The History

The recorded history of the Lost Lands begins in –109 I.R., more than 3,600 years ago, when a phalanx of ancient Hyperborea led by the Polemarch Oerson descended from the continent of Boros through what are now the Northlands and into the fertile heart of Akados.   At that time, the Hundaei roamed across the Great Steppes in their numberless hordes, and the majority of southern Akados was covered in a great primeval forest claimed by kingdoms of wild elves who fiercely guarded their wboundaries, confining the Neolithic human clans to scattered enclaves across the continent. The legion led by Oerson marched along the eastern slopes of the Stoneheart Mountains and began making inroads into the great forest. The elves were unprepared for a concentrated assault by a professional army, and it was almost a year before they were able to gather in sufficient numbers to drive the tree-cutting Hyperboreans out of their woodland home. In the meantime, elven settlements had been raided and burned, leaving many elves dead. With the aid of the new reinforcements, the elves pushed Oerson’s legion back to the edges of the forest and set an armed vigil along this expansive front.   Reluctant to dare the ambushes and traps of the wild elves again, but not content to admit defeat, Polemarch Oerson spent 10 years expanding his conquests along the edge of the Great Akadonian Forest, initiating skirmishes with elven watchers and conquering the scattered human tribes that he ran across. These tribal warriors — no matter how fierce — were no match for the discipline and effectiveness of the Hyperborean phalanx and its heavily armored pikemen. Stone and copper weapons broke against bronze breastplates and hoplon shields, and bronze-headed sarissa pikes and javelins easily tore through hide armor and furs. Those tribes that Oerson did not destroy were assimilated into his legion, their ferocity harnessed and redirected. After organizing these woods-wise warriors and teaching them to work together, Oerson released them beneath the boughs of the forest eaves to hunt their hated elven adversaries.   The elves had long fought off incursions by the human tribes and were adept at ambushing them and picking apart their war-bands through traps and sniping. Those tactics still took a heavy toll on the human tribal warriors, but now the invaders attacked in great numbers, organized and guided to support each other and envelop the elven defenders. Even as thousands of humans fell victim to the long arrows of the elves, so too did many elves fall, quickly depleting their normal reserves of guardians. And while this occurred, Polemarch Oerson continued his circumnavigation of the forest and the absorption of human tribes, swelling the ranks of his army with auxiliary levies.   In the face of this unprecedented threat upon their realm, the elven high lords called for aid from throughout the elven nations of Akados. The guardians of the forest eaves were augmented by the archers and soldiers of the forest’s deep interior kingdoms — even from so far as the fabled elven cities of Elenis Tuath and Solis Alunaria — and a great elven host gathered in numbers never before seen in Akados. But even the stealth of the elves could not keep this host a secret, and Oerson’s legion caught wind of its approach. Thus began the Perilous March, a year-long retreat by the legion northward, retracing the route it had taken along the forest’s edge, all the while being harassed and pursued by the elven host. Though far enough from the forest’s edge that the elves could not risk leaving the protection of the sheltering trees to make a full assault, the Hyperboreans were subjected to what seemed a never-ending series of surprise attacks and ambushes that continually whittled away at their forces and took an increasing toll on their morale.   Eventually, the elven host forced the legion into a lightly wooded vale upon the northern slopes of the Stoneheart Valley near Lake Crimmormere. Exhausted and low on supplies, the Hyperboreans found themselves trapped in the valley and took up a defensive position in their tortoise-like chelone formations with shields above and before. The elves, sensing a final victory against the despised humans, advanced into the valley against the outnumbered defenders.   But as the elven spearmen and archers advanced, they discovered that Oerson had not been idle the last 10 years: He had struck an alliance with the mountain dwarves of the Stoneheart clans. Dwarves now emerged from hidden caves along the valley’s upper slopes to send landslides of carefully prepared boulders and scree down into the elves’ flanks. Hidden pits opened beneath the rear ranks of the elves to swallow many of their archers and most of their small cavalry force. From these holes streamed columns of doughty dwarven warriors. Then as the elves found themselves crippled on their flanks and enveloped from behind, the heavy phalanx of the legion advanced from its defensive posture.   The slaughter was terrifying, and legend holds that seven generations of the flower of elven civilization was destroyed that day, leaving only the very old and the very young alive within the forest. When darkness finally came that evening and the few surviving elven warriors were able to escape back into the trees, there was no doubt that Polemarch Oerson had made the Hyperboreans conquerors and the new masters of Akados.
