No historian should claim certainty regarding the ancient world, especially one who thinks they can know over 100,000 years of history when viewed from the present in 139,752 CC (1039 ÆC). Much of what follows is reconstructed from ruined cities, weathered inscriptions, and chronicles copied so many times that one must wonder whether the scribes or the centuries introduced more errors. Even among the aelvar, tradition has a troubling habit of becoming accepted as fact. Whenever possible, I have favored archaeology over legend. CC stands for Creation Calendar, while ÆC stands for the common Ætaine Calendar that most humans use.
All surviving evidence points to a catastrophe over 100,000 years ago unlike any other, taking place within a few centuries of 38,451 CC called "The Binding" at the time of the collapse. The civilization of the ancient A’lárians vanished, the continents were forever altered, and even the natural laws governing the world appear to have changed; some of the ancient tools that used to work no longer do in modern time. Every people traces its history or origin story to before or after this event, yet none can explain precisely what occurred.
For nearly twenty thousand years thereafter, little can be stated with confidence. The surviving peoples struggled simply to endure in a devastated world.
By approximately 58,000 CC, the pale-aelvar had established their first, and so far only, lasting kingdom far to the west on a large island chain. Of their early history I know almost nothing beyond scattered references preserved by my people, mostly from repeated raids to obtain slaves that appear to have driven the early fore bearers of the high-aelvar steadily toward the mountains and away from the coasts.
Around 70,000 CC, permanent city-states of the Saelarí, my people, emerged among the eastern and western mountain ranges, while the wood-aelvar, the Lethari, united into their first great forest realms. Their languages had by then diverged enough that the ancient tongue had become all but unknown.
The dverger seemed to recover more slowly, though they share little of their history with outsiders. Their oldest surviving records that I have accessed suggest that by approximately 85,000 CC, their great cities on the Ithkathzi island chain had become firmly established, preserving or reinventing many crafts that the rest of the world had long forgotten.
Humans present a different story altogether. According to the oldest surviving high-aelvar records, they were never absent from the continent. For untold millennia they lived as scattered tribes of hunters and herders, raiding and warring amongst themselves while struggling constantly against the varvarski, who then dominated much of the northern wilderness.
Only in 135,459 CC (3,254 BÆC) did the first enduring human kingdom arise near present-day Athenasia, across the modern day Sea of Ætaine from the dverger's Ithkathzi homeland. Agriculture spread, villages became towns, and kingdoms slowly displaced the old tribal lands, forcing the varvarski steadily back into the northern mountains.
Human history thereafter accelerated with remarkable speed. Alliances between tribes and villages became kingdoms, kingdoms became empires, and discoveries that required centuries among the aelvar often spread through humanity within a single generation. Wars were fought between my people, the wood-aelvar, and the humans over lands long forgotten about by our short-lived friends, though I know many of my people who’s grandfathers or great grandfathers fought against these early human kingdoms over important locations and trade routes.
The defining event of the modern age came in 138,701 CC (12 BÆC), when more than two hundred thousand varvarski laid siege to Ætaine. Though half the city was destroyed during six months of fighting, the allied kingdoms prevailed. In the years that followed, Ætaine united much of the known continent, and its influence became so profound that its founding calendar, beginning in 138,713 CC (0 ÆC), remains the standard reckoning used by nearly every civilized nation. During the height of this short-lived - well… for us aelvar - empire, many smaller high and wood-aelvar settlements were abandoned to the humans, with the wood-aelvar traveling deeper into their forests and many of my people moving to our island home of Masithia.
The eventual decline of the Ætaine Empire reshaped the continent once again. Successor kingdoms emerged across its former territories, among them the ancestors of the modern Drak’nir Empire, whose ambitions continue to threaten its neighbors, despite its seven centuries of existence.
The Kingdom of Valmark, in its present form, is comparatively young, having only been resettled some four centuries ago atop an older city destroyed in the human wars following the Ætaine Empire’s collapse. By the standards of the aelvar races, it has scarcely reached adulthood, or one lifespan of a dverg. Yet history repeatedly reminds us that the age of a nation and the significance of its people are rarely measured by the same scale.
Should future scholars prove portions of this chronology incorrect, I shall count that not as failure, but as progress. History advances one recovered piece of knowledge at a time.
— from the research notes of Zyr’Magi Tes’Lothen, Magi “the Blade”, high-aelv scholar, mage, and swordsman
