The First Great Fall

The First Great Fall. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, of all the major historical moments. It starts the Timeline, it created pretty much every god and species we know today, and it meant the end of The Trinity. This short period of time, literally, changed the entire world.

Summary

The First Great Fall, just like all of the Three Great Falls, have had major impacts on pretty much every species and empire that existed at that point in time. If they existed during the Falls, or have been created thanks to a Fall, you would be able to find long stories about these falls on each of the articles. Even in this one, I won't cover all of the things that happened, just the major ones. Before the First Great Fall, the World was devided into three major Empires, the Kahr Empire, the Empire of the Dwarves, the Krovainian Empire, the Empire of the Aven and the Barmen Empire, the Empire of the Humans. These three Empires, also known as The Trinity controlled everything and everyone of the known world, and they were pretty much equal in power. As each of the Empires tried to gain advantage above the others, the Dwarves found the continent Temnar. And with this new continent they gained an enormous advantage. The other two Empires, growing jealous of the Dwarves, combined their forces and destroyed the Dwarves, but while taking so much casualties that all the Three Empires burst into many more, and rebellions covered the lands. But not only in The Reach did this fall cause a lot of destruction, it even had a big effect on the pantheon of gods, with many fighting, fleeing, growing and overall lots of chaos.

Historical Basis

As stated in the Summary, there were three big Empires. The Human Barmen Empire controlled the East, the Dwarven Kahr Empire controlled the South and the Aven Krovainian Empire controlled the rest. The Kahr Empire was, in one of it's attempts to gain more power, they sent one of their best ships with crew to sail East from Floe, searching for another continent if there was one. This ship was build with extreme technology, and many of it is still better than anything that can be made today. This ship sailed East and it came upon the continent of Temnar. After the discovery, the Dwarves tried to keep it a secret for as long as possible. They sailed back and forth many times and took control over most of Temnar including all of the Southern Coastline. The Dwarves built two major settlement from where they controlled Temnar; Kahr Fréy-Lough, which means 'New City of the North' and Kahr Lés-Lough, which means 'New City of the South'. These two are the cities which are now called Fréybruk and Loughles, which are both humanised names of the old settlements (AKA the names in human (common) tongue). After that the Elves and Humans did get to hear about it, you bet that they tried to reach it themselves. Many ships sank on the way there, but some made it. Every one of these but one were destroyed by the Dwarven soldiers on the Banks of the now called 'New World'. The only one that did make it was a human ship lead by a man named Korona Crusoe. This ship, the Mathyx, is a name now engraved into legend, and any ship claiming it's name has a high bar to hold. On it's way back the Mathyx met a convoy of Aven ships, and with the proof it had aboard the ship of there being a new world, the Avens wanted nothing more than to protect it to make sure that they could show to the entire world that they had found the new world. Normally the Mathyx would make it's way towards Floe, but the Avens convinced Korona Crusoe to sail the ship south towards Tirona, the capitol of the Aven Empire. From there he would be protected by the Avens and he would be able to make his way to Barma, the capitol of the Barmen Empire. On his way there, Korona Crusoe lost many things and after several failed attemps by the Dwarves to kill him on sea, which led to legend-worthy sea-battles, Crusoe got lost on an adventure. This adventure made him lose his ship, his people and everyone he cared about, but in the end he finally made his way to Barma. The Adventure he had is now known as the Tales of Crusoe. Before the entire world finally got to know the truth, time had passed since the Mathyx was sent out, and a lot had changed. By that time the relations between Men and Elf had gone worse, and the Dwarves and the Elves were conspiring against them. If the Elves would be able to start the war, Humanity would almost certainly be doomed. So, for that simple reason, Korona Crusoe was, literally, the savoir of mankind. After it was revealed, the Elves noticed that if they didn't destory the Kahr Empire now, they would never get the chance again. Which would mean definite death for them. When the news was still fresh, the Elves managed to trick the Dwarves into marching their army to Floe, with the reasoning to be able to start with pushing the Humans out of that settlement before pushing further. But, before the Dwarves could attack the settlement, they were ambushed by the entire Elven and Human armies combined. This betrayal of the Elves is to this day known as the Betrayal of Floe. This battle destroyed the three armies, with the Humans and Elves winning by a tiny margin. After the three armies were destroyed, people noticed that they could gain power within their own empires, and hundreds of rebellions started. This shattered the three Empires and the happening of these rebellions is to this day known as The First Big Fall. One of the biggest rebellions was the one all across Temnar. This is the rebellion of the Lizardfolk against the Dwarves. The