As some of you might recall, I recently did a number of cultural studies of various... more or less generic standard... fantasy races; to include humans.

I intended to keep things as generic as possible, and in some ways I accomplished that goal.

However.

As I worked them out I kept putting peices together, much as you would a puzzle. What I wound up with was the very fabric of a great tapestry.  

Not that I actually HAVE that tapestry, not yet. But the cloth is there, the skeins of colored thread... all the ingredients are there. All I have to do is put them together.  Hence we have this.

One thing I avoided doing before was claiming any particular facet of my studies was unasailable fact. I didn't quite succeed, I'm sure, but for the most part you don't have to say Orcs MUST BE this that or the other thing. I merely said they were PROBABLY.

But when building a world I feel I should actually change the tone. The Orc of this world ARE this that or the other thing. No probably about it.  Why? Because if the world is not built on a sturdy foundation it will wobble and shake. No one likes a shaky world.  It makes the Quiche fall.


As is only proper when dealing with a fantasy world, a good mythic origin and questions of geography.  I'm rather fond of flat earths for fantasy. Don't know why, don't care.

So. In the beginning there was everything. But there was no order to it, no permanence. This everything was Chaos, the Well of Creation, the Fountainhead.  In time there arose beings of thought and mind, who desired a place of peace, of stability, of permanence. A place where they could exist without fear of being subsumed by the Chaos from whence they came. Drawing upon the very Chaos that had birthed them they formed a mighty island in the roiling sea, and thus gave birth to the world, the sky, the seas, even the heavens above.  For a time they were content, for as Chaos wore away at the edges of their Haven, they repaired it anew in an endless cycle.

These Beings were the First Gods. Legend ascribes to them the aspects of all things, all races, and their names are the names of the founders of each race. That is legend, however.

Eventually, however, other beings arose in the swirling Chaos, and being unlike the first, saw the Haven and were jealous, attempting to enter where they had no place, forcing themselve upon it. There was a mighty war; Gods were slain, the Haven losing some great portion of itself. Demons were slain, their blood and flesh poisoning the land.

The war threatened the very stability of the Island, the Gods could not keep the border secure from the Demons and recreate what Chaos had reclaimed at the same time. One or the other had to be sacrificed.

It was the First Smith who solved the dilemma. He created a vast engine that would ever seek to stave off the encroachment of Chaos. To deal with the demons he took the bodies of the first slain from either side and forged a terrible Pax.  The body of the first slain God became the barrier that no Demon could cross from Chaos, while the slain of the first Demon became Death, to claim aspects of Creation for the Demons to build their own real upon. As the Haven drew upon the Fountainhead to renew itself eternally there would be no loss.  While this ended the war, it was flawed. The War was never claimed by Death, and lies waiting, occasionally springing forth to claim more victims.  The barrier still exists, and while it bars the Demons from entry from Chaos, it is less effective against the other beings that Chaos creates.

Chaos is the source of magic, the foundation of everything. Though no legend speaks of it, all life on Haven forms a part of the Great Engine... which is why no seeker has yet found it.

As for the Motives and natures of the First Gods? Who can really say? They make up the warp and weft of their own creation, embodied in its aspects. The First Smith is not a being, but all Smiths, and all things smithed belong to him, are of him. Who can say if a great mountain is a First God, or merely a part of another Great God who is an entire range.  The same could be said of the most powerful First Demons.

But a deeper study of the Creation of Haven is beyond our purview. Let us remove ourselves to those aspects of history and Legend that actually matter.

Haven, of course, is a huge, flat landmass floating in a sea of Chaos. The Great Barrier is invisible to mortal life, they can travel to the very edges of creation, though it occupies far greater square footage than our own humble orb. The Seas merge into the frothing Chaos, the land drops away to overlook great churning seas of Everything.  The power of the Human mind can push the Chaos back... or it can be overwhelmed entirely and destroyed.  By learning to tap that Chaos, either indirectly via magic, or directly by finding the raw seething stuff of Creation and shaping it by will alone, a man might become a God.  

