World History

Although the Tuatha De, the Elohndi, and the Azimh Teb were the first beings to exist, none of these three groups were actually responsible for the creation of the world (despite what the various religions teach). Another more powerful entity that’s outside the physical realm completely is responsible for creation of the world. This entity is the god of creation, which the Conarites refer to as the Dimorgos, the Authority.

The creation of the world was a chaotic a roiling sea of potential is all that existed before it was taken and shaped into creation the cosmos birthed in an instant. The world was born in a tumultuous fashion the chaos from before leaving a mark on the new world.

Strange beings found themselves scattered about as land masses formed and seas swirled into shape. The Tuathe De, the Elohndi, and the Azimh Teb, once almost entities in the time before creation found themselves as powerful beings that could shape themselves and the world around them. Those three groups were powerful beings that in the age of myths were still very powerful from the time before creation. The raw magical potential that filled them allowed them to shape the world for a time and even give birth to lesser races, as we'll see below.

Today, the dwarves worship something called the Stone.  In actuality, the closest thing to this concept of the Stone is a bunch of sentient beings deep in the earth that are made of magic crystals, called the Buried Ones.  Another consequence of the chaos of creation was magic, which is the soul of the earth itself, which gave birth to these Buried Ones.  Existing as pure crystal and magic in almost childlike consciousness, the Buried Ones lived beneath the surface.

Fae are remnants of the chaos of creation, an accidental byproduct of the birth of the world. They existed initially as fragmented and barely conscious spirits, until the Tuatha de Danann picked them up, solidified them, and tied them more firmly to the natural world by binding them with nature itself.  As such, though fae do have souls, their souls are so tightly bound to nature that they cannot reincarnate, they simply become part of nature. 

Ese (one of the Azimh Teb) shaped some beasts and gave them intelligence, and so the Aegi were the world's first mortals.

The Elhondi saw what Ese had done with the beasts and thought they could do better, creating the elves from their own blood and in their own image. 

Isha, one of the Elohndi, had been excluded from the creation of the elves, and instead created the Alfar from her own blood.  Despite their similarity to the elves, the Alfar were nearly wiped out in conflicts with them due to their inferior numbers, and so Isha hid them away.  This ancient feud pervades to this day. 

When something resembling a sapient soul started to exist, then Good and Evil also started to exist.  The Conarite Advocate and Trickster are embodiments of that, and exist outside of things as the Authority does. Thus, Synigora (the advocate) and Katergis (the trickster) began to exist once the Children of Dimigora breathed sapience into the first souls. 

At this point, the Children considered mortal souls to be sacred and valued, and would not allow them to be destroyed.  Thus, by the will of Dimigoros, the souls of the dead were reincarnated into new life. The various religions might teach that one's soul stays within your faith or race, but this is not true; Dimigoros views them all equally and interchangeably.

The Alfar, holding fast to their one city of Dson, abducted elves and twisted them into Savagefolk, using Alchemy and some help from their divine patron, Isha, through unknown means lost to time.  Though the savagefolk were originally created as soldiers to defend Dson, the Alfar saw an opportunity when the wars between the Aegi and the Elves began to break out.  

Wanting to play both sides against each other, the Alfar sold savagefolk to both sides, hoping to help them weaken or destroy each other.  However, wanting to shake themselves from the tyranny of their creators, the savagefolk revolted against the Alfar and broke away, leaving Dson inadequately defended and weakening the Alfar substantially.  

Similar revolts against the Elves and Aegi happened as well.  The Aegi were driven south and the elves were driven into their deep woods, leaving the savagefolk to freely roam the continent.  

The actual origin of the Savagefolk is uncertain as this occurred before history had been recorded. 

The Buried Ones were unaware of the Children of Dimorgos above, but were able to sense the flow of souls from life, to death, to rebirth.  They took souls and created the dwarves from rock and stone, to be their servants. The dwarves knew magical light long before they ever knew the sun. 

Humans were not created by the Children of Dimorgos... They happened on their own several hundred thousand years later than the others, as a consequence of evolution!  They are believed to have simply sprouted somehow from the earth.  Although the humans are the youngest race, they adapted, advanced and spread more quickly than the others.  The first "civilization" by most definitions were human. 

