Kandalurian Lore

   

    The following is a "working history" of the world and Kandalur.  You are seeing the unedited batch of what my imagination has thrown together so far.  I've used my own creativity as well as influences from popular fantasy to come up with this and even used pantheons, primordials, and demons from D&D that appealed to me.  Please enjoy these insights as they will change over time with revision.

 

    Welcome to the world of Kandalur, a realm of magic and mystery, rich with lore.  The Ancient Primordials forged the world from the very elements of creation and the Ancient Gods filled it with life.  The Ancient Primordials and the Ancient Gods (often referred to collectively as ‘the Ancients’) saw the world differently with the primordials wishing it to remain in constant chaos as a crucible of creation, being reforged for all time.  The gods wished it to be filled with life to serve them and their purposes.  This led to the Dawn War.

 

   The Ancients collided in battle that shook the heavens and reformed much of the world.  Gods and primordials waged war across the Planes of Existence, from high in the Astral Sea to the very depths of the Elemental Chaos.  The Upper Planes and the Lower Planes were torn apart from the trials of war.  One great battle, tore at the very fabric of space, destroying an ancient device known as the Living Gate allowing the first incursion from the Far Realm.  Pelor has since secretly sealed the remains of the gate deep within his palace but the damage had been done.  The Far Realm had discovered the world.  Some think that rebuilding the Living Gate would end the connection to the Far Realm but Pelor disagrees.  

 

   The battles waged on until finally, the gods emerged victorious.  By this time, the alpha race known as the dingir had become something else entirely.  Recruiting by the gods during the war led to a heavy divide in beliefs, cultures, and rituals.  The once proud race was almost gone and three major divisions remained; the elves, the orcs, and the humans.  During the war, the Ancient God Moradin called forth life from the very rock of the mountains and it later became the dwarves and gnomes of the world.  In the wake of the Dawn War, thousands of dragons were spawned by the death of Io.  They created the dragonborn to serve them.  Some races were tainted by jealous gods.  Lolth attracted elves and corrupted them, leading to the drow.  Asmodeus made a pact with humans that led to the tiefling race.  The Ancient Gods were dividing themselves much as the races in the world were.  

 

   A great font of power is the largest remnant in the world of the Dawn War.  Deep within the world lies the Crucible of Creation.  During the War, the primordials almost achieved their goal of reducing the world down to its elements.  The gods intervened just in time and found that much of the concentrated power of the primordial device still remained.  They trapped it and kept it for their own use.  It acts as a fail-safe should the gods ever reach the point that they believe the world needs to be destroyed and remade.  Many gods disagree with the secret idea, stating that its the very reason they fought the Dawn War, to prevent such a thing from happening.  Yet it remains.

 

   The Court of Stars watched as one of the last dragon avatars, Kraldraeg-Tanulth traveled away after the Age of the Dragon.  The Court sent five Planeswalkers from the Feywild to deal with the dragon avatar in his new lands on the material plane of Aerestel.  The Court had underestimated the power of the dragon avatar and four of the five Planeswalkers were defeated in a series of bloody battles.  Auravir Aramorn fled the final fight but did not have enough strength to return to the Feywild so he sought out one of the Pillars of Creation.  The Pillars of Creation are magical fonts of power remaining after the creation of Aerestel.  They appear across the world in different forms such as mystical lakes, giant whirlpools, and enormous trees that feed into the magic of the Weave.  

 

   Auravir discovered the Dream Tree, a Pillar of Creation protected and revered by moon elves that had found it hundreds of years earlier.  With the help of these elves, the Planeswalker was able to heal and return to the Feywild and answer for his actions in front of the Court of Stars.  The Court forgave his actions since it was their underestimation that led to the failure.  They commanded Auravir to return to Aerestel with a host of eladrin to begin a new civilization that could united with the others in the area to one day bring down Kraldraeg-Tanulth.  They returned and founded Starview, the city high upon a mountain above a forest with a view of the stars and the Dream Tree far in the distance.  And so began the first echoes of their homeland, Kandalur.  

 

The War of the Fey

 

    Shortly after settling in Kandalur, Auravir and the people of K’ndara Thaen reached out to the legendary Kingdom of Alheim to form an alliance to defeat the dragon avatar.  King Aticus Greythule responded with a cold and foreboding letter refusing an alliance with the treacherous Moon Elves.  “Cold-blooded murderers and dark magicians like them will never see an alliance with the Kingdom of Men and Dwarves.”  In the coming years, the dragon avatar wreaked havoc upon the lands of K’ndara Thaen before being brought down by a magical blade wielded by Jericho Redynvar, a man (see page on Magic Items).  The Moon Elves and Eladrin loathed the Kingdom of Alheim for standing by idly for so long while they suffered.  The War of the Fey was the culmination of tensions between K’ndara Thaen and Alheim and began when the Court of Stars sent an invasion force from the Feywild to assist their brothers and sisters in Kandalur.  The Fey Gate was secretly constructed near Alheim, allowing these forces to appear near the enemy.  

