History of the World (part 1)

I will confess, the title of this post is an homage to that hilarious Mel Brooks movie of the same name. If you haven't seen it, rent it and watch it. His take on the Spanish Inquisition is almost as off the wall as Monty Python's.

The geological history of the planet that Evandar is located on is quite similar to that of Earth's history. A cataclysmic event happened in the early epoch that killed off the very large creatures that lived during this time, except for a small population that adapted to the changes. They are scattered through out the world. The sentient population which was functionally decimated are what is known as greater wyrms or dragons. The population of the survivors that were not self aware (and actually were feed for the greater wyrms during the time of desolation that followed the event) are the lesser wyrms. The greater wyrms are solitary creatures, partly due to the vast distances between the enclaves that were present and partly due to their disinclination towards each other's company after spending the better part of no less than three Ages. (An Age is counted as 5,000 years. A day on this planet is approximately the same as a day on Earth and the orbit of the planet is equivalent to that of Earth's orbit about the Sun.)

There is buried evidence of the societies of the greater wyrms. The megolithic structures used by early humans were the ruins of their buildings. There is a language that the greater wyrms used to communicate during their time surviving the period of global desolation. It is unknown by humans, elves, or deamons. Because the greater wyrms are beings of primordial power and greater age than the demigods, they are regarded with great caution by the demigods. There was a period early after the arrival of the demigods in the world where the greater wyrms assisted them with the development of skills necessary to survive in the world. After ensuring that the demigods had what they needed to live within the world, the greater wyrms, for the most part, withdrew for interaction with the world.

The demigods watched over the rise of humans. There were groups of humans who worshiped the demigods as deities in their own right. This, however, came to a halt when the deities made their presence known in the world at the beginning of what is known as the the First Age. (Evandar at the time of book one is in the Fifth Age. It is in the beginning of what is the second Age after the Great War.) The deities of the world were more than those of Evandar (Sigurt, Roen, Kaileth, and Morguthu).

The Great War was a two continent wide war between Morguthu and Sigurt. It lasted for a hundred years. The Great War began when the deamons began a wide spread campaign to steal human children to warp with their magics and turn into slaves, which were eventually known as deamon thralls. During the Great War, the seven kingdoms of Evandar consolidated into the greater kingdom of Evandar. This was an attempt to prevent the destruction of the member kingdoms. The first high king of Evandar was an avatar of Sigurt named Sigurt the Gold. He was wedded to an avatar of Roen, who bore the goddess's name, who was a powerful sorceress. Through diplomacy and appeals to the continuance of human liberty, the seven kingdoms united under Sigurt the Gold.

Prior to their union, the forces of men were guided by the elves. Freyr Greenwood, the king of the elves of Dragonwood forest, was the principle agent of leadership. He held council with Agrimmon of the halls beneath the hills of Dakon-Bar and with the elfin queen of the north known as Sulia the White. Sulia the White's forces were drawn from the mountains in the north of Evandar and Ranyth. These forces, however, were among those who were slaughtered in the disastrous campaign on the Marches of Elspar and Corinth. That was the first of the grief that came in those lands. I have spoken of the sad fate of Llyrian and his kin earlier[1].

The battles about the Sea of Dreams (which is a byname for the sea which has claimed countless lives since men and elf has begun to sail it, its name among the elves is the Cursed Sea) were horrific. They lead to the breaking of nations. One battle, however, was particularly horrific. It was that of the Crystal city. Three of the elves were taken prisoner from the three armies that opposed the deamons in Evandar. Of the three, the youngest escaped the death that awaited them after the deamon Axeron had taken them into custody and attempted to learn what the movements of the armies were planned.

This union of kingdoms signified the beginning of a shift of the Great War in favor of the human and elfin forces. The deamons fought hard but eventually forced into the cursed marshlands known as the Darklands to the humans of modern Evandar. In that age, these lands were unnamed and uncursed, as far as holdings of the deamons could be considered to be uncursed. Within the Darklands, there was a city simply known as the black city or Mordri in the language of Evandar. This city was the site of the final battle of the Great War where in the deamons were banished by Roen's magics, aided by the elves, into the void space of reality known as the outer darkness.

After the Great War came to an end, the avatars of Sigurt and Roen brought peace and healing through the seven kingdoms. When they cast off their mortal forms, the spider politics of the council became even more twisted. It was not long after then that arguments arose within the southern kingdoms of Evandar. It was near this time that the people of Freyr Greenwood (who had died in the battle prior to that of the black city) withdrew from the world of men and ventured east. The youngest of them argued that the duty of the elfin peoples was to care for humanity. She was scorned. Thus, as her kinsmen traveled east, she remained within Evandar's boundaries in the place of her birth.