Around this time, the first cities began to exist.  This is when things like agriculture, writing, metal working, and government started to form.  The humans were the first, and started to become aggressive toward the other races as they expanded their territories.  In some places, the other races made tenuous peace with humans and learned from them.  In others, they had to organize in response to wars over land. Around this time, the savagefolk were nearly exterminated. 

In the early days of the existence of the fae, everyone simply answered to the Eldernymphs and that was the extent of the ruling structure.  

Some of the more dark-inclined fae banded together, forming alliances and making deals, giving rise to the duality of the Unseelie and Seelie courts.  Because of tricks and treachery on both sides, the rulers of each court began demanding promises from their members.  These promises became the Code of the Seelie and Code of the Unseelie. 

Strengthened by the care and dedication of their servants, the Buried Ones were eventually able to send avatars of themselves to the surface in the form of elemental spirits, where they befriended the inhabitants of an elven city. These elves learned to see bits of these spirits in all things.  This city might be where modern-day Ivora, the Capitol of Tresk is now. The Elohndi viewed the Buried Ones as an affront to creation and led the elves to start a war.  However, a faction of elves who had befriended these elemental spirits turned on their creators instead. 

The Buried Ones lost the war and their elven supporters were nearly wiped out.  The elven survivors were driven east to Xianxou, where they diversified from their Wood Elf cousins and began to call themselves Yōseien.  The entrance to the Underground was destroyed and the dwarves were forgotten for a few more centuries, left to their own devices. From the crystal fragments of their creators, quickly advanced their Tinkering skills as it was necessary for survival down there without the light of their creators. Though the event wasn't in recorded history and no living dwarf is truly certain this is how it happened, an instinctual mistrust of lithe surfacefolk with pointy ears still persists to this day. 

Mortals spread across the continent, pushing the fae back into Hybornia where they had originated from.  

Disagreements about relations with the mortals of Hybornia ensued.   The Unseelie were divided on whether they should even allow mortals to continue to exist in their territory.  Some wanted them killed off, some wanted them chased out, and some wanted them beholden to curses that would make them behave a certain way.  A small portion of the Unseelie disagreed with this and instead wanted to negotiate with the mortals.  

These rebellious Unseelie partnered with the Seelie to create tools that would help the fae exist alongside the mortals.  Some also viewed them as a way to watch over mortals and ensure they were respecting the land they lived on.  These tools include the existence of fae glades, Seeming, and Feth Fiada.  The Eldernymphs were pleased with this cooperation and ensured that these abilities would be present in all fae thereafter.

Although the collaborative efforts between the Unseelie rebels and the Seelie ended amicably, the differences were too great to form much of a lasting alliance after that.  However, the Unseelie court was now divided, forming what is known today as the Eventide and the Nocturne.  This division kept the Unseelie Court weak and allowed the Seelie Court to thrive in the years to come. 

Tiberius Gallio Caelius declares himself the first emperor of Ascelia, the capitol of which was what we now refer to as Asoling, capitol of Avalan. 

The Children of Dimigoros all have their realm(s) and could surely take a soul to them if they choose. Some think they can turn mortals into angels, demons, fae, or otherwordly beings of their design. Katergis and Synigora watched the journeys of mortal souls as they repeatedly made their way through life and death, and they decided to create a resting place for the souls who had learned all they could from the mortal plane to give them a  final place to rest. Thus, Synigora and Katergis created Heaven and Hell, and defined what it means for a soul to be ready to get there. This gave way to the Conarite concepts of Endeavors and Transgressions. The two of them took human form, built a home in a place called Dymarnios, and conceived a human boy named Gabriel, granting him a pure and fresh soul. Before Gabriel was born, they populated Dymarnios with thousands of beings of their own design; some resembling the people of the world, some beautiful creatures, and some monstrous.  Though they all looked different, they were very much the same deep down, so they became known as Dymarnians.  On the day Gabriel was born, a comet was seen in the sky for the first time in history. They sent Gabriel out into the world as the first Prophet, tasking him with spreading their ideas as far and wide as he could before he was sacrificed under the light of the same comet when it came again on his 73rd birthday.

