The Old World
Kermoria has existed for millenia; age upon age has passed, with the rise and fall of great empires, civilizations, cultures, and peoples. Long before the Draconic Age, and the times beyond, there was something now known as 'The Old World', where sparse few records exist and even fewer truths have been revealed.
The farthest age one can ascertain with any kernel of truth is about 10,000 years past; a time when the surface of Kermoria was inhabited by great, titanic beasts which roamed freely, without equal. These monsters, some believe the descendants of modern-day dragons, giants, and other massive entities, owned the surface of the world, killing, destroying, and razing everything in their path; whether malicious or unintentional, these great beasts made life on the surface of the world a difficult prospect. And so, many of the civilizations of the day inhabited great stone fortresses within the mountains, or perched high within the trees of the massive forests which covered the globe. And thus, the age of Dwarves, Lizardfolk, and Elves, came to be.
Within their subterranean halls, The Great Dwarfholds began to take shape, as clans carved fortresses beneath many of the mountain ranges of Kermoria, with The Underway, a network of tunnels stretching for miles, connecting them to a central hub. The Dwarves spread widely across the world, with holds as far south as what is now Edeli, and as far north as the Gemfire Mountains, and even eastward into the Land of Giants. Within their fortresses, protected from the horrors of the surface world, the Dwarves prospered, drawing minerals and ores from the ground to fuel their greed and, eventually, their war machines.
As their curiosities about the surface world grew, the Dwarves began explorations, which eventually led to their discovery of Orcs and Goblins, creatures native to the surface and highly adapted to whatever environments they could eke a living from. And thus, The Greenskin Wars began, as the Orcs and Goblins, realizing the Dwarves were in possession of safe, comfortable places to live, began making war against them in an attempt to usurp their underground homes.
The Greenskin Wars raged for centuries, with both sides taking massive casualties and claiming territories, only to lose them again and again. Even with the passing of epochs, the repercussions of these wars have fueled a racial hatred amongst Dwarves, Goblins and Orcs that runs incredibly deeply.
As the years and wars raged onward, a number of The Great Dwarfholds were lost, either to the greenskins or abandoned entirely, leaving the once-great empire of Dwarves scattered and disjointed.
The Lizardfolk are a cold-blooded species; for years, it has been hotly contested amongst learned societies why a species with such an intolerance for cold weather would choose to settle and create the basis of their empire within the perpetually frozen taiga of the Whistling Wood; though no consensus has ever been reached, it is believed that many of the great beasts of the Old World were also cold blooded, and avoided the area entirely. Regardless of their reasons, the origins of the Hex'oatl Empire began in the Whistling Wood, and their legacy has stood the test of time.
As temple-city after temple-city was constructed, seemingly at random, the empire began to sprawl from the Whistling Wood, spreading southward into what is now the Pridelands and northwards, near the edges of The Forest of Night and along the shores of the Brentrial, west of the Himhineldar Shel Mountain Range. It wasn't until the second century, AV, when the random placement of their temple-cities began to emerge as something more than just convenience; each city rested on an intersection of the magical ley lines of the world, drawing power from Kermoria herself.
Ley lines, and the winds of magic, are fickle things, however. The Hex'oatl Empire drew much of it's power from a great, geomantic web that had been woven across the world; as the winds of magic shifted and ley lines began to fade, so, too, did many of their cities fall into ruin and disrepair. And so began the collapse of the largest and most numerous empire to ever exist. And, with their slow collapse, the loss of their collective knowledge of the web, and of the studies of the arcane, became inevitable, as temple-cities were slowly abandoned to time and the elements.
The lifespan of an Elf is not a sprint, but a marathon. They live for centuries, with some of the most wizened and elder among them even reaching as many as ten full centuries. And yet, the rise of the Elves as one of the powerful peoples took dozens of their long-lived lifespans, as they slowly expanded from deep within their forests to create larger and more impressive cities, including their capitol, Leth Deriel within their most sacred of places, The Forest of Night. The forest was littered with cities, as Ancient Elven Cities sprouted near every great tree, water source, and ley line the Elves could find.
While the great titans still ruled the surface of the world, many within the growing Elven populace felt that, like the Dwarves, they should expand beneath the ground, allowing them to grow and prosper in peace. Factions emerged, and, soon, civil war erupted amongst the fair folk of the forest.
As war began to rage amongst the Elven peoples, pitting city against city, some Great Houses chose to remain neutral in the conflict, going to extreme efforts to stay out of war. When politics failed, some cities went so far as to install powerful arcane warding and teleportation stones within their walls which allowed the city, in it's entirety, to shift between the material plane and the Shadowfell or the Feywild . Some of these Ancient Elven Cities chose not to return to the material plane after the conflict, instead remaining amongst the Shadowfell and creating a new life for their peoples. The years spent exposed to the Shadowfell eventually created a new sub-race of Elf, the Shadar-Kai, who formed their own network of cities within the Shadowfell.
By the end of this conflict, thousands of Elves on both ideological sides lay dead, their peoples decimated by their own hands. A few of the great houses still clung to the idea of expanding into the depths, and fled into The Underway, eventually descending into what is now known as The Underdark; years of exposure to the depths of the world soon gave rise to a new kind of Elf, now known as Drow. Much like the hatred between Orcs and Dwarves, the divide between the Elves and Drow runs deep and burns hot, and has led to more than one skirmish or even full-blown battle between those two similar peoples.
