina had held a tenuous alliance, they gave chase and finally slew this last standing member of the Chroma Con- clave, ending their reign over the land and restoring rule once more to the Council of Tal’Dorei.
A Fledgling Republic
The final act of Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei II’s life was to abdicate the throne and end the line of sov- ereigns—permanently. To analyze the historic Last Sovereign’s final acts is the duty of biographers, not chroniclers, yet it can readily be surmised that he saw flaws inherent to his station. Uriel was the son of Odellan Tal’Dorei, the sovereign who singlehand- edly prevented the council from swiftly handling the Cinder King when first he rose in the wilderness south of the empire.
How could the Last Sovereign not feel that it was his office’s immense power to overrule the council that ultimately cost thousands of loyal citizens their lives? How could he not compare the singular power of the sovereign to the abuses of power committed by King Drassig in ancient times?
Regardless of his private feelings, Uriel II’s last act as sovereign transformed his family’s imperial dynasty into the Republic of Tal’Dorei. Zan Tal’Dorei was reluctant to accept the singular role of rulership at the dawning of the nation, an ideal she had to compromise upon to ensure stability for her fledgling nation. Uriel’s relinquishment of power is seen today as a fulfillment of that ideal. It will be the duty of future historians to judge if his decision stood the test of time.
The Time of Regrowth
The Tal’Dorei Council has guided the fate of the nation since Vox Machina slew the Cinder King. For most of the past two decades, the goal of the council has been to rebuild that which was lost—and to assure far-flung territories that the nascent republic is just as stable as the empire ever was.
Recovery has been slow in both Tal’Dorei’s heart- land and its most distant reaches. Even though cities like Kymal and Stilben were not direct targets of the dragons’ rampage, the age of unrest that followed made these small cities easy targets for ransacking by roving bandits and corrupt magistrates alike. Even today, outlying settlements are slow to trust the good intentions of the Tal’Dorei Council.
Major cities like Westruun and Emon have been the greatest beneficiaries of the Time of Regrowth, for even though they suffered the worst of the Con- clave’s destruction, the dragons also kept their lairs close by, allowing vast amounts of plundered wealth from their treasure hoards to flow rapidly back into these cities’ coffers. Over the last twenty years, these cities have hired legions of arcanists to magically restore much of what was lost.
However, perhaps the one city that can say it directly benefited from the Chroma Conclave’s reign of chaos is Whitestone, a formerly indepen- dent city-state that is now a member of the republic. Whitestone took in countless refugees from Emon after the Conclave’s initial attack, and countless more in the aftermath. Sequestered in Tal’Dorei’s cold northeastern reaches, Whitestone is an isolated city, but it has rapidly become a powerhouse of politi- cal, cultural, artistic, and economic influence—to the chagrin of some traditionalists in Emon.
Apotheosis Thwarted
The world was troubled by a disturbance in Issylra a year after the Chroma Conclave’s defeat, as a lich attempted to achieve godhood and crush the Dawn City of Vasselheim in one fell swoop. His success would have meant catastrophe for the Material Plane, leaving him the sole god on this side of the world’s impenetrable Divine Gate. However, beyond hearing news of Vox Machina’s involvement in this conflict, few in Tal’Dorei were concerned by rum- blings on the other side of the world.
Though the lich’s defeat confined him to a remote demiplane, there is no way to strip him of his stolen divinity. Occult worshipers yet scurry throughout Tal’Dorei’s darkest corners, seeking the favor of a lich-god known as the Whispered One.
Seeds of Peril
A generation has passed in relative peace. Yet all who have studied history know that each age’s conflict sows the seeds of the next. The Republic of Tal’Dorei has proven it can prosper in peacetime, but it has yet to be tested by the pressures of war or a supernatural cataclysm.
After two decades of expensive reconstruction and princely investments in skyship moorings, the Republic of Tal’Dorei is deeply indebted to arcanists across the land. Chief among them is the League of Miracles, a consortium of thaumaturgists who have claimed untold fortunes from reconstruction boun- ties all over the country.
The simple fact is that the cost of rebuilding Tal’Dorei was far more than the council or local leaders could afford to pay. Far be it from the Ala- baster Lyceum to cast aspersions on so beneficial an organization, but there are fears among the Tal’Dorei people that the league has already begun to collect on what they are owed in forms other than gold, as more and more league mages receive preferential treatment from local margraves and even members of the Tal’Dorei Council itself.
Beyond Emon, the landscape of Tal’Dorei has been forever scarred by the presence of the Conclave, especially the Cinder King. His hellfire left marks on the land that will never heal—magical wounds that bleed fire and ooze chaotic magic. Smaller cities beyond the reach of the council have begun to succumb to sinister influences. Demons and devils crawl into the world, summoned by occult powers answering fell voices from beyond the Divine Gate. The Betrayer Gods sense weakness within the world. The entropic fury of the Chained Obliv- ion churns beneath Gatshadow. The lost blade of Neminar the Black-Fingered calls from the Umbra Hills for a new master. The Cloaked Serpent raises armies south of Syngorn. Cults of the now-divine Whispered One spread like poison through the veins of Tal’Dorei’s cities.
Yet despite these threats, the legendary heroes of Vox Machina have largely set down their blades, guns, and spells and taken up the mantle of lead- ership. More than twenty years have passed since their greatest adventures, and though the surviving members of Vox Machina are still canny rulers and cunning warriors, the Tal’Dorei Council can no longer rely upon their skills as readily as they once did. Rumors of the heroes’ permanent retirement swirl, inspiring fear and nostalgic sorrow in many of the people—but adventurers across the land see this as an opportunity to rise to the level of Vox Machina and beyond.
Type
Continent
Included Locations
Alabaster Sierras
Bladeshimmer Shoreline
Cliffkeep Mountains
Dividing Plains
Lucidian Coast
Rifenmist Peninsula
Stormcrest Mountains
Verdant Expanse
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