 

The polemarch pressed his advantage and pushed into the interior of the forest along with his dwarven allies, the surviving elven tribes retreating before him. His great sweep went uncontested and managed to reach all the way to neck of the Helcynngae Peninsula. Here his advance was checked by the barbarian tribes that had heard of his approach and amassed their own war-bands to face the invaders. The mountain dwarves marching with Oerson were of little help, as they were more interested in plundering abandoned elven enclaves than facing a new host of human adversaries. Leaving a defensive screen of rival tribesmen across the neck of the peninsula, Oerson turned his legion back and instead pressed through the southern foothills of the Stoneheart Mountains until he reached the coast of the Crescent Sea. Once there, he sent half of his legion back to retrace the route he had marched over the last two decades to bring reinforcements from Hyperborea while the other half remained with him to build the new Hyperborean city of Remenos.   With news of the success of Oerson’s legion reaching the land of Boros, additional legions began moving south to reinforce the garrisons left along the way by Oerson and further expand the acquisitions of the conquering Hyperboreans. The savage tribes of the Heldring on the Helcynngae Peninsula remained unbeaten, and a string of forts was eventually built across its neck, connected by a wall called the Helwall. A series of roads were cut through the vast forest of Akados, and settlements and forts were built all along its length to prevent any further incursions by vengeful elven tribes. The mountain dwarves, having sated their lust for elven treasure and mayhem, returned to their own mountain fastnesses and maintained a distant diplomacy with the new human settlements. By the time of Oerson’s death at the ripe age of 131, as many as a half million Hyperborean immigrants had settled in Akados, and a fragile peace had descended across their holdings.   In –17 I.R., during the time of Oerson’s grandchildren, Oesson and Oeric, the monarchs of distant Boros doubled their demand for tribute from the Hyperborean colonies in Akados and sent episcopi — inspectors general with authority to rule alongside the colonial governors to ensure a full tallying of tribute owed — to the hundreds of Hyperborean garrisons and settlements. By then, the Hyperborean immigrants and their assimilated tribes constituted a population of millions and had built their own burgeoning war machine of 20 legions, each with as many as 30,000 men. For a time, the colonies grudgingly acquiesced to the new demands, but each year the demands grew greater. After six years of rising tributes and imperious tax collectors, the colonies erupted in a popular uprising. The polemarchs of the legions and military governors of the many garrisons and towns appointed Oesson and Oeric as co-regents. The episcopi were lynched in the streets and their heads sent as tribute back to Boros instead. Oesson and Oeric moved from the prosperous port of Remenos to the more central settlement of Curgantium and there raised the Tower of Oerson, a citadel to serve as the heart of their new Hyperborean kingdom and a bastion of defense for the realm.   War was now inevitable. Though it took over a decade, Boros raised 27 legions and marched them south to bring the colonies back into submission. On The Plains east of the Stoneheart Mountains in the area called Hummaemidon, the Boros legions were met by the Hyperborean legions led by Polemarch Asenna. With his mountain dwarf allies, Asenna managed to trap half of the Boros legion against the flank of the mountains and cut the other half off from reinforcing them. But Crassin and Odontius, Boros’ polemarchs, had their own surprise ready for Asenna. They had sailed a fleet of triremes around the Irkainian Peninsula far to the east through the treacherous Mulstabhin Passage and then west across the northern Sinnar Ocean to the Gulf of Akados. With this fleet, Telamon, Boros’ navarch, brought the legions of Odontius and landed them behind the Hyperboreans’ positions to catch Asenna’s legions between the two armies.   Seeing the new legions approaching from the rear, the dwarven army turned from the field and formed a wedge and attempted to retreat to the foothills south of their position where hidden cave entrances would allow them to withdraw back into their cavern realms. The legions of Odontius proved too many, however, and the dwarves found themselves surrounded. Asenna, meanwhile, abandoned by his dwarven allies and pressed from both ahead and behind by the enveloping legions of the two polemarchs, created his own defensive position and led his men in their death paean to Mithras.   However, the battle did not end as anticipated, for suddenly the exposed flank of Odontius’ phalanx came under a withering hail of arrows fired from the rolling hills to their south. As the Borean legionnaires turned to lock shields against this new threat, the dwarven wedge they had pinned down renewed the fury of its assault and sought to break through and escape to the hills. Seeing the developments to the south, Asenna split his own legions, leaving half to hold those of Crassin in place and the other half to exploit the weakness caused by the dwarves as they managed to divide the now-disorganized legions of Odontius. Crassin watched helplessly as the legions of Odontius, now assaulted by arrows from the hills, the dwarven wedge, and half of Assena’s legions, were cut to pieces. He was unable to reinforce Odontius, but the split of Asenna’s forces allowed his own legions to make an orderly withdrawal back north. Of the 27 legions that marched forth from Boros, only eight escaped to the north.   Asenna himself was killed in the battle, but his strategos survived to see the source of their salvation: A horde of elven archers descended from the hills as the last of Odontius’ legionnaires fell. Now the elves turned their bows and spears upon the approaching dwarves who howled their battle cries in return and charged into the fray. However, the mountain folk were already badly depleted by the battle with the Boreans, and the elves were still fresh, having spent only arrows in the fight and not yet blood. The three strategos that commanded the southern half of the Hyperborean legions then made a fateful decision. In what it known as the Great Betrayal among the dwarven clans of the Stoneheart Mountains and the Reconciliation by the elves of eastern Akados, the Hyperborean phalanx charged into the rear flank of the retreating dwarves. The carnage was awful and casualties high as the stubborn dwarves fought on to the very last. But in the end, the exhausted human phalangites looked warily across the piled bloody carcasses of the dwarves at the equally exhausted elven spearmen and were astonished by what they saw: Many among the elven warriors were taller and less fair than their elven brethren. Nearly half of the elven force was composed of half-elves.   Truce was called, and the Hyperborean strategos met with the elven and half-elven high lords that commanded the elven force. They learned that while the battles of three generations earlier had seriously depleted the population of the slow-to-reproduce elves, atrocities committed by the Hyperborean and tribal raiders had resulted in an entire generation of half-elf bastards, and in numbers much greater than the usual elven birth rate. These half-elven children were a shock to the insular wild elves. In many of the surviving communities, they were known as the “war-dead” and were considered abominations to be abandoned to die of exposure. But in many of the diminished communities, the numbers of the half-elves and their quick maturation was the only means of survival through the following decades. Finally, a schism had broken out between the wild elfhigh lords who condemned the new race of half-breeds and the high lords whose communities benefited from their presence and held no grudge against them for the circumstances of their birth.   Around –27 I.R., a charismatic half-elf by the name of Valenthlis came of age and began demanding the rights and dignity of the half-elves be honored. Anger against 60 years of oppression broke out and resulted in violence among the shadows of the deep forest. Queen Vaissilune herself was slain and buried in a cavern deep beneath the eastern Akadonian Coast.   Unwilling to see even more elves slaughtered at the hands of their kin, those who opposed Valenthlis withdrew to the far west to the realms of Elenis Tuath and Solis Alunaria beyond the Crescent Sea. This became known as the Second Exodus of the Elves, and those who went west named themselves the wild elves, as they refused to accept accommodation with those of part-human birth. Those who allied with Valenthlis now took a new name for themselves — the high elves — as they believed their willingness to join with their fellows was the moral path.   In the 90 years since the massacre at Lake Crimmormere, the Hyperboreans and the high elves of eastern Akados had stayed far away from the domains of the other. When word of the march of the Boros’ legions had made its way into the forest’s interior reaches, the lords of the high elves gathered. Some argued that they should remain within the protective eaves of the forest and take no sides in the coming conflict. Others, with Valenthlis most prominent, feared that the newcomers would, in their numbers, seek to further encroach on the forests to seek out new lands. They believed that intervening on behalf of the Hyperboreans would be to their benefit and might help forge an alliance with the humans. While siding with their former enemies was anathema to some, others noted that more than four human generations had passed, and the actual perpetrators of atrocities against the elves were now long dead.   In the end, the lords of the high elves of eastern Akados resolved to come to the assistance of the nascent Hyperborean realm. When they saw the retreat of the Stoneheart dwarves who had ambushed their kin at Lake Crimmormere, long-pent-up fury erupted, and the elves rushed to the attack. The pragmatic decision of the Hyperborean strategos to betray their erstwhile dwarven allies and side with the elves cemented a lasting peace between the Hyperboreans and the high elves of eastern Akados. It also created a simmering grudge between the humans and the Stoneheart dwarves that lasted for thousands of years.   The final, oft-overlooked, result of the Battle of Hummaemidon was that The Trireme fleet anchored on the nearby coast did not receive word of the disaster of the Boros legions and remained unconcerned, assuming victory to have been assured. Instead, they were caught off guard as elves and tribal warriors suddenly streamed aboard their anchored vessels in the night and captured more than 150 ships. Thus was born the great Hyperborean navy, which until that time had been greatly underdeveloped with only a few local curraghs and merchant galleys to its name. Now the waters along the eastern and southern coasts of Akados could be tamed, and the Mouth of Akados come under the full control of the Hyperboreans. The port of Remenos rose to great prominence and prosperity, and the great sea citadel of Castorhage was constructed on Insula Lymossus to control the Crescent Sea.
