Ancient History
The Elfengrove as a great crater/caldera has existed since before the coming of magic and
The Architects - it is truly ancient, and has long attracted human habitation and worship. The infusion of magic into the great basin is certainly much more recent; the Elfengrove's foundations are old, but the landscape is warped by centuries and centuries of terraforming by
Ederstone-infused spirits.
Before it was called the Elfengrove, it was
Trotbensh, the great and sacred basin of the Empire of Andrig where the emperors performed rituals of fertility and purity to bless the countryside. But, in 510, the Empire began to collapse - by 520, it was completely eradicated by the
Empire of Kizen, whose apocalyptic weapons and ruthless policies left large swaths of land uninhabited. As the empire crumbled and great masses of people died or were enslaved, a strange magic began to work on Trotbensh - a powerful magician, almost certainly the great mage
Ustav. By 519, a powerful
Gate opened in the great basin and unleashed a wave of Ederstone spirits from the Northern
Scouringwood Wastes, specifically the region now known as the
Witchwood. The
Old Elves, ethereal and ancient spirits possibly made of twisted ghosts from the original Ederstone meteorstorm that brought chaos magic into the world, slithered through the Gate and brought many enchanted creatures with them. These proved to be a formidable threat to the Kivish army, which was exhausted, over-extended, and reeling from the retirement of its former leader. The refugees of ancient Andrig escaped into the Trotbensh and other corners of interior Andrig. Ustav's magic had saved some remnants of the old empire, but had served them on a platter to these Old Elf spirits.
After this initial group entered into the Elfengrove, a second group of ethereal spirits began to flow in across the desolate Northern border, entering the Elfenhorn mountains and the nearby hills. And, for a time, this was good: more spirits meant more protection against Kivish raiders. Over time, though, the number of powerful spirits became an issue. More kept coming in through Ustav's Gate, while the new arrivals began probing the boundaries of the first wave and the Kivish. The spirits began to bicker and became territorial, staking out claims over various refugee groups and valleys. Thankfully, the Old Elves had a common enemy to keep their attention and direct their worse impulses in the Kivish - and soon, the Empire of Kizen was trying more seriously to dislodge these spirits. In 560 ME, the Empire of Kizen began a five year campaign to exterminate and dislodge the Old Elf spirits. The war was brutal, and permanently worsened the spirits' demeanors; it brought out their cruelty and their bitterness. It also began the practice of the spirits hiding themselves in the bodies of hosts, to shelter the spirits themselves from radiation and magical attacks.
In 565 ME, the Kivish campaign against these spirits ended, and a long period of spirit rule began.
The Time of the Elves
From 565 to 1116 ME, the Spirits ruled and shaped the Elfengrove. Foreign armies occasionally passed by on their way to fight or raid each other up and down the coast, but the area was more or less accepted by all parties as unconquerable territory. The Old Elves slowly drifted into territoriality, division, and extreme domination over "their" survivor communities. In the hills and Elfenhorn mountains, spirit warlords dominated their communities and shaped their survivors into
Elves as we now know them: physical "graceful" vessels that appeal to the aesthetics of the spirits, typically with lithe forms and pointed ears. To keep their subject-vessels from using a
Leviathan pact or
the Lunar Pantheon, the spirits took their ability to sleep or dream. Thankfully, modern elves have intermarried enough with humans to regain some semblence of sleep again, but the resistance to sleep magic remains.
The Spirits of the Elfengrove were slower to pick up the worst practices, but indulged in them on a far grander scale once they did. They slowly infused the stone, trees, and water with themselves, terraforming the landscape into their dream realm. How they did some of what they did is unknown; perhaps it is simply an extension of their magic, perhaps they manipulated
Ederstone. However they did it, they molded the landscape and built great structures dedicated to their own glory. They dotted the earth with crystals, built a reservoir and canal system, and made the landscape a garden. They used their survivors as a workforce as well as vessels, and fortified the entrances to their sacred vale. According to legend, they combined the ancient knowledge of Imperial Andrig with their own magical spiritual insight to create spectacular crafts; cloaks of invisibility, rings of power, armor as light as feathers. These are mostly just old legends, though these spirits did have monstercrafted and magic-infused locations and items for more fluidly draining and infusing magic for
Monstercrafting.
