The History of Taneth
The Age of Dragons
In time immemorial, the Gods created the world and walked upon it. They fashioned the land and the seas, the sun and the stars. They created all the myriad flora and fauna that inhabit it; from the tiniest bug to fantastical beasts. Their crowning achievement, by all accounts, were the mighty Dragons; who soared above the world and nested beneath it, some were masters of the waves, others of the forests. No corner of the world knew them not. They were blessed with knowledge; language, writing and magic were theirs from birth. They ruled over the world in whichever way they saw fit and so an Age passed.
The Elder Races were also created, as well as Giants and other creatures blessed with sentience and those primitive civilisations developed under the guidance of the Gods. The Dragons were divided on the "Lesser" Races, however; some thought they existed merely to serve, using them as slaves and ruling over them in the crulest manner. Other Dragons saw the potential in them and strove to cultivate their minds and societies into something greater. As was inevitable, war shattered the world. Giant fought Dwarf, Elf fought Gnome and Dragon fought Dragon until eventually there were no more Dragons left and the world was a darker place for it. Many creatures became extinct in the Dragon Wars, never to be seen again.
This was many thousands of years ago and only myth, legend and hearsay remind us of what might have been during the infancy of the world.
The Age of Giants
The oldest historical records, those few fragments that still remain, and some of the oldest tales tell of the Age of Giants. When all the Dragons were gone, the Lesser Races struggled to recover from the terrible Dragon Wars. The world was changed and was made a harsher place; from the ashes rose first the mightiest of creatures; the Giants. The Gods were gone, having left with the passing of the last Dragon. So the Giants forged their civilisations anew and ruled, but it was not as with the Dragons; the Giants were cruel masters, all. Songs of woe and sadness are still sung of this time, for the Elder Races; the Dwarves, the Gnomes and the Elves, being smaller and weaker were enslaved by the Giants. Under their lash, the great civilisation of the Giants rose up; a testament to the will of those that built it, though it was built on the suffering of the ancestors of the Elder Races.
Besides a few songs, scraps of scrolls and crumbling ruins, however, little remains from this Age, for a great calamity befell the Giants...the Sidhe arrived.
The Age of the Sidhe
Less still is known of the Sidhe than of the Giants. Though the Giants were cruel, the Sidhe were a devastation. They came from beyond the Veil, bringing death and destruction, with a face so fair it caused men to weep at the mere sight of such beauty. Folk tales still remain of the form and habits of the Sidhe, who took many shapes and guises, but little is known of what they truly wanted. Fear is all they brought and when they left, they left nothing.
All any could do was hide. The first to go were the Giants; thinking themselves strong, they confronted the Sidhe and died. Thousands of enslaved Elves, Dwarves and Gnomes died in the preliminary battles. The Elves retreated to the forests. The Dwarves and Gnomes retreated beneath the earth, cowering in the darkest places, digging deeper and deeper until they could dig no more. For more than a thousand years, they hid, biding their time and struggling to survive in the depths of the earth.
When eventually the Gnomes (being the most curious of Races) made their way back to the surface, the world was once again changed. Seas had shifted, forests were destroyed and new ones arisen, where once there were deserts, there were lush jungles and where once there was green fields, there was wasteland. The once great cities of the Giants were mere ruins and there was no sign of the Elves. Magic, it seemed, had become much diminished; the remaining Elder Races had never learned much from their Giant overlords and along with the Elves, many of the magical creatures that once inhabited the world were simply gone. Great beastial creatures haunted the dark corners of the world, some bearing resemblance to the once proud and noble giants, but a sad and broken resemblance it was. Of the Sidhe; nothing remained.
The Age of Strife (4A0 to 4A1427)
The modern chronicles of history begin.
With the Sidhe gone, the Gnomes and eventually the Dwarves too emerged from their subterranean halls and began the long struggle to build anew. New beings populated the world; Humans and their smaller kin, the Halflings lived primitive existences in rude villages and tribes. The Orcs and Gnolls, no more developed but bestial and vicious, hunted them for food and in the deepest swamps and jungles, the Lizardfolk brooked no strangers. Amidst this chaos, the Gnomes and Dwarves taught the Younger Races what they could, but the Orcs and Gnolls resented such interference, prefering their tribal ways and the Lizardfolk...well the Lizardfolk did not want to listen.
So it was the Humans and Halflings that inherited the wisdom of the Elder Races and with that knowledge and with the aid of their Elders, fought back the hordes of Orcs and Gnolls and contained the Lizardmen in their remote sanctuaries in the swamps and jungles. A new civilisation began to arise, a coalition of Younger and Elder Races. It was not easy and there were many set-backs, but eventually people began looking to the future, to a time of prosperity, trade and advancement.
The Modern Age (5A0 to 5A729)
The Modern Age is recognised to have begun with the founding of the Kingdom of Taneth, with its seat of power at the great city of Welbridge. Nestled in the foothills of the Griffonridge Mountains, Welbridge sits at the conjunction of three borders; to the north lie the Dwarven Halls, to the south are the Human Lands and to the west, the Gnome Principalities. The Halflings hold no lands of their own, preferring to integrate with the societies they live among. From Welbridge, the King of the Humans, the Master of the Dwarves and the Prince of the Gnomes (all titles of equal rank among their own people), rule jointly for the betterment of the Kingdom as a whole.
Orcs, Gnolls and Lizardfolk still plague the region, raiding from their respective lairs, but the armies of the Kingdom keep them in check. Dark things still lurk in the corners of the world, but the fear of enslavement by Giants or the terror of the Sidhe have been banished along with "foolish" notions about mythical creatures, Dragons and magic. It is a modern age and such stories as told by the Elders are considered only that; bedtime stories and the fanciful ravings of old fools...
...until, that is, the midwinter of 5A729, when the Long Winter began and the Sidhe were rumoured to have been seen.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:07, Fri 08 May 2020.
