History of the elves: Pre-war

The elves believe the first of their kind originated around 3,500 years pre-vierstone (p.v.). Elven settlements grew from four known locations across Faeran, all of which eventually became the Great Cities of the four Kindoms of elves: Morcanan, Remsgraen, Telem Fier, and Tura. Each city was founded on a substantial vierstone deposit, from which the elves believe Riu made them.

In the first millennia of life in Faeran, the elves led a simple existence, building small settlements near their origins that complemented the natural geography and ecology of the region. The elves slowly multiplied and learned to build, craft, hunt, and farm. By the end of their first thousand years on Faeran, the elves had begun to build the Great Cities.

By the year 1500 p.v., all four Great Cities had been built, and leaders had been chosen among the elves of each Kindom. The elves began to wander the surrounding lands as their population increased. The separate Kindoms discovered each other with delight, and there was some mingling and mixing, though most ultimately remained with their own Kindoms. Relations of trade and companionship developed among the four groups.

Villages moved further and further from the Great Cities, and over time, the elves of these towns began to ‘descend,’ both in skill and in temperament. As centuries passed, these elves could no longer build or carve or forge as their kin in the Cities could. They bore little love for one another and lived solitary lives, focused only on individual needs and wants. Even the structure of their towns crumbled under the weight of time. Meanwhile, the Great Cities were growing more incredible, beautiful, and powerful with every year, and as they waxed in their might and joy, the waning of those elves beyond the cities became increasingly apparent.

Not knowing what could possibly cause such a disparity, the elves of the Great Cities grew to look down upon their kin beyond their walls, dealing with them as little as possible and prospering within their cities of beauty and innovation. There were many elves who were deeply disturbed by the matter, however. Those who had watched family and friends move from the cities and change in both personality and livelihood were determined to find the answer to their race’s class divide and bridge the gap.

In the year reckoned ‘0’ by the elves, the existence of vierstone was discovered. It was centuries more before all four vierstone sites were identified and the elves drew the connection to the timeless Great Cities, superior elven skill, and even the kinder disposition of the elves who dwelt near vierstone.

Around the year 1000, the elves began to mine vierstone to build into their infrastructure. The repair of those cities build beyond the Great Cities improved, but the quantity of stone was substantially smaller than that within the Great Cities, and it did not have great influence on the skills or character of elves within the villages. The social divide remained between the elves of the Great Cities and the ‘rural’ elves, though its cause was then understood.

Over the centuries, the elves developed their understanding of vierstone and its properties, realizing the full importance of its presence in their lives. They discovered that physically touching the stone brought about its benefits more strongly than its presence in the air and the city foundations alone.

In the year 2100, the elves began to make vierstone earrings that made their way to every elf in Faeran.

The effect was swift. The elves of the country rose in skill and disposition to match that of their kin in the Great Cities within decades, but though the social gap between these former classes of elves lessened during the years leading to the Great War, it never entirely disappeared. The War itself accomplished what the elves could not do alone. During the centuries of anguish and strife, the distinction between one’s birthplace and their worth all but went away.

Despite their social struggle, at the time of the War’s onset, the elves had built a complex and prosperous society among all four Kindoms. They lived largely at peace with one another, and the decades and centuries bled into one another, distinguished only by new inventions and improvements in science, art, and knowledge.

In the year 2340, the volcano above Morcanan erupted in a violent explosion of fire and ash, changing the world of the elves forever.