The Surface
The farthest age one can ascertain with any kernel of truth is about 10,000 years past; a time when the surface of Kermoria was inhabited by great, titanic beasts which roamed freely, without equal. These monsters, some believe the descendants of modern-day dragons, giants, and other massive entities, owned the surface of the world, killing, destroying, and razing everything in their path; whether malicious or unintentional, these great beasts made life on the surface of the world a difficult prospect. And so, many of the civilizations of the day inhabited great stone fortresses within the mountains, or perched high within the trees of the massive forests which covered the globe. And thus, the age of Dwarves, Lizardfolk, and Elves, came to be.
Dwarves
Within their subterranean halls, The Great Dwarfholds began to take shape, as clans carved fortresses beneath many of the mountain ranges of Kermoria, with The Underway, a network of tunnels stretching for miles, connecting them to a central hub. The Dwarves spread widely across the world, with holds as far south as what is now Edeli, and as far north as the Gemfire Mountains, and even eastward into the Land of Giants. Within their fortresses, protected from the horrors of the surface world, the Dwarves prospered, drawing minerals and ores from the ground to fuel their greed and, eventually, their war machines.
As their curiosities about the surface world grew, the Dwarves began explorations, which eventually led to their discovery of Orcs and Goblins, creatures native to the surface and highly adapted to whatever environments they could eke a living from. And thus, The Greenskin Wars began, as the Orcs and Goblins, realizing the Dwarves were in possession of safe, comfortable places to live, began making war against them in an attempt to usurp their underground homes.
The Greenskin Wars raged for centuries, with both sides taking massive casualties and claiming territories, only to lose them again and again. Even with the passing of epochs, the repercussions of these wars have fueled a racial hatred amongst Dwarves, Goblins and Orcs that runs incredibly deeply.
As the years and wars raged onward, a number of The Great Dwarfholds were lost, either to the greenskins or abandoned entirely, leaving the once-great empire of Dwarves scattered and disjointed.
The Rise of the Hex'oatl Empire
The Lizardfolk are a cold-blooded species; for years, it has been hotly contested amongst learned societies why a species with such an intolerance for cold weather would choose to settle and create the basis of their empire within the perpetually frozen taiga of the Whistling Wood; though no consensus has ever been reached, it is believed that many of the great beasts of the Old World were also cold blooded, and avoided the area entirely. Regardless of their reasons, the origins of the Hex'oatl Empire began in the Whistling Wood, and their legacy has stood the test of time.
As temple-city after temple-city was constructed, seemingly at random, the empire began to sprawl from the Whistling Wood, spreading southward into what is now the Pridelands and northwards, near the edges of The Forest of Night and along the shores of the Brentrial, west of the Himhineldar Shel Mountain Range. It wasn't until the second century, AV, when the random placement of their temple-cities began to emerge as something more than just convenience; each city rested on an intersection of the magical ley lines of the world, drawing power from Kermoria herself.
Ley lines, and the winds of magic, are fickle things, however. The Hex'oatl Empire drew much of it's power from a great, geomantic web that had been woven across the world; as the winds of magic shifted and ley lines began to fade, so, too, did many of their cities fall into ruin and disrepair. And so began the collapse of the largest and most numerous empire to ever exist. And, with their slow collapse, the loss of their collective knowledge of the web, and of the studies of the arcane, became inevitable, as temple-cities were slowly abandoned to time and the elements.
The Elves
The lifespan of an Elf is not a sprint, but a marathon. They live for centuries, with some of the most wizened and elder among them even reaching as many as ten full centuries. And yet, the rise of the Elves as one of the powerful peoples took dozens of their long-lived lifespans, as they slowly expanded from deep within their forests to create larger and more impressive cities, including their capitol, Leth Deriel within their most sacred of places, The Forest of Night. The forest was littered with cities, as Ancient Elven Cities sprouted near every great tree, water source, and ley line the Elves could find.
While the great titans still ruled the surface of the world, many within the growing Elven populace felt that, like the Dwarves, they should expand beneath the ground, allowing them to grow and prosper in peace. Factions emerged, and, soon, civil war erupted amongst the fair folk of the forest.
The Schism
As war began to rage amongst the Elven peoples, pitting city against city, some Great Houses chose to remain neutral in the conflict, going to extreme efforts to stay out of war. When politics failed, some cities went so far as to install powerful arcane warding and teleportation stones within their walls which allowed the city, in it's entirety, to shift between the material plane and the Shadowfell or the Feywild . Some of these Ancient Elven Cities chose not to return to the material plane after the conflict, instead remaining amongst the Shadowfell and creating a new life for their peoples. The years spent exposed to the Shadowfell eventually created a new sub-race of Elf, the Shadar-Kai, who formed their own network of cities within the Shadowfell.
By the end of this conflict, thousands of Elves on both ideological sides lay dead, their peoples decimated by their own hands. A few of the great houses still clung to the idea of expanding into the depths, and fled into The Underway, eventually descending into what is now known as The Underdark; years of exposure to the depths of the world soon gave rise to a new kind of Elf, now known as Drow. Much like the hatred between Orcs and Dwarves, the divide between the Elves and Drow runs deep and burns hot, and has led to more than one skirmish or even full-blown battle between those two similar peoples.
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