There passed a time where nothing of mortal import occured on Haven. Some legends have the various races as participating, soldiers and servants of their Gods, but such stories are Myth.  Lesser Gods arose, eventually, embodying the races that arose, creations of the First Smith, and occasionally those lesser Gods fought the Lesser Demons that found their way to the mortal realm. Such lesser Godwars happened with no great frequency, and skirmishes remain common to this day, if largely unnoticed by the mortals. The war, of course, is over the disposition of Souls.

Eventually, the Lesser Gods removed themselves from the mortal realm and the various intelligent races found themselves lost. Note that none of these races were actually the races found today. Civilization, organization, was slow to spread. The first race to master organization, to discover the power of Magic, rose to power virtually unopposed.  They slaughtered and enslaved their neighbors, committed wars of genocide on any other race that arose to oppose them, and generally were lords and masters of their domain.  This race was the titans. They were not Orcs, nor were they Human, Elf or Dwarf. They were Titans.  From their slave races and themselves, they bred Orc and Elf and Dwarf and more. They gave over the souls of their unborn children to give their greatest warbeasts intelligence. They were great, and powerful, and without Good or Evil.  

Kobolds were a failed expiriment, a slave race unchanged that 'escaped' to plague the cities of the Titans. The Goblins were not sentient, or at least not civilized yet, and even had they been so their homes deep in the earth were hidden well away. Halflings have yet to rise to a level that the Titans would have noticed, though at the time they were little more than comfortable savages, out of sight and mind.

The Lizardmen arose far from the Titans center of power. The Titans had moved their greatest cities so that the very center of Haven was their home, while the Lizardman swamps were out near the very borders of the Titans empire. Had it not been for some obscure desire to expand their Empire out to the very fastnesses of Haven, the comparatively primative Lizardmen might never have been noticed.  

Comparatively, for the Lizardmen of then were near Gods compared to even modern civilizations. Their mastery of Magic was easily the equal of the oldest Lich, though alien to the Titans or the Men of today. However, they were a poor match for the Titans and their Dragons. By expending every last drop of power, sacrificing their entire civilization, the Lizardmen were able to preserve their race and freedom. Ironically, they were in the end responsible for destroying the Titans.

The Dragons recognized a kindred species of sorts in the lizardmen. More than one dragon, held in check by unbreakable Oath's of loyalty and fetters of unasailable power, had held telepathic communications with the very people they destroyed time and again.

The Elves, merely amusements, concubines and playthings, often were called upon to sooth the great savage beasts after troubling sorties and raids. It was in those conversations that the Elves found among themselves a realization that they hated their masters.  Unlike the dangerous Dragons, the Elves were viewed as pretty playthings, nothing more, and their Oaths of Loyalty were weak and fragile things, often forgotten completely.  The stoic dwarves, content in their lives as farmers were not even a consideration, and the Orcs of old, far more dangerous than those of today were loyal beyond Oath.  This was the comforting womb of the Titans, secure in their power they failed to realize that arrogance would destroy them.

The Elves organized, as was their wont even back then, under the oldest and wisest of their kind, and over centuries... millenia they secreted away whatever leavings they could, seeking an opening to exploit. Thus they stole, bit by bit, the secret of Magic from the Titans.  Then they wove a terrible spell.

History does not record their intent, their plan. It only records the result. The titans, as a race, were suddenly cut off from Chaos, from the very magic that sustained their long lives, powered their great cities, chained their slaves.  Somehow, by design or happy luck the Elves had removed the Titans from the Great Engine. The devestation was immedeate and total.  The Dragons, freed of their fetters escaped and gave in to their beastial sides... so long kept in check. There was little to destroy, however, for the very building blocks of the cities were swept away as if they'd never been. Whole cities vanished overnight, unimagineable secrets lost forever.  Many of the titans died instantly, those whose lives were beholden to Magic, others found themselves crippled or powerless. The Elves and Dragons sought blood, the Kobolds as well, though for different reasons. Even the doughty dwarves were angered, though they blamed the titans for destroying their comfortable existance, rather than the Elves who were really to blame.  The Orcs proved mighty protectors of the survivors, and in the spun sugar debris of the once mighty civilization, blood flowed like wine, staining the ground red.  

Eventually the survivors scattered and the terrible savage war ended at last.

Thus endeth Part One.

Might I say, congratulations on the "cultural studies" series of threads, they were great.