Lizardfolk were the original inhabitants of Temnar before the Dwarves came into the picture. The Dwarves pretty much annihilated their habitats and took them as slaves. As you might be able to expect, the Lizardfolk didn't like this. Still, at that time, the Lizardfolk couldn't really resist the Dwarves, because the Dwarves had much better technology than them. Instead, they slowly stole technology and waited for the moment when the Dwarves would be weakend by any outside force to strike. During the First Great Fall, when after the Betrayal of Floe entire hell broke loose on 'the old world', many Dwarven Soldiers were asked back to come fight in the war against the Humans and the Elves. This meant that the Dwarven defenses were much lower than they normally would be. This was one of the big reasons the Lizardfolk could finally strike. Another big reason was that the leader of the Dwarves in Temnar was a man named Logmurum Ironeye, one of the most important people of the Ironeye Bloodline. He would later be known as the 'Destroyer of Dwarves', and he would be seen as one of the main reasons the Dwarven economy collapsed during the Great Fall. What he did was, well, he made a lot, and I mean a lot of stupid mistakes. Another weakness of the Dwarves was that they had only really invaded the coast. This had several reasons, but the simplest being that the coastal regions just were a lot more profitable, because they were easier to reach. This leaving the inland to be was another big weakness, because what the Dwarves did not know was that inside the Jungles of Temnar, there lied an entire civilisation. This civilisation did not enjoy the Dwarves being there and logically wanted them destroyed. If the Dwarves would have gone inland, they would have noticed this, but because they didn't they were left to think that Temnar wasn't really at all such a threat. And one of these three problems would really be a problem on it's own. It wouldn't even show as a small threat against the entire Dwarven plans for Temnar. But these three problems combined... Oh boy did this make a big fight in and for Temnar. It all started in the fall, 1 year after the Betrayal of Floe, when most of the Soldiers left in a big fleet of ships, leaving the harbors of Kahr Fréy-Lough and Kahr Les-Lough. This left both cities without big ships, and with that without ways of contacting each other and other mayor settlements around the coast. The only ships they did have left were small ships, and without them, the Dwarves would be lost. The Lizardfolk realized this. So, with one big effort, three days after the departure of the fleet, all hell broke lose all around the entire coast. The Lizardfolk made sure to burn all the boats. This was known as the Night of the Sailing Flame and it is sometimes even celebrated today. All small settlements were overrun and some even destroyed. All of them called for help to the bigger settlements, who had sworn to protect them, but they had no way of reaching them because they had no boats left. It was a total hellscape for the Dwarves. But, even though all the small settlements were destroyed, the Dwarves didn't just that easily loose control over their bigger settlements. Because of weak defences because they weren't expecting an attack, most bigger bases were taken down within days. Some even lasted weeks, before surrendering. After 5 weeks, there were only 6 Dwarves settlements left, and the Lizardfolk were concentrating hard to pull them down. The biggest two were, duh, Kahr Frés-Lough and Kahr Les-Lough, but there were also others who kept standing. The first one to fall was one of the northern settlements along the West coast, lying just above the Koranan Point. It fell because it was literally set aflame by the snow. The Second Settlement to fall was the only inland settlement the Dwarves had made. It was a settlement called Kahr Tevai and after it's fall it's never been rebuilt because of the symbolic symbol the ruins are to the local population. To understand why, because it is a long story, read the article about Kahr Tevai. The Third settlement to fall was actually Kahr Fréy-Lough, the biggest of all the Dwarven settlements in Temnar. This surrender had several reasons. The first being that the government fully consisted of one man, the earlier mentioned Logmurum Ironeye. As previously stated, he made some grave mistakes. Even though we skipped over most of them to keep this story short, the fall of Kahr Fréy-Lough had a lot to do with him. To begin, the Dwarves were pretty much kept inside their settlements, and with any attempts to leave, they were brutally slaughtered. So, even though it wasn't done with any way the Dwarves had ever imagined about doing it, they were seiged down by the Lizardfolk. Logmurum at first didn't think much of it, but after he realized that every single Dwarf outside of the cities improvised walls had been hunted down and murdered, he saw the true threat. He thought that if only he could defeat the Lizardfolk with one big battle, they would surrender and he would be able to continue living the way he had done before. But when he marched out with his army to face the enemy, he didn't find any. He marched for days, and the next time for weeks, but all he found were dead hunting parties or dead exploration parties he would send out to look for the enemy. Even after several months of seiging, no-one in Kahr Fréy-Lough knew what their enemies, the Lizardfolk looked like. By this time they had heard rumors from the mainland of Silmar about some new creature they called Elves who ran along the trees of the wild