The Chronicle of Aeltharion

Before Men crossed into the eastern lands, before the Elves raised towers of stone and living wood, before the Dwarves carved their first great halls beneath the mountains, the world belonged to the elements. Giants and dragons stood at the height of that ancient order. Storm giants commanded lightning from the skies. Fire giants awakened volcanoes and melted entire mountain ranges. Frost giants buried the plains beneath glaciers. Hill and stone giants raised fortresses from solid rock, and some of these works are said to endure still in the remotest places of Aeltharion.

In the Central Desert, there are even rumors of ruins forged from hardened sand — relics of a craft no younger race has ever understood. The dragons ruled differently. Where giants shaped the world through strength, dragons shaped it through hunger, dominion, and ancient will. No human chronicle preserves the cause of the war between them, and the Elves themselves speak of it only in fragments. Yet all traditions agree upon its end.

The war of giants and dragons broke the old world. The mountains were torn open. Southern lands drowned beneath rain and mist. Swamps and jungles formed below the Central Massif, where clouds broke endlessly upon the high stone. Deserts widened. Valleys burned. Rivers changed their beds. Both giants and dragons were driven to the edge of extinction.

The few who survived withdrew into extreme and isolated places — dragons to hidden lairs, giants to remote mountains, wastelands, and forgotten holds. Among the giant-descended peoples, only the Oromun preserved something resembling civilization, dwelling in large villages at the feet of great mountain ranges and carrying within them the endurance of stone. With the fall of the elemental powers, the younger races began their ascent.

The First Peoples of Aeltharion

The Elves and Dwarves inhabited the continent long before the arrival of Men. The Elves flourished in the renewed valleys and forests. They healed landscapes scarred by ancient wars and raised cities of remarkable beauty — delicate towers of stone and living wood, surrounded by vast parklands and shaped in harmony with the world around them.

The Dwarves stood close to the memory of the giants. It is said that, in the earliest ages, they forged weapons for beings who had once shaped the world itself. By the time later historians can speak with greater certainty, they had become builders, artisans, miners, and masters of vast underground realms. Beneath nearly every mountain stood a Dwarven stronghold, guarding deep mines and blazing forges. Their halls were carved with unmatched precision, their works sought across all lands.

In those early days, Elves and Dwarves were bound by trade. The Elves required metals and gemstones for their magic. The Dwarves possessed both in abundance. From this cooperation came artifacts whose names are still spoken in guarded archives. Yet no alliance founded upon need is immune to pride.

The Discovery of Mithril

The first great wound between Elves and Dwarves came with the discovery of Mithril. Beneath the roots of an ancient stonewood tree — one of the colossal remnants of the age of giants — a Wood Elven clan uncovered the first vein of the silver metal. To the Elves, Mithril was sacred, a substance bound to the very essence of the world. Some called it the blood of the great stonewood trees.

Yet the Elves could not shape it. The Dwarves could. For a time, this discovery strengthened the bond between the two peoples. Elves held the sacred metal, and Dwarves possessed the craft to work it. Weapons, wards, ornaments, and symbols of power emerged from that exchange. But Dwarven hunger for rare things is seldom satisfied by trade alone.

Drawn by Mithril, Dwarven miners drove their tunnels beyond their own domains and into Elven lands beneath the plains. To the Dwarves, this may have seemed no more than the extension of a mine. To the Elves, it was desecration. War followed.

The First Dwarven-Elven War

The First Dwarven-Elven War was a conflict of steel against magic, fought above and below the earth. Dwarven tunnels became battlefields. Elven groves became mustering grounds. Mithril, once the bond between the two peoples, became the cause of bloodshed.

In the end, the Dwarves lost access to Mithril, and for a generation all trade between the two peoples ceased. Yet the war did not end cleanly. One Wood Elven ruling pair, overcome by grief and vengeance, pursued the Dwarves beneath their own realm. They drove deep into a Dwarven stronghold held by the Silverhammer clan and annihilated it.