RPGPundit

Something I'd suggest--unless you are using D&D with your design, try and turn away from D&Disms (The kobolds one is rife with "D&D Koboldisms")

I think you've done a good job, but your kobolds represent only D&D versions, not classic folklore (Mining Dwarf style Kobolds with blue skin), nor anime descendants which took the dog thing farthur and turn Kobolds into basically short gnolls/dog-people.

If you stick to the roots, there's no difference between a goblin and a kobold.

And you can't ignore the most famous kobold of the whole wide world

Actually... the Kobolds I think of in D&D terms are little lizard people. :confused:

I went with the wiki on Kobolds, which had subterranian dwarf/goblin types, strangely strong mercenary bodyguards and more.  

Then there was 'Kobolds Ate My Baby', which I referenced a few times in my cultural study. The only reason I brought them back up here was I had already done the 'Study' on them and in the context of this world building exercise they make an interesting contrast.

Kobolds are one of the original races, unmodified from their basic stock, and they survived by becoming vermin in the cities of the Titans. They have nothing but hatred and contempt for the former slaves of the Titans, and by extension all other intelligent life.  There actual role on the 'world stage' remains small and easily ignored.

The wake of the Titan War, or the great revolt was bloodshed and chaos of a much more mundane sort.  The Titans had ruled unopposed for so long, and so throughly that there were no other civilizations, no cultures left to fill in the void left behind.

Furthermore, the sudden release of all that magic into the world at once, all the world spanning enchantments and the huge consumptive spells that made the Titan civilization so powerful ruptured and burst without the powerful mages that had formed them keeping them under control.  The world itself spasmed and flexed, growing in places, shrinking in others. For a time Demons walked unfettered across the face of Creation.

Those heroes that led their peoples away from the worst of the destruction were later held up as Gods by their decendants. A few even acheived Godhood.

Millenia passed. The scraps of magic stolen by the Elves were not enough for them to recreate the wonders of old, were barely enough to sustain them as they learned to live on their own. The Dragons scattered, the Dwarves shrugged and used their hands, then stones and wood to continue to till feilds and harvest crops.  

The Surviving Titans, a tiny handful of these former demigods hid themselves away in the regimented collections of their soldiers, eventually breeding with them and passing away into memory.  Each race promised to remember the Titans, their civilization, and to reclaim it.

But Millenia are long, and even the Immortal Elves forgot, their culture rent by strife and disent.

It began with the Dwarves, ironically enough. As the fragile Elves struggled to support themselves, to regain what they had lost, the Dwarves... who it must be noted had never known what had happened to their former masters... grew and prospered, bolstered by their tight knit communities and work ethic. They discovered metal working and weaving and a hundred other skills that had once been performed by magics.   The Elves looked on their neighbors with envy and often empty bellies. After all, it had been the Elves who had freed them all, yet who suffered most?

The dwarves do not look kindly upon theft. Their labors, even their children had long been victims of Kobolds, even in the distant past, and a new breed of theives were not welcome.   The Dwarves defended their feilds with their tools as weapons.

It was Daeylyraeth Darsyltier who slew the first Dwarf and started the war. Informal leader of the bands of Elves who stole grains and sheep for their kin, it was he who spilled the blood first. It meant nothing to him, nor his kin. Dwarves were useful animals, it is said.

The Dwarves responded with fire and steel, assaulting the forests themselves when they could not find Elves. They invented armor to protect themselves from the wooden shafts of Elvish arrows.

The war did not go well for the Elves. Among them came the call for peace, others recommended more drastic solutions. It was the faction led by Daeylyraeth that stole the old Magics from their elders, cast a terrible spell, seeking to recreate the sorcery that had destroyed the works of the Titans.

Something went wrong. Many things went wrong. The Dwarves did not use magic, had not sorcery to disrupt. The First Gods had sought the destruction of the Titans, for they threatened the Great Engine with their genocidal wars and absolute arrogance, but the Dwarves were no Titans.

But Chaos can not be summoned without consequence, Magic of such power can not simply not do something.  The spell washed over the Dwarves, seeking out their connections to Magic, altering what they found before lashing back at the Tribe of Daeylyraeth.

The destruction wrought on both races was terrible to behold, though different for each. The Dwarves fled from the power that had assaulted them, hiding away in great caverns in the Earth, sealing up the entrances behind them in their terror.  Here they found sanctuary and for a time, peace.

