A Brief Overview of the History of Erndorth

To fully understand the Age of Light, and how its creation came about, one must first understand the past and all of the events leading up to the greatest age of man in all of known history. To this end I have decided to compile a brief history of humankind as is currently known. Understand however that most events from before the Age of Light are based solely on legends handed down through the ages and are the conjecture of those who tell the tales. Some legends however do at least have some basis in fact, though these histories are not to be taken strictly for such.

The Age of Fire

Ancient elven legends tell us that the Age of Fire, also know as the Age of Dragons, was when the first great civilization was created on Erndorth. This great civilization did not belong to the humans of the wilds however. Nor even to the elves of the forests or the dwarves of the earth. The legends tell tale that the greatest civilization on Erndorth belonged to the dragons of the skies. The dragons did in fact build great cities for themselves. These cities were not as one knows a city such as Illad or Aramahn however. Each city was built for the glory and honor of individual dragons as homes for his many, many servants who worshipped the great reptiles as gods. Legends tell that the Age of Fire ended shortly after a great war had erupted between dragons and giants. Soon after this event is when it is said that the elves rose up against their oppressive draconic masters and cast them out into the wilds, thus claiming the draconic cities for themselves.

The Age of Struggle

This was an age of darkness for men. Magnificent elven cities flourished throughout the land but the human empires of today were nothing more than fanciful dreams to the humans of the time. Most men lived as barbarians in the harsher climes of Erndorth having mastered a social structure little better than those of the orcs of today. To the great elven empires of Erndorth, humans were in fact seen as little better than barbaric animals, and in most cases the elves were correct in that view.
It is during the Age of Struggle that saw the splitting off of the original elves of Landor into the three major groups that they would eventually become. The first split occurred when Alaearadace expelled the members of an evil cult to Innoruk, god of Hate, from the valley. This cult, who called themselves the Drow, fled south and founded their own kingdom that they named Kiaransalee.
The second great split occurred after the death of the elves guardian, the silver wyrm Alaearadace. After the death of their long time guardian, the elves disagreed about what should happen to them after the loss of the only force that kept them safe from the awesome power of the foul ogres of Talous-Zek. One group wished to isolate themselves from the rest of the world, having little or no contact with outsiders for fear of attracting too much attention to themselves and inviting attack. 
The second group believed that to isolate themselves was to go against everything that their former guardian had stood for. Instead of fighting over what should be done, the second group decided to leave Deriahn and headed south into the orc lands of Gharakaag and founded their own kingdom of Faedawn.

The end of the Age of Struggle, which had lasted for well over a thousand years, is marked with the birth of the Aldarian Empire. The first and greatest human empire ever created.

The Age of Light

The greatest age of man is known as the Age of Light, and its beginning is marked by the destruction of the Drow Empire of Kiaransalee and the birth of the Aldarian Empire. The Empire of Aldariah was forged by the barbarian lord Amren Ap Anoth after the Drow were cast down. The stories of the day tell of a barbarian wielding a powerful sword known as Lightbringer, who led a great army of his people into the Drow city of Aldariah and drove its inhabitants into the depths of the earth never to see the light of the sun again.

After the great battle, Amren Ap Anoth made himself king of all the lands of the Ritensa and led his people out of barbarism and into civilization. For the many centuries that followed the humans made great strides in their level of civilization with the aid of the good elves who had stood with them in deposing the evil Drow from Aldariah.

For the over one thousand years of the age of light, the elves and humans lived practically side-by-side providing mutual defense from orc raids and goblin onslaughts. With the great human city of Aldariah as the center of power for the human/elven coalition, both human and elven civilizations flourished and expanded. The level of sorcery and technology were unequal anywhere else in the entire world. The wizards of the Age of Light were the greatest force of both good and destruction ever known by man.

Originally, the city of Aldariah was an elven city, created and ruled by a group of elves known as the Drow. The Drow were a rather xenophobic society of gray elves who derived their name from the ancient elven word for “The Enlightened”. The Drow worshipped an ancient, evil god known as Innoruk, the Prince of Hate.