The city was seized. The halls were taken. And those Elves who entered did not return to the surface. From this act emerged the first of the Deep Elves — pale descendants of vengeance, guilt, and exile without formal banishment. They became the children of a stolen hold, living proof that even Elven justice could become sin. Thus the First Dwarven-Elven War ended not in peace, but in silence.

The Coming of Men

During this same broad age, Men appeared in the east of Aeltharion. The first great city of Men was Kaapstad. Whether our ancestors came by ship, through a forgotten gate, or from lands now lost beyond record remains uncertain. The Elves received them with cautious generosity and granted them lands in the east.

For a time, Men were students of the older peoples. We learned roads, masonry, written law, and the deeper arts of kingship. We learned too quickly, some Elven records say. Perhaps they are correct. Men have always lacked the patience of long-lived races, and so we replace memory with ambition. But in those first generations, there was still peace enough for learning.

Kragmor the Magnificent

After the First Dwarven-Elven War, the Dwarves turned inward. Deprived of Mithril and wounded in pride, they focused almost entirely on the extraction of Adamantium. Many outer cities were abandoned, and the clans drew closer together. Their mines reached deeper than ever before.

Among their greatest cities stood Kragmor the Magnificent, seat of the Stonebreaker clan, a center of craft, tradition, and Dwarven pride. In Kragmor, the old ways endured. Men labored as warriors, miners, and smiths, while the equally bearded women tended to family, faith, and the finer crafts. Some of the most gifted stonecutters were counted among them. In old age, Dwarves withdrew from active life and lived together in communal households, sustained and honored by their clan.

The city was ruled by a Clanmaster, though in earlier centuries greater rulers — Khans — had governed multiple cities and mines. Yet even Kragmor could not withstand what followed.

“They dug not for gold, nor for glory, but for pride; and pride opened the way to damnation.” — Korin, Scribe of Tharondir

The Mines of Karagdum

Beneath Kragmor lay the Mines of Karagdum. They were rich with gold and Adamantium, and through trade and old craft, they had known Mithril too. But their true wealth was depth. No Dwarven mine had reached farther into the roots of Aeltharion.

The influx of refugees after the war strained Kragmor beyond measure. In response, the mines were expanded, driven ever deeper into the earth. At first, this brought prosperity. Then came silence. Miners failed to return. Those who did were changed — hostile, withdrawn, and increasingly violent toward their own kin. Expeditions sent from the upper city vanished without trace.

At last, the Clanmaster himself descended into the depths with a great host, seeking answers. He did not return.

“My father went down a miner, and returned a beast. He spoke no word, but in his gaze I knew the end of all things.” — Harnel, Son of Kragmor

The Source of Corruption

What the Dwarves had uncovered beneath Karagdum was not a vein of metal, nor an ancient tomb, nor a buried dragon. It was the Source of Corruption. At first, it was only a whisper in the rock. Then a sickness of the soul. Proud Dwarves turned to dark kin, their eyes burning with madness, their hammers stained with blood.

The Under-Dwarves rose from below and seized Kragmor. The news shook all Dwarven kind. Greed had always been known among them, but not this. Not slaughter. Not madness. Not kin turning upon kin with joyless fury.

The clans gathered and laid siege to the city, yet their efforts faltered. Scouts were destroyed. Spies were captured. Worse still, some among the besiegers began to defect. Fear spread among the clans.

The Second Dwarven-Elven War

In desperation, envoys were sent to the Elves, to the kingdoms of Men, and to any race that might answer. The Elves armed themselves with Mithril and stonewood. They equipped the armies of Men with weapons and armor beyond anything we had known. The Dwarves brought Adamantium and the last strength of their wounded clans.

Even the Deep Elves joined the war, though not out of love and not out of forgiveness. They knew the deep places. They heard changes in the stone before others did. They understood that the corruption beneath Kragmor threatened not only Dwarves, but every root, mine, and hidden passage of Aeltharion.

