The Malediction

Disaster / Destruction

In the early days of Calcaria there was nothing except the four elder elements borne out of the elemental chaos wrought through the Ethereal Plane. Earth, Air, Fire and Water stood bare. So too stood empty the mirror planes, the Feywild and Shadowfell as we know them today, mirroring only the void landmasses on the material plane. There it stood, until the Archons were sung into existence by forces now long-forgotten. The Archons looked upon Calcaria, and composed a harmony of Time and Life, of Music and Peace, and of War and Strife. First, they created the Sun and Moon as a token after their own creators. With these two heavenly bodies came the first animals and trees that were scattered onto the flat planes of the world. The cycle of birth and wilting had begun.   During this time of tranquillity, the Eldar (Elves) were the first to awake, and found themselves alone, save for the Archons who sometimes wandered their domain. They taught the Elves of magic and music, seeing them as their children and wishing them to inherit the earth and the trees. This was to be their undoing, though they knew it not, and the Age of Time and Life was soon to brgin. Having no place for their souls to go, the Elves were made immortal, to learn and live for an eternity.   The Elves lived as the Archons envisioned for a thousand years, but their ears grew tired of the harmony of the world. Soon they wished to create their own melodies for the realms they inherited. Aerendel, the Worldshaper and favourite of the Archons, grew ever jaded in his immortality. He took it upon himself to create life and let the Halflings awaken. These cousins lived in great accord with one another, and shared the fruits of Calcaria among themselves. Thus the Age of Music and Peace had begun. But all was not well, and at the end of the Age of Music and Peace, Malrond the Betrayer grew jealous of his brother’s creation and the favour and magic he had been granted by the Archons. Gathering as many allies as he could, his thoughts and deeds were so reckless, so reprehensible, their combined harmony of terror birthed the Abyss in the Great Beyond. This Void was a universe onto its own, and contained unimaginable horrors that awaited Malrond’s call to the Material Plane.   Dark whispers began to form in the night, and even darker promises were brought to Malrond’s ears. But no power besides the Archons could create life, though Malrond’s mind was already poisoned with lies and deception. In dark nights did he experiment on his elf kin with the blood of spiders. His experiments failed, but his cult had grown and a malignant schism was forming among the Elves for the first time since their awakening. The roots of evil had taken hold in the hearts of these Dark Elves.   Learning all they could about magic, the Elves knew how to fashion great gates of instantaneous travel. Many of these gates were used to travel among the continents of Calcaria, but Malrond knew that their power could go further. Thus it was after his attempt to create life had failed that he opened the first great Gate to the Void, now known as the Astral Plane. The Infernum hath no such fury as Malrond unleashed that day as he and his Dark Elves rejoiced in the coming of the tide of daemons and darkness that shrouded all of Calcaria from that day forth. The Age of War and Strife had come. The Four Great Houses of the Elves, the Swan, the Sun, the Moon, and the Tree came together under one banner and marched on Malrond’s fortress. Aided by the Halflingsand the Archons that had remained, they wrought a costly victory, killing Malrond and forcing his followers underground, where they have dug their tunnels ever since. Aerendel, Worldshaper and Father of Halffolk, fell onto his own sword in the aftermath of the killing of his dear brother. With this, the Elves thought the Age of War and Strife over, but it was not to be. Many Archons left the material plane to lands unknown, but left behind their essence of magic which waned and waxed as winds through the world.   In this Third Age of the world, Huron, son of Turon, discovered Malrond’s failed attempts at creating life in the ruins of his once imposing fortress. He was exiled for his years of study into this fell magic, which created the Gnolls, but in the depths of the jungles of Ezura he came to his dark and terrible conclusion at last. Combining snake and Elf blood, he created the Abominations of the Yuan-Ti, the snake people. His own creations killed him, but soon found no way to reproduce. It was not after Men awoke that the Yuan-Ti began to cross themselves with humans and fostered their brood, but those times still lay ahead. The existing Yuan-Ti in their festering desperation began to believe in a snake God which they dubbed Sseth. Through their incessant rituals and ornate sacrifices, the Daemon God Sseth eventually began to awake, claiming the Yuan-Ti Elves as his own and commanding them to open the Gates once more.   