 

With the great victory at Hummaemidon and the capture of the Boros fleet, the kingdom of the Hyperboreans began a new wave of expansion. The legions were still largely intact after the battle and found themselves swelling in number with the addition of thousands of half-elf volunteers who wished to make their fortunes in the armies of their fathers. Oesson remained on the throne in the city of Curgantium, while Oeric led these legions afield in the expansion of the nascent empire.   The Hyperborean legions first turned east to the Isthmus of Irkaina, where they faced the Irkainian tribes, which, though fierce, were no match for the disciplined legions augmented by elven archers and tribal cavalry. Crossing the Mulstabhin Passage, they entered Libynos proper and marched through the Ashurian desert, then south to the cities in The Plains and hill country between the northern shore of the Sea of Baal and the Scythirian Mountains to the north. One city after another around the western shores of the Sea of Baal fell to the legions until they reached the Triple-Kingdom of Khemit. Even that nation, ancient and powerful, fell before Oeric’s armies, their soldiers assimilated into the forces of the empire.   Shortly after the conquest of Khemit, Oeric received a vision that he claimed came from the goddess Muir. He saw a pristine tableland vale encircled by a ring of mountains. He was told that he must build a city on this Sacred Table that would become the greatest in the world and that would serve as a bastion of the goddess’s virtuous faith. Oeric marched north through Numeda and the throne-lands of Ift and Baal to the eaves of the Scythirian Mountains where he found a pass east through the peaks. Leading his legion on, he came at last to the table of his vision. In this place, Oeric founded the city of Tircople. He abdicated his right to the throne of Hyperborea and took on the humble robes of a penitent, becoming known as the Pontifex of the Three and establishing a monastery to Muir in the newly built city of Tircople.   While Oeric conquered the lands of northern and middle Libynos, The Triremes of the Hyperborean navy explored the Southern Reaches of the continent and established colonies at the mouths of major rivers. Inland, the deep forests and jungles proved an insurmountable barrier for the thinly stretched empire, so at the rivers’ mouths they stayed, using local tribes to bring back treasures from the interior.   With the abdication of his brother, Oesson took the golden regent circlet sent back to Curgantium by Oeric and had it and his own melted together and reforged into a royal crown. He then took up sole residence in the Tower of Oerson and had himself crowned as imperator of the Hyperborean Empire. This momentous and unifying action was taken not a moment too soon, for shortly thereafter came attacks by bands of vicious horsemen issuing from passes through the Stoneheart Mountains. The Hundaei hordes had arrived.
 

Riders of the Great Steppes, the Hundaei noticed the arrival of the Hyperborean legions a century earlier but paid scant attention to them, occupied as they were with their own internal clan warfare. However, a Great Khan had arisen as first among the many khans of the Hundaei, and for the first time the entire population of the Hundaei horse warriors gathered into one great Invincible Horde. With the aid of the mountain dwarves seeking revenge on the Hyperboreans, the horse warriors took secret paths through the Stoneheart Mountains and found themselves within the fat and poorly defended heartland of the new Hyperborean Empire.   Though the Hyperborean legions were battle tested and peerless in warfare, the Hundaei came at their settlements from a direction that was thought to be safely sealed by the ramparts of the Stoneheart Mountains while most of the legions were deployed halfway across two continents from Occibolos to Tircople. The Hundaei quickly stormed through the towns they encountered, burning them out and putting their inhabitants to the sword. They even successfully besieged several walled cities and left them in ruins. Their incursion made it as far as the regional capital at Apothasalos, where the horse-riders were finally stopped by two legions led by the polemarch Gnassus. When additional legions approached, the Hundaei were forced to withdraw, eventually back to the mountain passes, where the Hyperboreans could not pursue without entering the territory of their dwarven enemies.   Great Khan Jaganga had successfully raided deep into Hyperborea and taken much plunder, but he had made no gains of territory. Over the next five centuries, Hundaei hordes would make lightning raids deep into Hyperborea to burn and plunder, while the Hyperborean legions would in turn seek out safe passes over the mountains to create temporary beachheads on the Great Steppes beyond. The horse warriors could never defeat the legions in a stand-up fight, and the legions could never force the Hundaei riders to engage in such a fight. Neither side made great gains against the other, and both suffered terrible losses at the others’ hands. But no upper hand could ever be gained, and the war stretched on seemingly without end.   Despite the threat of the Hundaei to the west, Hyperborea flourished. The line of imperators descended from Oesson were intermittently wise or warlike or foolish, but the prosperity and military might of the empire was such that even the poor rulers did not cause any precipitous declines. The great woodlands of eastern Akados were slowly deforested, giving way to rich pasture and farmlands to feed the burgeoning empire, and tribute poured in from its far-flung corners. The folk of the Ashurian desert, the Assurian Plains, the throne-lands of Ift and Baal, Numeda, and Khemit were absorbed into the empire, while colonies along the coast of southern Libynos thrived, though the tribes of the deserts and jungles continued to make war among themselves, sometimes requiring the empire to intervene. Sea trade flourished as well, bringing goods and travelers from all over the empire. Remenos became the greatest port city of the empire, and all overland trade in the heart of the empire passed through Curgantium.   The empire did find a western bound, however, just beyond Remenos. Northward were the Hundaei, and to the west were the wild elves of the Green Realm. With so much other land to conquer, the cost of exploration farther west seemed to far outweigh any benefits, so few if any gave those regions further thought. As a result, the western shores of Akados and the city-states of Xha’ahan, Jhohir, and Rojhah, as well as Gtsang, remained beyond the ken of the Hyperboreans.   One beneficiary of the growing sea trade was the island of Insula Extremis across a narrow strait at the far end of the Helcynngae Peninsula. Its denizens were not related to the warlike Heldring of the peninsula, who were largely contained there by the Helwall. When The Triremes of the Hyperboreans came to their island, the folk of Insula Extremis accepted the offer to join the empire and embraced the new civilization, in time forsaking the old ways of the Ancient Ones from whom they were descended.   