Those elves who had sought peace, or simply thought that the Old Magics were too dangerous to be used again looked upon their cousins with pity and a small measure of fear.  

There arose among the Elves a great debate, slowly but surely the rift between the Daeylyreath and the rest of the Elves grew wider, the differences of opinion too great.  Many Elves agreed that even the knowledge of the Titans was dangerous. Unable to reach an accord, the two sides fell to blows, the first civil war in the history of the world. Daeylyreath and his followers once more tried to turn to the Old Magics, but they were opposed by their kin who were ready for them.  Barely more than a century had passed since the Dwarves had been driven underground, less than three since the dispute had begun, and the surviving Tribe of Daeylyreath were driven out of the great forest home of the Elves.

It is said of the Daeylyreath that they turned at the end to Demons to succor them, to grant them power over their Kin. Others say they sought out secret entrances to the Demonic Realms in the bowels of the earth itself.  They became the boogey man of myth and legend, their leaders became demons in their own right.

Almost incidentally, during their wanderings, the Goblins fell afoul of this first splinter Tribe, cursed for their refusal to obey.  At that time the Goblins had great cities, even nations deep within the Ground. Their sorcerers kept sealed the hidden passages to the Demonic realm, their scholars pondered the mysteries of creation from the dark depths.  The Daeylyreath shattered their civilization, twisted their ties to Chaos, and gave them an endless hunger they could never sate... all with what was to them a simple spell.  Too late the Daeylyraeth learned the consequences for tapping such powers, for the First Gods rejected them utterly, turning their faces away from the twisted Elves.

End Part Two.

Before I move into part three:

As I mentioned before, the concept of Evil Elves is not unique to D&D at all. Seelie and Unseelie courts, Norns from Tad Williams... Drow in D&D.  The Daeylyreath Tribe as mentioned are the evil elves here, inheritors of powerful sorceries from the Age of the Titans. At the moment I'm still staying semi-generic. There is not a pressing need to describe them, physically or mechanically.  Nor do I feel a need to make them a subterranian race. They have been rejected by the Gods, and have made so many deals with Demons for power that they have practically become demons themselves.  Practically. But: for all the evils they have wrought as a race, for all they may be twisted in body... they are individuals... they are Elves still.  While I don't think documenting the Daeylyreath's long and twisted history is important or even relevant, it is hardly going to be out of character for them to have had social fractures of the same sort that 'created' them. Nor is it impossible for one to have a change of heart about what his people have done. If there is anything that History teaches us, it is that nothing is immutable in the face of time.

I have contradicted my cultural study of Goblins... deliberately. Before I suggested it was the removal of a powerful predator or other dangerous factor in their environment, and that their previous civilization was relatively primative. However, the point of view of the Cultural study was that of an outsider, while my world building is from the perspective of an omniscent narrator.  Given the mythic scope of the era I'm covering, and the time frames involved, it wouldn't seem fitting that Goblins were subterranian villagers preyed upon by some beast.  

I find that I can divide races up into interesting lines.

Kobolds, Goblins, Lizardmen and Halflings all fall into 'natural races', not necessarily untouched by the Titans, but certainly arising from the design of the Gods.

Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Humans are Titanic Races, bred from primordial stock... that is natural races, but no longer natural themselves.  It occurs to me that altering the way these races interact with magic would be an interesting, and subtle, way of reinforcing that difference were I to lay this out as an entire game product rather than a slightly generic setting.


However, slightly generic, at least in fantasy RPG terms tends to lend itself easily to D&Disms.  It could just as easily lead itself to Tolkeenisms, which isn't much of a change.  

Treating Elves and Dwarves as biological races, rather than mystical Fey, is the root of the 'problem'.  Cosmetic changes, such as calling Halflings Kender or...Qanuc... do not work when addressing generics.  I could rename the Elves, i could rename any race, dress them up how I liked. I could even make my Halflings mountain dwelling mystic savages...  but in the end I'm talking about a race of half sized human looking beings.

