A Brief History of Eryndor and the Grudge Wars
Penned by Anthros, Wanderer of Eryndor, Keeper of Histories
The current year is 1025 and Eryndor enjoys peace. Though as is often the case, our peace came with a river of blood and our cities are built on the bones of nations. No one remembers what caused the world to end. No one knows exactly how long ago it ended. There are myths and legends about the world before time began. But that world is gone.
Every nation was destroyed, and nearly every species eradicated from Eryndor. And then began the period of time known in legend as the Shadow Days — a brutal time that stretched for countless centuries. Life was harsh and might made right. Occasionally, warlords rose up and were torn down, only to be replaced by a more brutal successor.
Slowly, hidden groups of people began to band together and form communities. In time, communities became cities, became nations. And as all people do, sooner or later, exploration began to call, and people started to meet. The nations discovered one another, and at first there was fascination, then there was fear.
The First War — Aasimar and Tieflings (Year 1)
It began with the Aasimar. A band of settlers attempted to establish a village nestled in the beautiful valley between two massive peaks. They didn’t know that it belonged to Tieflings as a sacred burial ground or site of ritual significance.
It started with words and warnings. But when posturing isn’t enough, someone looses a flare of magic. Or an arrow. Or a spear. The result is always the same.
When the Aasimar sent scouts to check on the village and resupply them, what they found were bodies left in the sun and infernal symbols burned into homes and fields.
So began the first war. And so began our calendar, our current age. Historians mark the Aasimar-Tiefling conflict as Year 1. For hundreds of years to follow, the Aasimar of the Bastions of Solara hunted the Tieflings, taking their cities and their homes. There were atrocities on both sides, but sooner or later, the only thing of the Tieflings that remained was the hidden refuge of Ash-Korrath.
This was far from the only conflict. It was only the first.
The Elves and the Vaulted Emissaries
The elves, high in their trees, in their vaulted canopy fortresses, remained aloof and took a different approach to the Warring States.
Long-lived and wise, they sent emissaries to each nation with gifts and treaties. They offered instruction in the rudiments of archery and diplomacy. Most nations were standoffish at best to their attempts at flattery. The humans, gnomes, and halflings welcomed the Vaulted Emissaries, though their influence was never greater than the guidance they provided to the humans.
To the humans, they were near deities — myths and legends come to life walking among them. They gave the humans ships. And any time a race, any time a nation dared to challenge the elves, the elves would spend decades sowing rumors and telling stories of these nations to the humans. And then, with not more than a word of encouragement, the humans would flock to those ships and sail to war.
This continued until 752, when the human king Gregor the Fourth, known for his wisdom and justice, wary of the elves and their influence over the nation, challenged their authority and their vaulted wisdom. He spent his reign refusing warfare and instead beginning institutes and monasteries.
He started the School of the Praetorian Guard. He established arcane universities, libraries, and mandated written records of all ministers of state. The Elven emissaries, weary of these records, were caught in an ambush burning the Library of Caer Thain. Finding them guilty, Gregor executed the emissaries and banished the remaining elves. When he banished them and revealed centuries of manipulation, it would be four full generations before another elf would step foot in Kastalshire.
By that point, the damage was done, and the elves were no longer trusted — even despised by many.
The Rise of the Drakmir Dominion
But the elves had their own conflicts to deal with, and the loss of their human allies had to be left alone. For the Drakmir Dominion was on the rise.
The Dragonborn and Kobolds had united behind the Archon of Scales, an enigmatic figure that brought the races together and formed them not into a tribe, but into a war-ready people. Armies are expensive, and training needs to be tested. The armies of the Dominion marched, conquering nearly all of eastern Eryndor.
The Orkish nation had been pushed to the brink. Only by incorporating the goblinoids as equals into their society could the Redmarch Coalition survive. So they did, and little by little, they took the rocky ground, a few icy slopes, and satisfied themselves in the land that the Dominion had no use for.
The Warforged of the Forged Sands waged a defensive war — and won. They were impervious to siege, and their homes, behind fields of glass and sand, made conquering nearly impossible and occupation a nightmare.