By the time six centuries had passed, the Hyperboreans had gained the upper hand in their conflict with the Hundaei. They had made peace with tribes of Irkainian hill dwarves and from them learned the secrets of ironworking and steel. With these improvements in weaponry, they were able to push back the less-numerous mountain dwarves until they took refuge in their deep halls under the mountains and rarely, if ever, emerged. With control of the mountain passes, the Hyperboreans were able to put multiple legions into the Great Steppes. Armed with steel pikes and swords and improved iron scutum shields and cuirasses, those legions took a terrible toll on any Hundaei that they were able to bring to battle.   The pressure of the Hyperborean legions during the reign of Great Khan Ogedane eventually forced some clans of the Hundaei to expand into the northwestern corner of the Great Steppes at the foot of the Nam-i-Budhani, the Lost Mountains — territory long taboo to the horse clans of the Hundaei — and to settle in and around the shores of dark Lake Hali. These clans were ostracized by their fellows for daring to settle along the forbidden shores. What transpired with these clans is unknown, but within a year, clan war erupted among the Hundaei of the northwestern steppes and eventually expanded to consume the entire nation.   The civil war grew so vicious that by the time word reached the Hyperborean frontier on the far side of the Great Steppes, more than half the population of the Hundaei had already been slain. Within two years of the war’s start, the Hundaei had ceased to exist as an organized people. Hyperborean scouts found the Great Steppes in places to be littered with the skulls of the once-great nation, now reduced to a few roving bands that fled from all contact.
 

With the Hundaei threat finally eradicated, nothing stood in the way of the empire and its continued growth and prosperity. To commemorate this time of Hyperborean transcendence, a new city was established in the Piedmont Highlands to serve as a crown jewel in the midst of the long Boros Road where the Hundaei no longer threatened. The city was called Tsen and was built upon ground sacred to the ancient faith of Arden. It grew in knowledge, wealth, and sophistication to become known as the City of Wonders and rival even the imperial capital at Curgantium.   With the Hundaei horde shattered and dispersed, humanoid tribes of orcs, gnolls, goblinoids, and even giants increased in number and power on the Great Steppes. Unable to cross the Stoneheart Mountain passes (where the mountain dwarves barred the way), the humanoid tribes looked south to the Crynnomar Gap and soon were making war against the wild elves in the forests south of the gap and north of the lands of Reme.   The wild elves of the Green Realm held this forested land as a bulwark against the hated humans, from which they would launch raid into the lands of Remenos from time to time to ensure their borders were respected. They resisted the arrival of the humanoid bands, fearing that they would turn west and attempt to raid farther into elven lands. A call went out to all the elves of the Green Realm, even as far as Solis Alunaris, for warriors to gather and defend the gap between the Stoneheart Mountains and the Deepfells. Barely recovered from their costly wars against the humans in past generations, the tribes and kingdoms of wild elves sent their warriors and, in their pride, refused to call upon their high elf kin to the east for assistance. The line of the Crynnomar Gap was to be their line of defense.   The watchful Hyperboreans of Remenos noticed when the marauding elves of their northern marches began to disappear. Tentative expeditions were sent forth to scout out the land, and all returned with tales of abandoned settlements and signs of a hasty withdrawal. The military governor (or harmost) of Remenos saw an opportunity to log the pristine woodlands in that region and expand the domain under his control. By the time the elven war-bands returned south from the Crynnomar Gap after 13 years of exhausting battle in which the humanoids were finally driven back into the steppes, they found that the Remenos frontier had expanded deep into their forests, and an entire legion was firmly entrenched in the heart of their old lands south of the gap. Lacking the will to fight anew, they withdrew westward around the northern shore of the Crescent Sea, deeper into the woods of the Green Realm, where they erected a new line of defense. Monoliths imbued with ancient magics, now known as the Green Warders, were set from the Impossible Peaks to the north all the way south to the Hellgate Peaks to bar the passage of any humans across this new frontier. The Green Realm was forever closed to the presence of humans.   After 800 years of glory, the might of Tsen ended in a single night. For several decades, the folk of Tsen had been fighting a war of attrition with tribes of humanoids and inhuman marauders that seemed to spring from the ground of the surrounding hills and nearby plains. Finally, Tsen mobilized its army and marched forth to draw the marauders into open battle where they could be decisively defeated. On that fateful morning, some survivors outside the city reported seeing a white feathered serpent rising from the gulf far to the south and flying through the sky toward Tsen. Whatever the meaning of that portent, the city ceased to exist in a single act of cataclysmic devastation the likes of which had never been seen before upon the face of the world. Hyperborea’s crown jewel was no more and has remained an uninhabitable wasteland ever after.   Whether connected to the fall of Tsen or mere coincidence, over the next three years a dense, dark haze settled over the Gulf of Akados in the northern Sinnar Ocean. During these years, which came to be known as the Great Darkness, the sun’s light was diffuse and weak during the day, and at night the stars were entirely invisible, only a faint lightening of the sky revealing the location of Narrah, the great moon. Crops failed and, without stars visible to guide ships, shipping routes to the ports of the gulf as far south as Freeport were abandoned. Tens of thousands perished from starvation, and refugees fled to regions far from the gulf, where the light of the sun and stars still shone. After three years, however, the haze finally dissipated, and slowly people returned to the lands about the gulf, and shipping lanes reopened.   Not long after the fall of Tsen, a new kingdom arose on the Feirgotha Plateau of the Stoneheart Mountains. The Khemitite wizard Aka Bakar, who had been apprenticed to the archmage Alycthron the Dragon Lord, founded this kingdom after fleeing the court of the prince of Pharos and somehow absconding with a third of that city-state’s legion. With his own magics and the force of his loyal Khemitite soldiers, Aka Bakar carved the Kingdom of Arcady in the midst of the dwarven clanholds of the Stonehearts and held it for nearly a century against dwarven assaults. Yet Arcady did fall, in a short war of slaughter and desolation, but only as a result of a massive surprise invasion by the combined hobgoblin armies of the Deepfells to the west and the Stonehearts and the apparent sudden madness of Aka Bakar himself. The archmages Alycthron and Margon ended the devastation and defeated Aka Bakar, after which they disappeared into the heart of Libynos on some mysterious errand and were not seen again for centuries.