Rather than tear my hair over this, I simply give you the most common, easily identifiable name for a race, their culture, part wholly fabricated and part common tropes, and a history that fits both.  Notice that my Elves, for example, don't have any real reason to prefer forests... no mystic reason to live in trees, it's simply where they settled predominantly.  The dwarves chosen lands are open plains, easily coverted to agriculture and herding.

My intent is to provide more and more intimate details as the world building approaches (rapidly) the modern ages.

The wake of the Elvish Civil War was devestating. Two debilitating wars in a row robbed the Elves of their once growing civilization and much of their power.   The remaining Elves resolved never again to raise their hands against their brothers, a promise that would occasionally be broken but never again on the scale, or with the rancor of that very first.  They also put away those artefacts they could not destroy, and never spoke of them again. As the oldest Elves succumbed to violence, disease and accident, slowly the secrets disappeared into myth.

The cursed race of the Goblins fared less well, their civilization tearing itself apart from within in a matter of weeks. Their greatest scholars and magi turned their great minds to a solution, fighting the hunger, the beastial urges that had been forced upon them. Failing to find a way to break the curse, the greatest of them sacrificed himself to cast a spell that would ensure that the Goblins would be able to survive until such time as the Curse could be broken. He brokered a deal with the First Gods and the Demon Death, allowing the souls of Goblin kind to reincarnate endlessly, carrying with them the lore of ages. While his success may have ensured the eventual recreation of his beloved nation, it only compounded the problem, as new Goblin souls continued to be born, and their population exploded to encompass both.

It was mere decades after the Daeylyreath passed through their lives that Goblins found themselves locked in a bitter struggle with the now well entrenched Dwarvish Clanholds.


The Dwarves were a battlehardened race, but the constant pressure proved hard on them. In the face of an endless war, the Dwarves turned to exploration and diversification, as well as honing their skills in battle. New clanholds were formed, new bases, often as far from the Goblins as possible were formed and manned.  Rather than run, the doughty race dug in, going deeper into the earth, seeking to root out this new menace at it's source.


Meanwhile, in the northern Wastes, largely unpopulated by the Elves and Dwarves, a large tribe of Orcs built for themselves a city of stone. While history does not record why this was done, the truth is that Demons of Ice and Famine stalked their lands with Hounds of Death. Defended by their stone walls, the brightest Orcs congregated and studied, discovering for themselves that even the Orcs could tap the Fountainhead and do magic.  The Demons proved little threat to such an organized, determined band of survivors, though the stalemate would not be broken for nearly a thousand years, with the rise of the Warlord Norgosh, who led what was the first Horde through the wastelands, and then south to more fertile lands, encountering the Elves.

War followed. The Elves had not forgotten the role the Orcs had played during the Revolt. The Orcs had forgotten much, but they had tales of slender creatures of treachery and evil... of Elves.  Freshly blooded and battle hardened, the Horde overwhelmed the first Elvish cities they encountered, whole splinter tribes were lost. But while the Elves had put away their old weapons, they still possessed a far greater understanding of magic than any other race, and having thousands of years to hone their martial skills, they proved a formidable opponent.   Norgosh was slain by assassins in the night, his strategic genius lost to the orcs, and with it the only chance of armistice.

But it was the destruction of Mo'garen, Orcish for Sanctuary, that broke the horde.  Fire rained from the sky and shadows strangled their owners in the night, the very ground salted and cursed so that no living thing could thrive there.

While the Elves had one a great victory, they had not won peace. The Orcish horde was shattered, their nation destroyed, and their species returned to the sort of savagery that they had climbed from so painfully.  But the Orcs remained, hatred festered as they scattered, no longer confined to the wastes of the north, or the borders of Haven, now they could be found throughout the gardenlands near what had once been the heart of the empire of the Titans.  

Worse, the Orcs had learned a painful lesson. No longer would they rely on a single leader or a single city, no matter how glorious.  A thousand tribes, each with leaders who's power was only as great as their ability to hold it, formed. Many continued the war as best they could, others sought peace and safety, retreating from the powerful Elven tribes.

It is said the Golden Age ended with the rise of the Daeylyreath, and thus the Silver Age died with Norgosh.  

While a thousand things occured, nothing to stir the hearts and change the world happened for the next few millenia.  The Elves saw themselves very much as rulers of the world, and as far as they knew no other race existed who could dispute that.  Even the whispered stories of dwarves reappearing could not shake them from this belief.