What followed was a war beneath the earth, fought in darkness and fire. For years, the mines of Kragmor became a battlefield. Tunnel by tunnel, chamber by chamber, every step was paid for in blood. Dwarves stood on both sides of the conflict. The corrupted ones armed themselves with Adamantium, while the Elves sent their Mithril-clad guard into the depths.

At the lowest reaches of the mines, the war reached its end. There, in the darkness beneath all things, the corrupted Clanmaster faced the Elven ruling pair. The enemy was defeated. But the corruption itself could not be destroyed. It could only be sealed.

The Sealing of Karagdum

The peoples united for the last great work of the First Age. The Elves gave sacred stonewood and Mithril. The Dwarves gave Adamantium. The Humans bore forth the Spear of Destiny, called Gungnir in the oldest songs of Men.

Whether it was truly a gift of the gods, as our priests maintain, or a weapon of forgotten craft, as some Elven scholars argue, is beyond the certainty of this chronicle. What matters is this: it did not fail.

A great gate was forged and bound with Elven stonewood, sealed with holy symbols of Mithril, strengthened with Dwarven Adamantium, and anchored by the Spear of Destiny of Men. Across it was laid Gungnir itself, no longer weapon, but lock and fate.

Thus were the Mines sealed. But Kragmor was no more. Its streets lay in ruin, its people scattered, its name spoken only as curse. With this, the fate of the world began to shift. The Dwarves entered a long decline, their unity broken and their numbers diminished. The Elves were divided, their people forever changed by what had been done beneath the earth. And Men rose.

Upon the buried halls of Karagdum rose the proud city of Tharondir. Guilds flourished. Towers gleamed. Markets widened. The gate of stonewood, Mithril, and Adamantium lay silent below, bound by the Spear of Destiny. Yet ambition is a fire that never dies.

“What man dares defy fate soon learns he is but its servant.” — Korin, Scribe of Tharondir

In the same age, the realms of Men grew quickly across eastern and central Aeltharion. For a brief moment, unity seemed possible. A tale is told of an Elven prince who fell in love with a human woman. From their union came a line of half-elven heirs, who ruled as imperial pairs over a dual empire, uniting Elven clans and human kingdoms.

But harmony built upon youth and memory rarely endures. Men multiplied. Elves withdrew. Dwarves declined. Gnomes moved between realms, carrying trade, craft, and rumor. The Kataxi remained hidden within the central desert, watching the borders of empire draw nearer. In the southern swamps, the Ithrax continued their ancient dominion over the Skarn, unseen by most and feared by those who understood them.

The Treachery of Xorim Dhar

In Tharondir, the sorcerer Xorim Dhar became obsessed with the Source itself. He believed the old gate did not merely imprison corruption, but concealed power. Like many who came after him, he mistook containment for invitation.

He courted the Thieves’ Guild of Tharondir, who craved the riches of Adamantium and Elven stonewood. Together they struck in darkness, descending to the ancient seals beneath the city.

“I saw them — the torches, the chanting. The air itself trembled as the sorcerer raised his hands. I fled, for no man could bear that sight.” — A Miner’s Account, recovered fragment

In his madness, Xorim Dhar drove Gungnir against the gate. The explosion shattered stone and soul alike. The thieves were destroyed. The gate held fast. But the Spear was broken into fragments, hurled across the endless depths. And Xorim Dhar was gone, as if torn from time itself.

“The torches went dark, the walls split, and I heard the Spear scream as it broke. When the dust cleared, he was gone. No corpse. No ash. Nothing.” — Surviving Tharondir Guard

The gate endured. Yet the Source’s corruption seeped once more into the mines. The name of Tharondir entered legend, and the fragments of Gungnir became whispers of hope and doom alike.

The Wars of Men and Kataxi

While Tharondir declined into legend, the dual empire of Men and Elves faced another crisis. The expanding influence of human realms brought settlers, traders, missionaries, and mystics ever closer to the central desert. There, within a vast plateau encircled by crescent mountains, lived the Kataxi — the Children of the Desert, or Sandborn.

