An Age of Small Dreams

(AG 612 - 1256)
 

AG 798

The illithid attack the Dwarven Jewels - Disaster struck when the dwarven undercity of Skar Yltik fell silent.  Without warning, merchant caravans ceased to come by either Hall or river and no one sent to investigate returned.  Surface expeditions found that the route down into the city from the hill dwarves above had simply been sealed without warning or explanation.  Only when the neighboring city of Arkazaer sent a full military expedition was the truth discovered.  Long thought slain during the war with the Orodravian, a cabal of illithid had survived, retreating deep beneath the earth with slaves and supplies.  There, below even the dwarves, they had forged their twisted servants into the drow and the deurgar, training and equipping them.  Without warning, they had boiled up and in less than a day taken Skar Yiltik.

AG 801

The fall of the second undercity - The dwarven undercity of Arkazaer was the second to fall to the mind flayers, though neither as swiftly nor as cleanly as had Skar Yiltik.

AG 809

The fall of the third undercity - Taking longer to recover from the losses they had sustained, the dwarven undercity of Har Ret Kinik would not fall until almost a decade after its brothers.

AG 818

The fall of the fourth undercity - Tan'm'met on the shores of the great underground ocean of Ahkmet was the fourth dwarven undercity to be swept away by the tide of the illithid armies.

AG 827

The fall of the fifth undercity - Finally, the mind flayers and their slaves razed the Amethyst City of N'qhel where was assembled the largest dwarven army since the Orodravian fell, with warriors from every surviving city and the Forgemaster of Garand's Forge at their head.  It seemed like the tide was unstoppable, that the dwarves would be swept away, but the illithid had finally over-extended themselves.  N'qhel burned, but it was a Pyrrhic victory for the illithid, with a ruinous number of their slaves dead and burning with the city.

AG 832

The illithid are halted - Unable to absorb the losses at N'qhel, the illithid forces were smashed at the gates of Shaddac Kraul, thrown back to stalk the ruins of their conquests.  This bought the Battlebronze Clan enough time to transform what had once been a bustling trade city at the branching of the Heartriver into one of the mightiest fortresses in the world.  Since that time, from small skirmishes to major attacks, not a week has gone by that Shaddac Kraul has not had fighting of some sort.

AG 834

The Blackbone Plague - Tthe dwarven war against the illithid claimed another victim: Garand's Forge.  With the loss of their Forgemaster at N'qhel and so many of their men dead or injured, they were a suffering city when Blackbone struck.  Hideous and virulent, it was a plague that caused the victim's marrow to rot in their bones.  Some argued that it was as a result of the decreasing sanitation in the city and others that it was planted by mind flayer agents, but either way it tore through the city.  Faced with the danger of it spreading, the dwarves of Theyed collapsed the tunnels leading to it, sinking any ship that tried to come down the river.  Unfortunately, the efforts weren't enough to keep hill dwarves on the surface that were infected from fleeing, causing small outbreaks elsewhere.  Prepared and forewarned, however, the other cities were able to keep from having outbreaks on a level with Garand's Forge.

AG 907

First Eldestan colony started - Lead by Maskar Onning, almost two thousand settlers from Xain landed after months at sea in what is today the city of Farshore, the ships dismantled to make the framework for the city.  Unfortunately, dissension was almost immediate and the group split into three factions: those who wanted to return, those who wanted to stay at Farshore and those who wished to push in deep, led by a Xaini lesser noble named Hok Imarl.  Though the majority ended up remaining in Farshore, almost 800 followed Hok...to disaster.

AG 908

The Black Winter of Eldesta - Through a combination of incompetent leadership and poor luck, Hok's 800 were reduced to less than 400 within a year.  On the verge of returning to Farshore with their heads low, they were surprised when it was the population of Onning's city that showed up at their walls.  Farshore had been devastated by a pirate raid, their leadership slain and much of their supplies pillaged or burned.  Without any hope of surviving another such attack, almost 700 survivors set out for the so-called Hokholt, though only 500 arrived.

Faced with a crisis, winter fast coming and Hok's leadership sure to kill them all, the captain of his guard--Nyels Eldesta--did the only thing she could: coup d'état.  Gathering those guards loyal to her, she stormed Hok's fortified compound and put the man to the sword.  Eldestan lore still remembers the Black Winter that almost wiped out their fledgling country, but Eldesta was able to make the hard choices that brought them all through to the spring.  In time, she was able to forge a nation out of the wilderness, discovering that Farshore had survived in diminished grandeur and opening up the country to an influx of hopeful settlers.

AG 1186

The Republic of Sylat founded - Colonists from theEmpire of the Sun, theElven Ascendancy, and theMalakute Confederacycame together to create a new nation in the hopes of re-energizing the people of the world and push back the shrinking borders of civilization.  For the first decade or so, everything seemed to be going well, with everyone working together to raise a nation out of the wilderness.

AG 1192

The War for Xaini Independence begins - The roots were inauspicious: a young boy named Deric Atmar--uncle to the then-infant Queen Omala--was wed to an Imperial noble to strengthen his family's mercantile connections with the lucrative grain trade.  Quickly, the impressionable young duke was swayed by his older bride to see the plight of his people and feel a righteous indignation over it.  In secret, he used his considerable wealth to recruit and equip a small group of guerrilla warriors, who he then sent out with funds to establish networks throughout Xain.  In an event known variously as the Bloody Sunrise, the Dawn of Spears, and the Rise of the Silver Sun, the rebel factions that had been building in Xain launched attacks against targets critical to the entrenched nobility in AG 1192.

So began the War for Xaini Independence, one of the bloodiest struggle since the fall of the Orodravian.  Casualties were horrific, the streets of many cities running red with the blood of patriots on both sides.  In the end, Xain could not be overthrown, but many large chunks of the country broke away to form Western Xain, Amantara, Ofir, and Seliune.

AG 1199

The Blight Harvest - Disease sweeps through the crops across much of the Republic of Sylat.  The Republic began to split along ideological and racial lines, until it devolved into five warring camps.  Over the next three generations, the elves of Sylat managed to overwhelm three of their four competitors, forcing them back into the Republic "for their own good."