But the Elves were not unified. While many tribes were lost to the Orcish Horde, or had rejoined their more powerful kin for safety, no less than four competeing kingdoms arose during this era.   Aligning themselves according to the three prime Poles and the Seven Directions of Elvish cartography, the kingdoms carved themselves out powerful niches and rivalries. (The prime poles are roughly analogous to north, southeast and southwest, with center as a null value. Don't even get started on the Seven Directions, which includes aesthetic values like how pleasant the trip is...  Dwarvish maps are clearer, but as dwarves map along three axis (north-south, east-west, up-down) the can be confusing as well. The dwarves, notably, do not use the three prime poles, but map everything towards Center, which to them is the only value (1 in binary sense))

It was during this time that the first records of Halflings began being written. The race itself had existed in pastoral bliss since the forging of the Great Engine, but their primative lifestyle had never drawn the attention of the Titans. In isolation from the surviving races, the halflings, by this point not even dimly aware of the events that had thus far shaped the world, gradually developed a civilization of sorts. Upon encountering the expanding empire of the Elves, and the scattered tribes of the orcs, they struck up trade, learning new ideas and gaining access to goods they had never had before. The Halflings cheefully discoursed with both sides, though the occasionally violent orcs were somewhat less popular than the aloof Elves.  Relations between the Elves and the halflings chilled when the elves realized that anything the halflings learned from them would eventually make it into orcish hands...

Several minor orcish kingdoms rose and flourished breifly during this era. As often as they disintigrated from within, they were destroyed by the more powerful Elvish kingdoms they competed with.

This stalemate would not end until the end of the Silver Age when the Goblins finally invaded the surface world.


End part the third...

I've done no editing, hell I haven't even read portions of it...

But I thought you'd like to know you're up to 35 pages.  Keep this up and, with illustrations, fluff, you could easily have a 40 page book.

Quote from: James J SkachI've done no editing, hell I haven't even read portions of it...

But I thought you'd like to know you're up to 35 pages.  Keep this up and, with illustrations, fluff, you could easily have a 40 page book.

You'll want to read all of it before you put it in there. At least one longish post from today was more a 'designers notes' than anything else.

I'd almost be tempted to sub all of this for the RQ game I plan to start in January, but with my players I think keeping away from D&D feeling will be wiser, or else the dreaded d20 books will come flying out of bags at the first mention of Elves...

Very solid stuff. Keep at it.

I think you should use the RQ OGL to publish this when you are done.

There may be some good ideaness to that, Silver... we'll have to see.

I've been thinking of trying to limit the amount I do in a single day, giving me more time to percolate ideas in the backbrain, but I am sort of crunched for time.

With any luck I will be completely out of the the loop for the next two weeks starting Sunday, and when I'm back in the loop, so to speak, I doubt I'll be still 'on track' with this amusing project.  This is me looking around my desk for my graph paper to do up another map that in all likelihood only I will ever see...

So. Look for at least one more post this afternoon as I get rolling. Of course, trying to come up with names and the like is killing me! :eek:

The impact of the arrival of the Goblins on the surface of Haven can not be over estimated.  Before this singular event the delinations, the wars between species, the society at large was more or less static. War between Orc and Elf was inevitable, and once it had occured, omnipresent.  A member of either speices understood plainly that they were at war, and the reasons were unimportant.

The Goblins did not arrive in a huge wave... not at first. At first there were refugees from the chaos of their underground lives, drawn by the lack of other goblins and the abundance of food. To the surface dwellers there was little to distinguish a Goblin from a Kobold. The larger Goblins were still small, sneaky, capable of digging into the dirt to avoid detection or capture, and tended to kill small animals and steal infants for food.  

However, where one goblin goes, others eventually follow. Both breeding and population pressures eventually forced larger numbers to the surface. It was actually a misplaced 'military' force, seeking to find a new way to attack the now hated dwarves, that broached the surface in large numbers.

This event occured in a smallish Orc town known as Hru'tha while the adults were at war with the local elves. The Goblins easily overran the place, consumbing the occupants. Individual goblins returned to their warrens to report on this wonderful discovery, while the 'army' continued to march, looking for more food. The Orcs of Hru'tha returned to find devestation, and sought out the source with vengence in their hearts. They believed the hated elves had done as they always did, massacred the non-combatants to break the backs of the warriors, and turned their eyes on their neighbors.