 

As the Hyperborean Empire approached its 25th century, signs of decline were becoming readily apparent. An apathy had settled over its capital and provinces, and corruption was rampant in government. Fewer lands seemed open for conquest and plunder. The legions were reduced in number from 46 at the empire’s height to 12 as funds to finance these juggernauts of men and materiel became harder to find.   Then in 2491 I.R., something of unknown origin but enormous power occurred, and the world wobbled on its axis. Both lands and seas were stricken by a season of unearthly storms and tidal waves. Far out in the oceans, east of Libynos and west of Akados, great lines of impenetrable, eternal storms arose, now known as the Tempest Meridians. What might be beyond the storms none could say, though diviners named something in the midst of the storms the Goitre. Whatever may be the case, no longer could one sail the long way around the world.   Over a period of three weeks known as the Troubled Span, the poles of the world shifted. The north pole, which had previously been in the Great Ocean Ûthaf beyond the Lost Mountains at the edge of the Great Steppes, moved to a point directly upon the continent of Boros. This brought about a sudden and radical change of climate, and a thick sheet of ice began to form over that land, which proceeded to creep down into what was now the Far North.   As the weather shifted and ice began to cover the roof of the world, the auguries in the Tower of Oerson were poor. When the high wizards and priests of the empire gathered to reverse the drastic change to the climate of their world, the results were cataclysmic. They spent five years researching and preparing a ritual to return the world to its proper alignment so that the stars would once again follow their old paths across the sky. When all was in readiness, Imperator Obraskius oversaw the inauguration of the monthlong ritual himself. But some powers, perhaps, are simply too great to be harnessed by mortal man, and the attempt by the haughty Hyperboreans was just such an instance. At the climactic moment of the ritual, when the world was to set itself aright upon its celestial foundation once more, the pent-up magic was released in an uncontrollable wave of destruction. The Tower of Oerson was thrown down, and fires consumed Curgantium. The flames spread to The Plains around the city, and soon raging wildfires marched across the heartland of the empire, burning all in their path. The fires raged across The Plains and forests of eastern Akados for three years. By the time they had at last burned themselves out, a quarter of the empire’s population died due to either the immediate destruction or the resulting famine that followed in the next few years.   Rather than try to survive in the midst of such desolation, the surviving Hyperborean elite chose to relocate east and make their new capital at Tircople. They left behind their many subject tribes to fend for themselves in the wasted lands and removed their garrisons that had for so long kept the peace in Akados.
 

The first of the tribes to arise in the wake of the Hyperborean withdrawal was the Heldring of the Helcynngae Peninsula. They surged across the Helwall and began their own age of conquest, though the burned-out and desolate lands they found in the old hinterlands of Hyperborea quickly checked their advance once they had captured the Sinnar Coast. At that point, they turned their sights upon Insula Extremis across the narrow channel at the end of their peninsula. Without the Hyperborean triremes and galleys to protect the island, the Heldring began building longboats, which they landed on its shores to seek land and plunder.   The warriors of Insula Extremis at first held off these incursions, but soon the chieftains among the island’s clans began to war among themselves. Taking advantage of the internal conflict, the Heldring seized a small kingdom when a chieftain hired them as mercenaries in a battle with his rivals. Using this foothold, the Heldring slowly increased their lands on the island until Daan, the son of a local chieftain who had served in the Hyperborean legions and a minor Hyperborean noblewoman, returned to Insula Extremis. Daan himself had been a hipparchos cavalry officer in the legions and served for long years in the Irkainian Peninsula. When the Hyperboreans withdrew from Irkaina following the destruction of Curgantium, Daan, together with his father’s auxiliary phalangites and his own horsemen native to Insula Extremis, were abandoned and left to find their own way home.   The journey across eastern Akados took the small force three years until they finally reached a friendly port that would transport them and all of their mounts to Insula Extremis. When Daan and his army arrived on the island, they found the situation dire, with the Heldring kingdoms expanding. Daan had learned much from fighting the Irkainians and had developed his own hipparchia of heavy cataphracts that combined the heavy armor of the phalanx with the mobility of the cavalry. This force of armored, lance-wielding horsemen was unlike anything the Heldring had ever encountered, and in his first engagement Daan routed and utterly destroyed a much-larger force of Heldring shield-warriors.   Shortly after this engagement, the folk of the island named Daan as the polemarch of Insula Extremis and placed the salvation of the island in the hands of Daan and his cataphracts. For 10 long years, they battled the Heldring and bested them in every engagement, until finally in one great pitched battle near the Spring of Agedium, Daan’s cataphracts and the combined armies of the island’s petty kingdoms broke the power of the Heldring on the island and drove them back to the sea.   However, Daan knew that it was only a matter of time before the Heldring ships began to arrive in force again. Throughout the duration of the war against the Heldring, Daan had repeatedly written to the Hyperboreans at Tircople, invoking the name of his father and his mother’s family to beg for help from the legions. No answer was ever received until finally, shortly before the Battle of Agedium, a reply was received from Imperatrix Trystecce of Tircople advising that if the islanders would send their kings as representatives, she would hear their pleas for aid and consider what help Tircople could send. So even as the warriors of Insula Extremis girded for the great campaign that would end at Agedium, the petty kings of the island and their advisors and heirs took ship from their port at Dunkelding to beseech the court of the imperatrix.   Daan was victorious at Agedium and anxiously awaited word from Tircople as the months passed, but none came. Eventually, the seers and druids of the island were employed to find some clue as to the fate of the kings in Tircople. To their horror, the divinations revealed that the emissaries of Insula Extremis had been imprisoned at Tircople by the court of the apparently mad imperatrix. Realizing the Hyperboreans had abandoned and betrayed them, Daan saw no choice but to march on Tircople itself to overthrow this corrupt monarch and rescue the kings of Insula Extremis.   Daan spent five years building his army. He took ship across the strait with what forces he had and began recruiting among the disenfranchised former subjects of Hyperborea. His first stop was among the burghs and halls of the Heldring, who though beaten and incapable of fielding a new army themselves, still retained many restless and leaderless warriors lusting for battle and plunder. Many embraced the offer of their erstwhile enemy and joined his growing army, many even training upon the great warhorses to become cataphracts. And as his army grew, Daan headed north through the devastated heartlands of Akados where thousands of dissolute folk flocked to his banner at the promise of glory and justice.   