The Goliaths of Thundra were pushed further and further north, past wild lands and deep into the tundra. Many of the Dragonborn fared poorly in the cold, and so they drew their borders at the mountains, leaving the Goliaths to their icy wastes.
The Bastions of Solara, in their vaulted peaks, proved difficult to dislodge. Additionally, the Bastions recognized the Archon of Scales in his might and sued for peace.
The Dwarves Unite
Meanwhile, in the Halls of Kar Dromm, the dwarves fought one another for dominance. Not even the dwarves know how long they killed one another beneath their mountains, deep in their holds.
They were united by the vision of one eccentric dwarf who sought not to dominate the clans, but to unite them. He was neither clan chief nor king — he was but a single stone smith. As he carved, others joined him, and over the course of centuries, the Stone Road was complete. Slowly, the dwarves began to unite.
The first dwarven king ruled a united Kar Dromm in the year 583. There were eight of the strongest clans. In 812, Clan Magi-Steel was recognized as the ninth clan, followed by Clan Stone-Sky in 851.
The Gnomes of Lexovar
Perhaps the only nations to meet one another and not immediately go to war were the nations of halflings and gnomes. They battled pirates and raiders of every nation and fought human invasions often. Though, as the nation of Lexovar was left mostly to its own devices, it was able to grow.
The gnomes did not grow out — they grew tall cities, ancient schools. In them grew a thirst and a need to create. The gnomes fashioned constructs: small ones for everyday use, others large and formidable.
Many attempted to attack and conquer Lexovar, but it was too late. There were too many defenses. And rather than close its borders, the city of Ciliren opened its doors. Trade flourished, innovation was king, and other nations started taking notice.
Seeing the riches of Lexovar, the dwarves of Kar Dromm attempted a full-scale invasion in 846 but struggled to maintain any kind of occupation. They retreated by 851.
The Grudge War (903–1008)
At this time, the goliath clans of Thundra in eastern Eryndor and Kar in western Eryndor united under a single banner and became the nation of Thundrakar. Uniting with the Redmarch Coalition, they began a full-scale invasion of the halfling nation in 903.
This invasion would spark the first simultaneous global war — remembered as the Grudge War. Scores would be settled, and borders would be challenged.
The sacking of Talvereth would spark conflicts across Eryndor.
In the West:
- Kar Dromm resumed its invasion of Lexovar
- Ash-Korrath and the Bastions of Solara saw the Celestial Mountains become a wasteland of battle as the Redmarch Coalition pressed the Bastions from the east
- Kastalshire attacked Thundrakar’s shores relentlessly
- Sea-born conflicts involving Thalenmark, Lexovar, Kastalshire, and Thundrakar ushered in privateers, and in the confusion the current age of piracy was born
In the East:
- The Drakmir Dominion waged war on three fronts: the Goliaths to the north, the elves to the south, and against both the Redmarch Coalition and the Bastions of Solara to the west
As is the case in every war, there were innumerable atrocities, acts of terrorism, and horrors unseen for millennia. But there were also unseen acts of bravery, too innumerable to account here. There was brotherhood, friendships, and bonds forged.
The End of the Grudge War
By the year 978, the western half of Eryndor was secure and at peace. Borders had been set, treaties signed, and honor maintained. In the east, the battle raged on.
Fueled in part by the halflings of Thalenmark — supplying both sides of the remaining conflict through caravan and naval deliveries of food, weapons, and medical supplies to any who could pay — no blockade was too strong and no siege too tight.
Only the elves, in their ancient pride, resisted, and war raged heavy between the Republic of Sylvandar and the Drakmir Dominion. The elves employed guerrilla tactics and ambush strikes against the Dominion forces who marched and burned.
Weakened from a century of war and with much pressure from the remaining nations, the Drakmir Dominion and Republic of Sylvandar signed peace accords in the year 1008 at the Celestial Halls of the Bastions of Solara.
The Present Age (1008–1025)
Since the conclusion of the Grudge War, there have been many small-scale conflicts — skirmishes, outbreaks of violence, riots, rebellions, and the opportunities for warriors to show their prowess. But on a large scale, over the last seventeen years, the nation has known peace.
How long it will last, and what will eventually shatter it, has yet to be seen — although many peoples, groups, organizations, and more than a few nations would love to see it shattered.