 

A secret council within the Court of Stars known as the Star Conclave was behind the war effort.  It was the invasion force that triggered the war.  The Planeswalker Auravir soon found out about the Conclave and travelled thru the Fey Gate alongside Jericho of Alheim.  With the help of the Jericho Blade, he used his full power to bring down three of the four  mysterious members of the Conclave but one slipped thru the Gate after being badly injured.  The two urged the Court of Stars to pull back fey forces and they agreed.  The war ended after 6 years of bloodshed.  

 

The Last of the Star Conclave disassembled the Gate, thinking he trapped the heroes in the Feywild.  Little did he know, the Planeswalker Auravir didn’t need it.  He returned with Jericho and struck an alliance between K’ndara Thaen and the Kingdom of Alheim, that would become known as the Heroic.  

 

    During the coming years, the grand Arkhosian Empire fell and a contingency calling themselves the Empire of Az’Rul came to Kandalur looking to conquer and root a new Dragonborn Empire.  They came from the south and enslaved the gnomes of Aldesta.  They founded their capital city of Alzahn in the West.  They fought a war on two fronts against the Heroic but ultimately failed when they entered the unclaimed territory known as the Erelhei Dominions.  Thousands of drow raiding parties decimated the Az’Rulean forces, allowing the Heroic to deal the final blow back in Kandalur.  The gnomes returned to Aldesta and many dragonborn joined the relatively quiet kingdom in the north known as Aramanthir.  

 

The War of the Orc

 

    Years later, the Frost came and with it, the Orcs.  By the thousands, they came.  One night, they crossed the frozen Vega Cay and struck at the heart of K’ndara Thaen.  By the time Alheim crossed the Heart of Kandalur, they were met by Orcs that came through southern Aramanthir.  The Kingdom of Aramanthir was busy dealing with giants and ogres that had crossed from the Forgotten Lands in the north.  War ravaged for nearly a decade when finally Jericho and Auravir defeated Thanzule the Unshaken, leader of the major Orc civilization.  The mountainous nature of Aramanthir had helped protect that kingdom from its attackers.  Even with the war over, these foul creatures now lived in Kandalur.  

 

    Thanzule’s lieutenant Zahrthak fled back to the Forgotten Lands.  Once there, he wandered for years before stumbling across a strange artifact.  It led him to a temple underground that was lost to time.  Here he struck a pact with an ancient demon (Yeenoghu).  A terrifying force grew under Zahrthak’s command made up of orcs and gnolls and became known throughout Kandalur as The Wild.  Zahrthak did not know that the Ruler of Ruin was using him as a means to reconquer the world after his first failed attempt (being defeated by Harpam Halandor in Aestonia).  

 

    Gruumsh despised the orcs in the Wild and set out to punish them, rewarding orcs that would do so.  In time, the Wild lost most of its orc contingency.  Some still remain, thinking that Gruumsh abandoned them in the War of the Orc.  The Wild struck alliances with powerful dragons, bringing kobolds and dragonborn into their ranks.  

 

Dawn of the Everwar

 

The Last of the Star Conclave had been hiding in Aramanthir with the remnants of the Fey Gate.  Some say he was driven mad when he found out that Auravir made it back to Aerestel from the Feywild.  Others say he went mad during his isolation in Aramanthir.  He lived in a ruined stone keep in the mountains, far from civilization.  He studied the remnants of the Fey Gate, determined to use it again.  Some of his notes were found in the ruined keep, along with drawings etched into the stone of an eye and references to “the Elder”.  Shortly after this discovery, a young courtier in Majestic rose to power after the disappearance of King Theranzi.  He quickly struck a pact with the Wild and declared war on the Heroic.  The Wild and Aramanthir quickly decimated much of the Heroic with a power not seen before in the Wild.  

 

Four years into the war, with the help of the Court of Stars Auravir was able to out the new leader of Aramanthir as the demon lord Graz’zt.  Somewhere in the Heart of Kandalur, the Fey Gate was rebuilt into something monstrous.  It pulled forth demonic beings and an aspect of a long forgotten deity.  Jericho destroyed the Gate and slaughtered the Last of the Star Conclave but at the same time, Graz’zt had bested Auravir.  Jericho was able to weaken the demon lord and send him back to the Abyss but knew he would not survive a fight with the Forgotten Aspect.  He hid the Jericho Blade so that it would not fall into the hands of evil and then fell in battle to the Aspect. 

 

Aramanthir rallied and joined the Heroic along with the gnomes of Aldesta and together they pushed back the Wild and nearly ended the war.  Graz’zt told Jericho, “You are too late.  This is the Dawn of the Everwar.  There is no end.”  The Aspect of the Long Forgotten God reached the Dream Tree near the end of the war.  Ydoril, the moon elf warrior of legend was able to surprise him there.  Ydoril led a group of moon elves in a protective ritual at the Dream Tree.  The power of the font of power all but destroyed the Aspect but not before his evil influence had tainted the blood of Ydoril.  The moon elf warrior descended into madness and took his closest followers when he was banished from his homeland.  His descendants and those of his followers are called the Fallen Elves or the Elves of the Fall.  These creatures still inhabit parts of K’ndara Thaen, the Heart of Kandalur, and the Forgotten Lands.  Some joined the Wild.