Daan’s army continued to grow, and it encountered its first Hyperborean legion as it crossed the Isthmus of Irkaina. But though the legion was well equipped and well led by its strategos and had nearly the numbers as accompanied Daan in his own army, it was not experienced in dealing with the thundering charge of a formation of cataphracts. While Daan’s archers and peltasts forced the legionnaires to huddle within their chelones, the lance-wielding horsemen burst upon their formation and overran them in droves. The battle was short, and the badly-injured strategos had only enough time to formally yield his forces to Daan before succumbing to his own wounds.   Daan spent three years consolidating his forces and pushing toward Tircople. During that time, he smashed three more Hyperborean legions, including one composed of the charioteers of Khemit, and his own legion swelled its ranks with recruits from among the former imperial provinces he crossed and deserters from the Hyperborean legions. Finally, with his host numbering well over 50,000, he crossed the Scythirian Mountains and came to Tircople. He watched as the final legion deployed outside the city’s walls fled in full retreat toward the Sea of Tyre. And there the legion of Daan stopped and waited. One messenger was sent to the gates to demand the return of the kings of Insula Extremis and their retinues, but no other action was taken, and no other words were exchanged. Daan had brought the Hyperborean Empire to its knees and awaited only its capitulation without threat or deed.   On the third night, the release of a catapult sounded, and a large bundle flew over the walls of Tircople and landed before the lines of Daan’s legion. An inspection showed it to be a huge tarp holding the severed heads of all the hostages taken by the imperatrix. The catapult was likewise the signal to attack, as suddenly the ground around the city erupted and hordes of undead abominations poured forth to attack the besiegers. The Hyperboreans, once the greatest rulers and the light of civilization in the world, had turned to dark rites and darker allegiances to save themselves. The legion of Daan was decimated but not destroyed by the sudden attack, and even as Daan deployed his heavy cataphracts and phalanx to deal with the undead hordes, he ordered his auxiliary troops to advance upon the walls of Tircople with ladders and ropes while siege engines pounded away at its gates and towers.   The battle for Tircople was long and vicious, and after four days the gates were breached, and the legion of Daan poured into the city streets. They did not loot or burn, but only attacked defenders who threatened them as they made their way to the Imperial Palace. Daan rode at the head of his cataphracts and was the first to reach the palace and smash through the ranks of more undead that barred the way. Daan fought through the horde and reached the throne room to face Imperatrix Trystecce, where he and his companions discovered to their horror that the imperatrix herself was an undead lich of surpassing power. Daan’s cataphracts were not only superb heavy cavalry but were also heroes and warriors of renown and now faced off against the horror that was the queen of Hyperborea. Though many of his company died that day, Daan himself gave the final blow to the lich-queen and ended her reign over Tircople and Hyperborea. Her phylactery bore a vicious trap, however, and when Daan destroyed it, it exploded. As the smoke cleared, the corpse of the lich-queen was dust, and Daan the Polemarch of Insula Extremis lay dead of a hundred cursed wounds.   Honoring Daan’s final orders, the legion left Tircople unsacked. The legionnaires returned to their own lands or sought out new opportunities, while the surviving 50 horsemen of Daan’s cataphracts carried their lord’s body back to Insula Extremis. He was interred in a crypt in a hidden location somewhere on the island and pronounced the high king for all time. Then the second sons and cousins of the executed kings renounced the imperial name of the island and restored its ancient name, Ynys Cymragh, and declared their tribes henceforth as the united tribe of the Daanites. They rechristened the channel to the Helcynngae Peninsula as the Straits of Daan and swore an oath that no man would cross it and live until their high king had returned and ruled over the island once again. The rest of the world they simply called Lloegyr, the Lost Lands — the name by which the world came to be known among the common folk, who thenceforth grew up on tales of Daan and his legendary cataphracts.
 

Following the death of the imperatrix, anarchy reigned over Akados for years as the disparate peoples of the former empire struggled with the absence of Hyperborean rulership. On Libynos, the end of empire took a little longer, but after only a few decades, the new imperator and the surviving legions vanished in the north. The tribes of Irkaina spoke of the Hyperboreans crossing the isthmus toward their ancestral home of Boros, with columns of warriors and refugees marching silently northward into the cold wastes. The Hyperboreans had departed for their homeland, abandoning Akados and Libynos without a word of explanation.   In the void left by the absence of the Hyperboreans in Akados, wars raged between petty kings seeking to obtain and hold lands, wealth, and warriors. One such kingdom in central Akados was Foere. Their king, a half-elf named Macobert, had been a chiliarch (battalion commander) of the Hyperborean legion that faced the Cataphracts of Daan in battle decades earlier. Upon his return to Foere, he quickly overthrew the petty king and installed the military tradition from his time in the legion. Breeding his own war mounts, he created his own heavy cavalry from among the lords of Foere, much like the old Hyperborean hippeis class. Trained in cavalry tactics and the use of combined arms, they became the single-most deadly fighting force since the Cataphracts of Daan.   These Knights of Macobert served as the anchor for his army and allowed him to defeat and unite all of the petty kingdoms around until soon one Kingdom of Foere ruled in central Akados. In his 260th year, King Macobert marched his vast host, led by his thousands of knights, in a long pilgrimage across Irkaina to distant Tircople. There he reclaimed the city, cleared the High Altar of Muir, and had himself crowned Macobert I, Overking of the Hyperborean Monarchy of the Foerdewaith.   Subsequent overkings consolidated the Foerdewaith hegemony over Akados and maintained their control of Tircople as a distant client kingdom. Even the mighty Heldring of the Helcynngae Peninsula were defeated in battle and brought under the banner of Foere.   The first real troubles to threaten the Hyperborean Monarchy occurred after Foerdewaith explorers and settlers migrated through the Crynnomar Gap into the Great Steppes. By now, the Hundaei Khanate was a distant memory, and only scattered bands of riders known as the Shattered Folk continued to dwell upon the expansive plains. Foerdewaith settlers found little to fear from these small groups, and soon small settlements and colonies of Foere began to spring up on the fringes of the steppes.