Innoruk taught the Drow that hate was the most powerful force in the universe and that if one were to hate with enough passion one could destroy the world through the power of his hate. This belief led the Drow to look upon the other races with loathing and disdain which in turn caused them to begin enslaving the barbaric human populations that inhabited the Ritensa river valley near the Drow city of Aldariah. After many decades of enslavement by the Drow, the humans decided to fight back. With the aid of the good elves that also counted the Drow among their hated enemies, the humans managed to win their freedom and depose the evil god called Innoruk. Without their deity to lead them, the few Drow who survived the slaughter in their ancient city of Aldariah wandered the world aimlessly for a time; being hunted and killed everywhere they were found. Until the few shards of Drow who remained found a new god to lead them. Another evil deity known as Lloth had managed to convert a cult of some of Innoruk’s most powerful templars to her worshipers and led them into the vastness of the under dark. It was there that the new worshippers of Lloth would again rebuild their great city, even greater than before.

On the surface world however, the humans who were once enslaved in the city of Aldariah, had made the ruins of the once great city their home and became a civilized race under the guidance of the elves of Faedawn. Over the next thousand years the humans would become one of the most powerful races on Erndorth, with vast cities spread all over Landor and beyond.
This power however would soon go to the heads of the short-lived humans as they began aggressively expanding their empire in all directions across Erndorth. This expansion would inevitably lead to disputes with the elves that had once called the humans friends. Over the span of less than 100 years, the humans would go from trusted allies, to hated enemies of the elves.

Eventually all out war began. The Great Burning, as it came to be called, lasted well over a century and did not end until the elven kingdom of Faedawn was driven from its ancient home and into the vast forests of Vyalliah. The Age of Light lasted for a little over a thousand years, until the time known as the Great Burning, which is a period of rapid decline for the Aldarian Empire. A time when a great rift formed between the elves and humans who had been allies for so long. From the time the Great Burning began; it took a mere one hundred years for the Empire of Aldariah to collapse in on itself. The Great Burning, not to mention the end of the Age of Light ended with the final destruction of the city of Aldariah by the very elves that had helped Amren Ap Anoth to create it.The end of the Age of Light marked the end of the Empire of Aldariah; as well as the end to a decades long war between humans and elves; to say nothing of the end of all trust between the humans and elves, which had taken over a thousand years to create.
It is at the end of the Age of Light that the elves finally retreated from the world at large and fled with what was left of their culture into the great forests of Erndorth. The humans were left to their own devices and tried time and again to recreate the greatness that they had lost with the Age of Light. Many times since, great men had forged great kingdoms for humankind. Many of these empires were powerful in and of their own rights, but none ever came close to the greatness that was Aldariah.

The Dark Age

This is the current age in which most of the Erndorth Campaigns are set. The New Age, also known as the 4th Age of Man, is a time marked by the loss of the great accomplishments of the Age of Light. Magic, as well as all creatures born of magic are a thing of a time long past. Although magical creatures and items do still exist, they are extremely rare. Some “sensible” people do not even believe in magic or the supernatural. Those who do are grossly misinformed about the nature of magic so avoid and fear it as a thing of evil. Witch burnings, although uncommon; do happen from time to time.

Of the spell casters still present in the 4th Age, most are clerics or priests of some type. The remaining few are wizards. Sorcerers, who are themselves born of magic, do still exist in the 4th Age. They are a dying breed however and are fully expected to be extinct wholly within a few generations.

The only civilizations still in existence where magic clings to a hope or renewal is in the human Empire of Izondia, and in the largely untouched civilization of the Drow, who were driven from the surface world during the end of the Age of Struggle.

Please note that I have respectfully borrowed some details and descriptions for my campaign from Bruce A. Gulke and his Realm of Mythosa Campaign. You should click the banner below and go check out his awsome campaign.

All maps on this site were created using Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer 2

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Web Site Created and Maintained by Thrylax            Site Last Updated on: Sunday, September 11, 2005