At first, the Kataxi received outsiders with caution. Rangers were observed. Traders were tolerated. Envoys were allowed to pass. But when human missionaries and mystics attempted to impose their beliefs upon the desert clans, tolerance ended. The mission was not merely rejected. It was erased.

What followed became known as the First Kataxi-Human War, though at its beginning it was little more than a conflict between trading companies and militant orders. Only when Kataxi forces struck into imperial territory did the greater powers take notice. Through Elven and Gnomish intervention, peace was restored — fragile, but sufficient.

It did not last. A generation later, a new imperial ruling pair yielded to the demands of settlers and opened the steppe lands for colonization, in direct violation of earlier agreements. For decades, no Kataxi had been seen. Many believed them gone. They were not.

When the first settlements took root, the Kataxi returned. Their response was immediate and absolute. A punitive expedition swept through the frontier and destroyed an imperial border city without mercy. The empire fractured in the aftermath. The Elves called for restraint. The human lords demanded retaliation. The result was the Second Kataxi-Human War, a conflict that shattered the unity of the dual empire.

Within a single year, the border duchies were left in ruin. Once again, only Elven mediation brought an end to the conflict. The steppe became a no-man’s-land, untouched and unclaimed.

“Cities rise upon the bones of the fallen, and think themselves immortal. But the earth remembers.” — Korin, Scribe of Tharondir

Over centuries, many towns rose above Karagdum, only to fall to war, fire, or madness. At last there came Lathmar, city of guilds. Its walls brought safety. Its markets brought wealth. Its guilds brought order, rivalry, and ambition in equal measure. For a time, hope returned.

The realms of High Elves, Wood Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Kataxi, Oromun, Skarn, Lignari, and Men stood apart, each according to their own nature. Trade continued between them, often carried by Gnomes, who moved freely between cultures and profited from the movement of goods and secrets alike.

Yet beneath Lathmar, the Source did not sleep. In the upper mines, slave-masters built dungeons and arenas, selling blood and misery. In the deep, demons and cults grew strong, their chants echoing with the pulse of corruption. The Ithrax, masters of domination from the southern swamps, found opportunity wherever bondage was tolerated. Through the Skarn and through human weakness, their influence reached farther than most wished to admit.

“I was chained in the pits. Each night we fought for their sport. But when the heroes came, they broke our bonds and drove the masters into the dark.” — A Freed Slave of Lathmar

Heroes of that age rose against the slavers, burned their arenas, and pressed the demons back. Yet for all their valor, the fragments of Gungnir remained lost, scattered through the depths. And the Source endured.

Lathmar shone bright, but beneath its stones lay only cracks and whispers. The Third Age closed not with triumph, but with silence — a silence heavy with dread.

The Hidden Peoples of the Third Age

It is a failure of human histories that they speak too often of cities and wars, and too little of those who endure between them. The Oromun remained in their villages north of the Central Massif, smallest and most stable of the giant-descended cultures, stoic and long-lived, bound to stone and silence.

The Gnomes secured their place in the commercial districts of human and Elven cities, cutters of gemstones, practitioners of alchemy, merchants of opportunity and risk. The Lignari existed at the margins of perception — beneath forests, within roots, in the unseen layers of the world. They shaped no kingdoms and fought no wars of conquest, yet they remembered through the Great Mycelium what other peoples forgot.

The Skarn labored in the southern realms, bound by the Ithrax and softened by names such as “life debt.” They became workers, soldiers, overseers, victims, and instruments within a system they neither created nor fully understood. The Deep Elves watched from below, pale heirs of the stolen hold. They knew the gate had held, but not healed. They understood better than most that buried guilt does not become harmless with time.

All of them belonged to the history of Aeltharion. Even when human scribes failed to see them.

Now we come to the age in which we live. The Fourth Age began not with a single coronation, conquest, or disaster, but with warnings no one understood. In the months before the catastrophe, the sorcerer Xorim Dhar, lost since the Second Age, began to appear throughout Lathmar as a pale apparition. He spoke in the old tongue of Tharondir, issuing warnings in a language most citizens mistook for meaningless lamentation. At first, no one knew who the ghost was. Some called him a mad spirit. Others thought him a trick of the corrupting depths. Only when scholars of the old city finally translated his words did the truth become clear. By then, it was too late.