After his death, Synigora and Katergis had an argument over which of them their son would join in the afterlife, which quickly became violent.  This also caused a divide in the Dymarnians, polarizing their ideals and even their physical forms as they each chose their side in the Battle at Dymarnios.  The traveling soul of Gabriel sided with his mother, unable to fight in that state, but lending her his strength.  Synigora won the battle, weakening Katergis, who became hateful and spiteful toward the world and especially toward Synigora. Angered by the disagreement, Dimorgos banished Synigora and Katergis to Heaven and Hell, never to walk amongst mortals again.  The Dymarnians continued to fight over their home city, each wanting to drive the other side out so that their leader could take it with them.  When it became clear to Dimorgos that the Dymarnians would never reach peace on their own, he sent the Dymarnians to Heaven and Hell, giving them all a choice of where they wanted to go.  Once the city of Dymarnios was empty, Dimorgos destroyed it.  Some say it's at the bottom of the ocean, others say he erected a volcano in its place, and others think it's just buried beneath a layer of Dymarnian corpses that decomposed into soil.  No one in recorded history has ever been able to prove that Dymarnios even existed, but there are plenty of efforts to find it. 

Now, a new Prophet must be sacrificed every time Gabriel's Comet comes by, or Katergis will challenge Synigora again, claim Gabriel's strength, and end the world. However, their original goal was achieved.  Souls that are ready can now leave the world to join Synigora in Heaven or Katergis in Hell.  However, their hatred of one-another makes them unable to peaceably agree on who goes where, and so this decision is left to Dimorgos. 

Later, some Seelie peace-lovers started hatching plans of their own and making it their mission to foster good relations with the humans.  Although they swore oaths to protect the innocent and to hold themselves to a higher standard of honesty, they existed as just a subset of the Seelie for a long time and saw no reason to call themselves anything else.  

Soon, a conflict within the court of Eventide arose regarding the treatment of a human settlement in response to new agricultural practices.  A dozen or so members were banished from the Eventide (though they were still Unseelie) and sought out some of those Seelie peace-lovers.  These peace-lovers were happy to include them in their efforts, but needed to create new glades in neutral territory to do it.  This organization began to grow in number and power until eventually, its political structure began to resemble that of a court.  Thus, they declared themselves the Court of Firstlight and became the first minor court to accept both Seelie and Unseelie members.  

Of course, none of the others were too happy about this.  Disagreements ensued but Firstlight managed to hold its ground long enough for the others to view them as a legitimate court.  

Tiberius Gallio Caelius takes Ivora, and then easily takes the rest of modern-day Tresk in the coming years.

Tiberius Gallio Caelius was a badass, but so are the highlanders in Hybornia.  In a battle he should have numerically won but ended up losing miserably, Caelius was killed and his army defeated trying to spread into this island region. 

Surface deposits of magic crystals were extremely rare, so magic didn't really take off among surface folk until the dwarves began trading with the humans and other surface dwellers.  The first human mages attuned their crystals in the coming few years though it would be a while before anyone knew how to use them proficiently. 

Poor dwarves, trading crystals with other people not really knowing that they would start blowing people up with fireballs.  There were legends about surfacefolk, some kind of pointy-eared allies, who could do things like that with the crystals, stories originating from the war where the Roku were destroyed, but most of them thought that was just a story. 

The increase of mages combined with political instability and other issues lead to the collapse. A civil war occurred, with battles decided mostly by mages who caused a lot of unnecessary destruction and casualties.  This is the main reason why some cultures fear magic, why modern-day Tresk regulates it, and why the dwarves keep a tight leash on the trade of magic crystals to this day. 

Followers of the Path of Seno believe that Seno was involved in its founding. An apocryphal text implies that Seno had attuned a crystal. 

Seno spent much of his adult life proselytizing Conarism in the area now known as the Empire of Tresk. 

Lombardia used to be one kingdom until a civil war broke out between five brothers over the right of succession. After a decade, the kingdom was split into 3 by the remaining brothers and their supporters. Avalan, Oralia, Verontoir.