and confined themselves to nature. Still, these were just tales and no-one in power really believed them. The Dwarves were expecting reinforcements, and new boats and materials, so Ironeye didn't order his people to create new ones, just to try to survive until the resources came and try to continue on with the general plan. But what he didn't know was that the fleet sent back towards Kahr Fréy-Bruk had been destroyed by a small convoy of three ships, under control of Korona Crusoe. This shows that he wasn't only the savoir of the Men and Aven, but also of the Lizardfolk. When these reinforcements didn't arive, Ironeye was so beat down, and his army so small, that he just surrendered, not willing to wait out the winter. The Fourth settlement was Kahr Harouc. This was a settlement down in the Jungles of Temnar. By this time they hadn't given it a name yet, they just called it 'the big jungles'. It wasn't actually one of the biggest settlements of the Dwarves, but they could survive thanks to the tremendous amounts of food inside it's borders. It was about to export it all when the ships went ablaze, which left the settlement with a lot for itself. Also thanks to it's ideal positioning in the jungles the beginning of the winter wasn't actually that cold and they could still eat fruit from the trees growing inside the boundaries of the city. Still, the food ran out one day and on that day the borders fell. The fifth settlement to fall was, as you might expect, Kahr Les-Lough. They held it for the entire winter and even survived the beginnings of spring. But the Lizardfolk were slowly able to drive the Dwarves into surrender by constant sabotage. This was the first settlement where they actually saw the Lizardfolk.This was also the first settlement where the Lizardfolk actually lost severe casualties, and the Dwarves even looked like they had a chance of winning. This was partly thanks to an engenius leader of the Dwarves, who, in comparison to Logmurum Ironeye, actually did good things for the settlement. The sixth, and last, settlement to fall was Kahr Deluhr. The legend that it left behind can even be seen in the name of one of the biggest Dwarven settlements in the entire world, and the biggest in Temnar, Kahr Doluhr. Kahr Deluhr survived a total of 5 years without any outside help. Still, in the end, it was doomed to fall, and so it did. But, to this day, no-one really remembers where this legendary settlement is. It has, literally, been lost to time. After these six settlements fell, the Dwarves had officially completely lost control over Temnar. Still, the Dwarves didn't give up with wanting it back. Around one year after the Night of the Sailing Flame, A fleet of ships set sail east from Floe to try to take back and reinforce Temnar, but this fleet never made it. That was because the Dwarven Captain of the fleet betrayed the Dwarves and handed the fleet over to the Humans. This was because of the simple reason that being allied with the Humans was, overall a much better idea than being allied with the Dwarves, because around that time most of the Kahr Empire had fallen and it's pieces had been shattered into thousands of smaller kingdoms. The Barmen Empire on the other hand, had been able to hold it's ground, and remain stable. They remained stable for around 9 years after the beginning of the great fall, but even the greatest empires would fall. Now that the Humans controlled an entire fleet of Dwarves ships, they were able to defeat the Dwarves in the longest sea-battle of all time, the Battle of the Semnian Coast this battle took over 1 month, but in the end, the Humans were able to push the Dwarves away, and even though they had both had tons of casualties, the Humans were now the Kings of the Seas. After the Great Fall, the remnants of this Fleet, controlled by the humans, headed south and the Humans were able to make a pact with the Lizardfolk. This pact was known as the Treaty of Temnar, and it began a new age for both the Humans and the Lizardfolk, where after they could both live in prosperity. Part of this pact was also that Lizardfolk could go to Silmar with the Dwarven ships if they wanted to, and that's exactly why we can find Lizardfolk all around The Reach, as we know it today. The First Great Fall was the one this that made this all possible. The Dwarven Empire, the Kahr Empire, once controlled most of the mountains in Silmar, and controlled pretty much everything in between the Dragonborn Peaks and the Mountains of Kehn Vozur(Name will be changed.). Next to that they also controlled all of Temnar. But after the fall they only controlled parts of the Sky Peaks, and some northern parts of the Dragonborn Peaks, around the area where now the North Edge Gates lie. The biggest new Dwarven Empire created by the First Great fall was the Kehn Empire. This new Empire quickly gained ground, and after a confederation with the Kohr Empire they controlled most of the Dragonborn Peaks and most of the @Mountains of Kehn Vozur(name to be changed). This led them to control big parts of the south, but especially in between these two mountain ranges, chaos was everywhere. It took thousands of years before these regions were finally civilized, with the coming of the Lizardfolk in Scorchburg and the Wood-Elves in Morada.

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Not many people remember the days of the First Great Fall, and not much is left to remind people of it. Still, it's a name still found in the oldest of history books, and it's name would still awe the people of the modern day.

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