As fate would have it, the goblins had gone in the direction of the forests, seeking refuge from the sun in it's shade, and there they found the Elves of the Tautha kingdom resting up from the recent battle. The fresh, even eager Goblins fell upon them, not expecting to encounter the sort of terrible resistance the Elves mustered.  It was the Orcs who saved the Elves, however.  Faced with the real murderers the Orcs of Hru'tha put aside the ancient war for that one day. The echos of that act would ring down through the aeons.

The surviving Goblins fled back to the depths, warriors of both races on their heels.   Only, the rest of the Goblins came boiling out of the depths, eager to sate their hunger, having heard of the surface world of plenty. While the mixed band of vengeful soldiers proved too powerful to be overwhelmed, they proved to few to stem the tied.  Tuatha fell, her inhabitants made into refugees and exiles. Many fled to the other Elven kingdoms, bringing word of this new menace, often just before other goblin hordes broke forth from the underground.

Others, however, found refuge with the Orc tribes, putting aside their hatreds in the face of this terrible swarm.

Those first Goblin wars lasted for centuries, whole hordes were destroyed by powerful magics, Elvish cities were torn asunder.  It was the Dwarves that ended it when they turned their eyes to the surface. They stepped out of their Holds in shining hosts, collapsed mountains into the warrens, turned rivers into the warren holes.  The Dwarven High King Thandel marched his host to the  very Center of Haven to recieve the gratitude of the Elves.  When asked what his reward should be for this timely rescue, he demanded that the Elves should apologize for what they had done to the Dwarves so long ago, that the Queen should bow before him this one time.

To the horror of many, she complied willingly.  Thandel returned to his Clanhold, taking his army with him, along with a peace treaty and trade agreements, content that he had served his people well. The Dwarves have not forgotten the Elves, but for the most part they have forgiven them.

The Queen paid the price for her Honor, half her kingdom left her, angry over her bending a knee to a Dwarf, and the Kingdom of Tuatha was reborn, under the myth that the Tuathan's had never bowed to another. Tuatha would, in time, eclipse the tribe of Siti in power and glory, but her arrogance would ensure her eventual fall.

But what of the original Tuathans?  None had heard of them for hundreds of years, and they were presumed dead.  The orcs of the southwest were quiesent as they had never been before.

Yet it is no mystery to those who are not blinded by hatred and pride why the first Human kingdom of note arose in the Southwest, where the original Tuatha reigned. None at all.

Thus Ended the last of the Elder Ages, and thus Begun the Age of Myth.

The history of the First Human Kingdom was never written.  They themselves had no intrest in such activities, and their origins were mysterious to the nations of their contemporaries.

However it is not forgotten by the Gods of the World, nor was it unnoticed by the First.

In the Southwest, where Shining Tuatha once stood, and Proud Tuatha rose from her ashes, the mingled tribes of Orc and Elf watched with secret dismay as the Goblin Wars came to an end.  Not because they gloried in it, nor because they hated the outcome.

No, they dismayed due to shame and fear. The Orcs of Hru'tha were all but gone, only tribes with too much hatred in their hearts remained pure. The Elves had, in sorry, in desperation, and even in love or lust had mated with the Hru'tha, and their children were things neither Elf nor Orc.  The immortal Elves remained to watch over this new race that slowly replaced the Orcs, but they feared their sin was written plainly on the faces of their decendents.

And so they fled in the night, slowly, and over many years the hybrid tribes migrated away from the rising spires of the new Danu, as their home was once and again called.  They fled away from the center, away from the heartlands of the Elves, and settled on a vast rocky island in the heart of a great Sea.  It is said that this sea was called Tibor, for the Elves filled it with their tears of shame and grief for their short lived children.  

These Humans, as they came to call themselves in time, were not entirely like the men of today. Longer lived, more perfectly formed, more savage, they build a mighty home for themselves in the Sea of Tibor. Surviving the Goblin War had taught them much of magic, and they witnessed the engineering of the Dwarves and were impressed, so they copied it, slowly and haltingly at first.