Supposedly, these spirits kept their mortal vessel-servants alive for centuries, perhaps ageless forever. Yet, the population did not really increase, for their masters were very quick to send any surplus population off to fight against the other Elf-lords. Agriculture was not exactly in the cards for these spirits, as it lacked the appropriate grace and finesse they needed. And the Elfengrove did sustain the largest population and "ruled" in name over the other elf lords with their surplus people. This cycle continued, bloody and cruel and stagnant, for centuries as the basin became more and more changed.
The Breaking of Shackles
In 1116 ME, the ancient
Kingdom of Verzavek launched their resettlement program, which subsidized new settlement construction and migration into
Andrig. Surveys were conducted, and settlements were quickly being seeded in
Gernzlov, between the elf-lords. The Triumvirate of the Elf-court, who ruled the Elfengrove, became fascinated with the pagaentry of Hain and Verzavek - the castles, the titles, the social classes. They immediately set to work settling their surplus population as peasants, while they styled themselves as feudal lords.
From 1117 to 1119, the Elfengrove was the capital of a budding kingdom of the Elves. Much of Gernzlov was brought under the Triumvirate's control, and the spirits even began conquering and subjugating villages in their area. It was not long before the Kingdom of Verzavek decided that peace was no longer an option. They mustered funds and troops for a great monster-hunting expedition against the Elf-lords, and even forged an alliance with
Theia, Goddess of Freedom to free the mortal servant-vessels - and through Theia, some Hainish knights joined the effort. Everyone was frightened and confused by these domineering spirits and wanted them gone.
The main campaign took place in 1119 and 1120, which began with an army storming the Elfengrove. It was a bloody campaign. Two of the Triumvirate fell, and the last one fled back through the Gate - which closed behind them. The campaign against the other Elflords continued for years more, but by 1130 the main Elf-spirits were driven out of the fertile farmland and forests and into the mountains.
Post-Elf History
History since 1130 ME has been fairly clear and direct - it has been the history of the
Kingdom of Dovenar. It was a Verzaven vassal through the 1300s, when it became a battleground of the Third Scouring, then the Fourth. It became a small independent microkingdom in the 1400s. The Elfengrove was a border march of Hain during the 1600s, though one that sought an alliance with the nearby neutral
Yohenstern. During the 1700s, horrific violence was visited upon the Elfengrove by the
Fifth Scouring; the people were killed or enslaved, and slaves were marched in to farm spices and sugar in the basin.
After the occupiers were expelled in 1730, the enslaved population largely fled the basin - whose fortifications had become a prison for them - for the rest of
Gernzlov. Some stayed behind, to farm sugar and spices for their own profit. Queen Halga Yohenzel became Queen of
Dovenar, and began investing heavily in the emptying Elfengrove, attracting settlers to pick up the newly-abandoned estates. For decades, communes of settlers - refugees, former slaves, Hainish peasants seeking a better life all - operated the valley as vassals for the Queen. While their autonomy left them with more of the profits, it also attracted more people more quickly, which was the priority. Starting in 1750, those village rights started to be eroded decade by decade, in favor or noble control. In the late 1700s, Queen Halga began to hand titles to her descendants, a fragmented dynasty who all were vying for her favor and inheritance. The Elfengrove was small enough but wealthy enough to get the dynastic treatment; nearly all of the Yohenzels were entitled here. It was also an experiment of sorts, to see if they could effectively co-manage a realm.
The experiment never really took off, as the descendants ruthlessly bickered and Queen Halga was deposed in 1800. She was given her own small plot in the Elfengrove, and her dynasty was contained here. The new ruling regime saw them as viable low-level vassals, competent enough to extract a profit and divided enough to be easily manipulated. Queen Halga tried to keep the family unified until her death in 1906; since then, the family has completely cracked into three main branches.
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