The corruption struck. The day later called the Flattening came upon Lathmar like a verdict. Maps failed. Doors betrayed expectation. A front door opened into a mine corridor. A cellar door descended into places no cellar had ever reached. Tavern doors admitted twisted Dwarves, goblins, pale centipedes, and other creatures from foreign reaches of the broken world. Stairways descended where none had been built. Houses became traps. Streets became guesses. Every door might lead elsewhere, and every elsewhere might be hungry.

Thousands died in the first days. Some were cut down by monsters that came through familiar thresholds. Others vanished after stepping through doors they had opened all their lives. Families were divided by rooms. Guild patrols lost themselves inside their own halls. Traders, farmers, and refugees found roads collapsing not in stone, but in meaning. The old order of distance had failed, and chaos entered Lathmar not by siege, but by architecture. And through it all, again and again, Xorim Dhar appeared, warning, pleading, condemning, or perhaps merely repeating the last message left to him by whatever force had torn him from time.

The United Church of the Many Gods finally offered a solution. Some say the idea came from Xorim himself, spoken in fragments to mystics who alone had the patience to listen. Others reject this entirely, insisting that the man was only a ghost, a remnant, or a punishment given shape. Whatever the truth, the Church, working with the mage guilds, raised a shield above the city. It was not merely a wall of force, but a vast energy dome woven from prayer, warding, sacrifice, and desperate spellcraft. Somehow, it drew the curse into itself. Somehow, it contained and absorbed the worst of the breaking.

Within the dome, most ways in Lathmar became safe again. Not all. Never all. But enough for life to continue. Doors still had moods, rhythms, and treacheries. Some outer thresholds remained dangerous. Certain passages could be mapped only by timing them with candles and patience. Windows and walls proved more reliable than doors, and in many districts the people of Lathmar learned to widen windows, cut new openings, and treat architecture itself as a hostile thing to be negotiated.

Yet the shield saved the city by imprisoning it. The energy dome sealed Lathmar away from the wider world, and because the curse lived within it, the dome behaved like a vast and unstable threshold. Most who attempted to pass through it failed, vanished, or emerged somewhere no road could explain. A few travelers still crossed, but never enough to permit evacuation, trade, or rescue on the scale the city required. Thus there was no great flight from Lathmar. The people were not brave by choice. They were contained.

With the return of corruption and the destabilization of the world, the Ithrax found themselves in a position of unprecedented advantage. Many human realms had already softened their language around servitude. What was once hidden became demanded. Controlled laborers, obedient bodies, and efficient chains crossed borders under names that sounded less cruel than the truth. Beneath Lathmar, exiled Ithrax established a vast network of slave trade, moving captives through broken passages and cursed gates. Their operations extended into the city itself, where certain guilds and merchants proved willing to cooperate. Profit outweighed morality.

Gladiatorial arenas flourished. Wagers were placed. Lives were spent as spectacle. In the fields and valleys beyond the walls, the curse spread in lesser but no less dreadful forms. Farms lost their doors to impossible places. Roads grew empty. Serpents, rats, and things wearing older names began to move with strange purpose.

The Fourth Age has drawn all histories back toward Karagdum. The ruins of Kragmor, the sealed depths, the slave pits of the Ithrax, the forgotten ways of the Deep Elves, and the broken passages beneath Lathmar now touch one another in impossible ways. The fragments of Gungnir remain lost. The gate still stands, but no gate can endure forever when the world around it is being unmade.

Some say Xorim Dhar did not die, but was cast beyond time, condemned to watch the warning he failed to prevent. Some say the first Deep Elven ruling pair still wander the lowest dark, where guilt and corruption have become indistinguishable. Some say the Source was never a thing beneath the world, but a wound in the world itself. As a historian, I must reject certainty where evidence fails. As a man of Aeltharion, I cannot reject fear.