And so, with their strength dwindled and living in peaceful isolation, the Elves were besieged once more by the daemons from the Abyss. Their arrogance over magic and music led them to keep the Gates intact, despite dire warnings from the last Archon, Uldhir. The last of his kind, Uldhir had not yet abandoned the material plane and seeing Calcaria under attack once more he used his last powers to awaken the race of Men. Not immortal, Men began to believe in their spirits final resting places in the Great Beyond, and awoke their own Gods of Light, Valour and other good things of note. These gods were the product of pure thought, and came to life with powers to rival the Archons. For Men had not been corrupted by time and war as the Elves had, and their idealistic prayers birthed a pantheon that remains to this day. Danu awoke with Mankind, and shone her firey light onto the enemies of all free peoples of Calcaria. The first Men to die in her name she named her twentyfour Solars, the rest honoured as divine Planetars and Devas, and eventually Aasimar . Danu gave her divine energy to these beings as best she could, but her power was spent and she retreated to the top of Mount Celestia to garner her full strength. Under the thwentyfour Solars, Men, Elves and Gnomes pushed back against the vile hordes of the Abyss, the Dark Elves, the Gnolls and the Yuan-Ti that had crept up from the depths to aid them.   It was during this century of war that the commander of Danu's host, Balor, became impatient with the progress of the crusade. He became known to be cruel to his underlings if they did not achieve his unrealistic aims and eventually forced his host into terrible battles. Being a master strategist, he won, and the last Elven Gate lay in ruins. But with it, he had destroyed many Elven cities of old, and had betrayed the founding principles of Danu. The Goddess of Light descended from her Seven Heavens to bestow upon Balor honour and gifts, or so he thought. Instead Danu banished him to the Infernum, and all his willing underlings with him. The Nine Layers of the Infernum became both his home, and his prison.   For the first time in a hundred years, Calcaria was at peace. The scars of the second war were manifested in cracks of Calcaria itself, forming massive mountains to be seen in all realms, a grim reminder of the scale of the war past. The Elves began to rebuild, and Men spread out over the continents. Being blessed with long life, these Men settled the four corners of the world, leaving the Elves to themselves and their study. It was at this time that Elatha, Godof Seeking, descended to warn to High Elven King Erondil that the Age of War and Strife had not yet ended. Some heeded these warnings and wandered into the wilds of the Old Forests, worshipping the goddess Eriu and her cycle of Life and Death, over time becoming the Arbor Elves . But the Elves were borne with a natural curiosity, and learned to weave and control magic like no other. Many of the remaining Elves, now calling themselves High Elves to distinguish themselves from their woodland kin, began to worship Elatha and his boundless knowledge. Their hold over magic became absolute, and an entire generation of spell hungry Elven wizards and sorcerers hunted for all knowledge that they could. With disdain did Elatha let the Elves worship him, for he knew the price of such knowledge. The fabric of reality was waning in light of the High Elves’ power, and they were on the cusp of becoming a god-race. The winds of magic left behind by the Archons developed into storms the largest of which, Temposa, threatened to wipe out all life on Calcaria. Oghma, God of Knowledge and the Arcane himself intervened and created the pillars of magic to siphon out these winds and into the Astral Plane. Temposa froze solid over the Great Sea, its threat ended before its destruction had begun. Thrice the Elves had caused a near-end of the material plane, and thrice did others pay for their curiosity. And Boann, Godess of Ambition, punished the Elves by taking dominion over their souls. No longer were these fair creatures eternal, save for the Eladrin, and yet blessed with long life still, this was but a blink of an eye for an immortal soul. The Elves began to dwindle, and the Fourth Age, the Age of the Unknown, had begun. Thus ended the Malediction, the Elves humbled against their will.   Know that this tale misses many things, and does not cover the broken scales of Jormungandr, or its brood of dragon-kin. Neither do the ancient giants play into this story, nor their kin of Goliaths, nor Dwarves. Know also that this story has been contested by many scholars of Men and Dwarves alike, but in this day and age who is to say what is real, and what is false?