 

In 2843 I.R., Queen Beraia, wife of Overking Paulus, gave birth to twin sons, Kennet and Cale. None knew which was the elder, since the queen died in childbirth and the royal physiker, having been drunk at the time, was summarily executed on orders of the overking. As the twins grew, the empire was wracked by fears of civil war when Paulus should die. But when Paulus did pass, the twins revealed a wisdom beyond their years. Kennet was crowned the sole overking of the Hyperborean monarchy. Cale, meanwhile, abdicated his claim to the throne, and in return received sole control of the rich port of Reme (formerly known as Remenos) as well as all the nearby marches that controlled access to the Crynnomar Gap.   With the full support and resources of Courghais at his disposal, Cale began the Great Colonization, a mass migration of settlers into the fertile and largely unoccupied grasslands of the Great Steppes. Within 70 years, a string of settlements sprang up along the base of the surrounding mountains and in an unbroken chain across the steppes to the western coast more than a thousand miles away. Then the colonists reached the shores of Lake Hali in the far northwest. There they found better organized and aggressive tribes of humanoids, which suddenly descended in hordes onto the Great Steppes. The widely scattered settlements were ill-prepared, and many were sacked and burned before the Foerdewaith were even aware of the threat. With additional military assistance from Courghais, the colonists fortified their steadings and slowly pushed back the humanoid marauders until a tense stalemate settled in.   The stalemate did not last long. Less than two decades later, the floodgates opened once again in a horde that poured forth from the Lost Mountains in numbers not seen since the great elven defense of the Crynnomar Gap, and this time accompanied by creatures of Shadow, the sceadugenga, or shadow-walkers. The horde descended in a tide that rolled south, burning and destroying settlements as it went. Finally, at a battlefield now known as Cale’s Doom, the legion of Cale and the remaining colonial irregulars met the humanoids and shadow walkers. The legion fell where it stood, with tens of thousands dead. Grand Duke Cale himself was among the missing.   Refugees from the settlements poured into Reme, and the army of the Foerdewaith prepared to march north to try to stop the oncoming horde. In this time of Reme’s greatest need, the powerful archmages Margon and Alycthron reappeared, having vanished from the knowledge of men more than 10 centuries before. At the Crynnomar Gap, where the gathering legions of Foere stared across a field at seemingly endless numbers of humanoids, the wizards called upon ancient and forgotten magics. The ground before the legions broke and tilted steeply backward to create a slope where only a flat plain had stood before. The hordes beyond the break watched as the tilted ground rose in a massive escarpment of earth and stone before them, rising hundreds of feet and stretching all the way from the flanks of the Stoneheart Mountains, across the Crynnomar Gap, to the flanks of the Deepfells more than 500 miles distant. With such an unscalable height — thereafter known as the Wizard’s Wall — blocking their path into the human lands, the humanoid hordes were turned back.   Sorrowful even in victory at the loss of the colonies and anyone trapped below on The Plains beyond the Wizard’s Wall, the soldiers of Foerdewaith turned their backs upon the House of Cale and began the long march home. Garrisons were left along the length of the broken escarpment to ensure no attempts were made to scale the wall and sneak into the human lands beyond, but never again, swore the folk of Foere, would they cross the Crynnomar Gap and enter what became known as the Haunted Steppe beyond.
 

Ever since its founding by Oeric of Hyperborea, Tircople had stood as a bastion of the Hyperborean gods on the continent of Libynos. It was primarily dedicated, however, to the goddess Muir, whose High Altar was established in the city as the center of her worship in the world. Outside the city in the surrounding mountains was a secret shrine to her said to have been blessed by the goddess herself, making the site even more holy in the eyes of the faithful. Oeric, having abdicated the throne of the Hyperborean Empire to his brother, was anointed as the Pontifex of the Three, a triumvirate of ancient Hyperborean deities of whom only Thyr and Muir were remembered — the identity of the third deity having been lost somewhere in the distant past. Pontifex Oeric thus established a long line of high priests who cared for the weighty spiritual matters of the empire from their holy city while the political matters of the empire were administered from Curgantium. This arrangement persisted throughout the life of the empire with a heavily traveled pilgrim’s road maintained between the heartlands of the empire in Akados and distant Tircople.   In the waning days of the empire, however, the imperator moved the capital from ruined Curgantium and relocated it to Tircople where the High Altar of Muir came to double as the Imperial Palace. Also at this time, the office of pontifex became absorbed by the imperators who took the mantle of political and spiritual leader of the empire on themselves when Imperator Garsune “discovered” Pontifex Maximilian murdered at the beginning of the Twelve Nights of Blood in 2509 I.R. Garsune’s reign was short-lived, however, as he mysteriously fell from the topmost spire of his palace and was succeeded by his wife, the ageless Imperatrix Trystecce. It was the hero Daan who discovered that she was actually a foul lich and destroyed her, bringing about the end of the lines of both imperators and pontifices.   In 2744 I.R., when Macobert marched on Tircople, he replaced the line of the imperators by having himself crowned Overking of the Hyperborean Monarchy of the Foerdewaith, and lots were cast to choose a new Pontifex of the Three between the high priests of Thyr and Muir who had traveled with Macobert. Gesselrod, a priest of Thyr, was chosen as pontifex, and the high priest of Muir, Sagrilaer, chose to stay in Tircople and re-consecrate the High Altar of Muir. Seeing the state into which the city of Tircople and its many holy sites had fallen, Sagrilaer proposed to create an order of knights dedicated to Muir. With the pontifex’s blessing, he established the Holy Order of Justicars which, drawing upon the traditions of both the Knights of Macobert and the Cataphracts of Daan, would be defenders throughout the world of justice and the virtues of paladinhood. Sagrilaer placed the order under the command of a high lord who would be the military defender of Tircople, and second only to the pontifex in power within the churches of Thyr and Muir.   As the first high lord, Sagrilaer grew the order from a dozen worthy knights to an entire battalion of mounted heavy horsemen ready to bring the sword of truth wherever it was needed throughout the Kingdom of Foere. As the number of Justicars grew, Sagrilaer appointed a grandmaster to oversee the order in its duties abroad, while the office of the high lord focused on the defense of Tircople. Eventually, only a company of Justicars remained in Tircople, while the rest rode far and wide to discharge their holy duties and bring justice to the downtrodden.   