The Tibor found Dragons roosting in teh mountains of their Island home, and with cunning and magic enslaved them as the Titans once had.

The first record of the Tibor was the sudden destruction of a mighty goblin horde being incinerated from above by Dragonfire and sorcery.  Later they demanded tribute from the Elven kingdoms, and in time recieved it, for the Elves had never had power over Dragons. The Tibor fought with the Tuatha, too proud to bend a knee.

But it was the Daeylyreath who ended their reign in bloodshed.  The Tibor had treated the Daeylyreath as they would any other elf, and demanded tribute. They earned a violent response, and to the shock of the Dark Tribe, very nearly exterminated them. Only the races retreat to the Demonic realms saved them, as it always had. But the Tibor, in their arrogance and ignorance, did not realize that Demons were real, that the Daeylyreath were still a threat, and when the dark ones arrived in the night in the hidden fastnesses of Tibor's mighty fortresses, they found no one able to stop them from the slaughter. And so the first race of Men was no more.

But their progenitors had long since left them, and human villages and outposts were scattered everywhere that Humans had been.

In time more kingdoms arose, Morkath, Hiideia, Gompileste... and they fell. Morkath and Hiideia destroyed eachother in magical wars over borderlands, Gompileste was destroyed by a flight of Dragons for daring to attempt to rule over them, as Tibor once had.

The Goblins, never entirely out of sight, returned and the second Goblin War came to dominate Haven.  The humans fought alongside the Elves and Dwarves and when necessary, even the Orcs.  And in the wake of the second War, much easier than the first, all the Elven kingdoms but Mighty Tuatha came to view this new upstart race as younger kin, taking their fledgling nations under wing, if only to prevent disasters.

The Tuatha, for their part, never forgot the Tibor and their arrogant demands, or the losses suffered from Dragons. Might Tuatha, whose Armies were unmatched for all the Mythic Age.


Far from Danu, a new human kingdom arose, again as if from nothing.  A lost tribe, living in the forests and hills of the northeast uncovered a secret not for mortal men. They found a tiny fragment of the Demon who had become Death, merged with the the flesh of the God who had become the Barrier.

The Stone of the Egg, as they called it, provided their primative mages with an understanding of magic that had not been matched by even the mighty Titans, if not their power. Understanding of the true nature of Magic, and of the Gods and even Death itself, they raised a might kingdom whose name still rings from the pages of History, and whose mark upon Haven was as great as that of even the Titans themselves.  Her name was Irem, and at her heart a mighty city of brass raised by servants conjured from the Chaos itself.

At first Irem was at peace with her distant neighbors. At first. But their understanding of the warp and weft of the world was too great for that to last. Using magics undreamed of by others they learned witnessed the history of Haven, it's creation, the arrival of the Demons, the Titans, all of it.  They saw that a life of magic and comfort and immortal power had all turned to dust in the blink of an eye... the eye of a First God. They learned, to their horror that all life, all things on Haven were merely part of the Great Machine, the knowledge of which had never been in mortal hands before, and whose secret was lost with Irem.  Knowing the fickle, amoral nature of the Gods, and the worse one of Demons first hand, they resolved to never fall to that fate. The cunningness of their plan was to draw upon the Fountainhead all the power they needed to become as the First Gods themselves, or even to surpass them.

Their failure created a massive wasteland, the very heart of which is a Sea of Pure Chaos right inside Haven.  Even the Gods wept at their failure, and creation shrunk as the Border tore and new terrible beings entered the breach, along with the raw stuff of Chaos.  It is said that mastery of magic, the magic of Irem would allow one to enter that inland Sea, and recover the artefacts of Irem herself, still intact, hidden within.  But even the Gods fear that Sea, for it's merest touch would dissolve them utterly.

A full discorse on the History of Irem would include such details as their war with the Tuatha, the fall of Danu, or the shocking loss of magic that followed in their wake, even a discussion of such arcane topics as how the casting of magic was forever altered by their passing and it's manner.

However, such conversations must await another day. Irem was destroyed, magic fled the world, only to return slowly and much changed. The End of Irem was also the End of the Mythic Age and the ancient cultures who had filled it.  Only the Daeylyreath remained unaffected, sequestered in terror in their demonic homes.  Why the Daeylyreath feared so is a tale for another day.

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