The Hyperboreans and, later, Foerdewaith were not the only peoples to focus their attention upon Tircople and its Sacred Table in the Scythirian Mountains, however. Another ruler, one of the Ashurian people who styled himself the king of kings and claimed descent from the ancient Hundaei race, claimed to have seen a vision granted by the death god Nergal that said the Sacred Table was sacred to his faith because it bore the entrance to the Underworld hidden within its cliffs. King of Kings Ossimandius declared the Foerdewaith anathema and led his people, called the Huun, in a holy war against them. The Huun swept over the mountains and slaughtered the inhabitants of Tircople and the valley basin. Almost the entire body of Justicars on the Sacred Table fell in the onslaught, alongside both the pontifex and the first high lord.   In Courghais, Overking Granicus learned of this attack and called upon the people of Foere to liberate the Sacred Table in what he named the Great Crusade. Armies were raised from across Foere by Justicars throughout the lands. With potentially hostile inhabitants in Irkaina and northwestern Libynos, an overland march was deemed too long and costly. Instead, a great flotilla was raised and sailed east through the Canal of the Pharaohs in Khemit, and thence to the Wasted Desert that lay south of the Sea of Tyre on the eastern coast of Libynos. The crusader army landed and attacked the lightly defended eastern approach without remorse. The unprepared Huun were driven before them, and Tircople and the Sacred Table were recaptured.   Fortresses were erected at strategic points in the Scythirian Mountains and along the coasts. To create a powerful presence capable of repelling future invasions, a series of Crusader States were established along a section of the eastern shore of Libynos south of the Sea of Tyre and on a group of islands offshore, which became known as the Crusader Coast.   Ten years later, the Huun struck back and recaptured the Sacred Table along with some of the Crusader States, and besieged Tircople. Yurid, the new overking, called for a second Great Crusade to relieve the besieged holy city. The crusader armies joined with the armies of the surviving Crusader States, and once again the Huun were driven from the Sacred Table and the siege of Tircople lifted.   A century passed, and the Crusader States prospered. The Order of Justicars grew under the half-elf Elanir, the second high lord, though now it kept its forces marshaled primarily in and around the Crusader States to guard against further incursions by the Huun, who still lived in the mountains to the south around the Desert of Oreb. But in time, the vigil of the Justicars grew lax and the Crusader States sank into peaceful forgetfulness, while the long-lived King of Kings Ossimandius (or another Huun leader who claimed to be the same person) consolidated power. The Huun struck again, the coastal Crusader States fell, the Sacred Table was overrun, and Tircople was sacked. The inhabitants of all were put to the sword. Only the island Crusader States survived, and all they could do was watch in horror as their brethren cities ashore were fired to light up the entire coast at night in a ghastly spectacle.   Overking Oervid called for a Third Great Crusade, which gathered once again from all across Foere and took ship for the Crusader Coast. But this time the Huun were ready for them and waited at the shore for the ships to land. It was said that the immortal king of kings and his high priests called upon their dark gods, and a great monsoon sprang up as the flotilla neared the coast and smashed the fleet. Survivors unlucky enough to be washed ashore along the coast were hunted by the gathered Huun spearmen and executed before being cast back into the sea. The Third Great Crusade ended in failure before it even stepped foot on Libynos.   The Huun held Tircople and the Sacred Table for 30 years, fighting off occasional raids from the island Crusader States, before a Fourth Great Crusade could be gathered. This one was led by Overking Oessum VIII himself, a pious and devoted warrior of Muir. The flotilla landed safely on the island of Cyproean and remained there for eight years as Oessum slowly gathered more crusaders to his banner. A third high lord, Ethelgart of Berrocburh, was named while this army gathered, and new Justicars were inducted into the order from among the crusaders. Finally, the crusader army made plans to embark for the coast where the forces of the Huun waited in numbers unequaled by any prior Huun army. It is said that Ossimandius himself led the army from his great war chariot pulled by elephants culled from the jungles of Far Jaati. The crusaders disembarked and marched across the Wasted Desert toward the west where the escarpment rises to the Sacred Table. Reaching the escarpment, they began their climb up the Crusaders’ Road, at the top of which the Huun army awaited, expecting to destroy the Foere as they tried to reach the plateau. But as the first of the crusaders approached the top, a ripple of confusion ran through the Huun forces from the rear.   During the years of preparation on Cyproean, Oessum had not been idle. His messengers had flown back and forth between the chieftains of the hill dwarf clans of Shamash Kush. He had convinced these chieftains of the dangers posed by the proximity of the Huun to their homeland, and the clans had marched secretly over the Scythirian Mountains and now tore into the rear positions of the Huun on the Sacred Table. Portions of the Huun army turned to meet this new threat, robbing the front lines of the ability to prevent the crusaders from advancing onto the Table. Soon, the Huun found themselves trapped between the two armies on a pair of small mounts on the eastern edge of the Sacred Table called the Sickles. The battle was fierce and the outnumbered crusaders hard pressed, but the morale of the Huun was already broken and, after much costly battle in which the majority of the Justicars were slain in suicidal charges upon Ossimandius’ bodyguards, the crusaders carried the day. The king of kings abandoned his famed war chariot on the field and was last seen fleeing south toward Oreb with the survivors of his personal bodyguard, while the main body of his force was smashed to ribbons.   The Sacred Table and Crusader States were secure, and Tircople was once again in the hands of the Foerdewaith. High Lord Ethelgart called for a new pontifex to be ordained. Unfortunately, Overking Oessum VIII was killed in the battle and died without an heir. Distracted by the political struggles to agree on a new overking, the leaders of Foere left Tircople to its own devices, and no pontifex was ordained. Finally, the aged Graeltor, Oessum’s uncle who had administered Foere in Oessum’s absence, was crowned overking in Courghais.