Approximately two million years ago the first of the ancient civilizations rose. The Giants ruled over the land even as it was at the whim of Karnak, the god of pure chaos. While they built large temples throughout the world, their true legacy is their castles built into the skymountains, huge floating land masses hidden within the clouds. While dragons will sometimes nest in them, no other civilization has ever discovered their existence, and they remain abandoned even to this day. As their civilization predates even the Elven Kingdom, there is no record of the Kingdom of the Giants. Many of their temples were found by the Zodastrian civilization roughly twenty thousand years ago, and they were the foundation of their culture, which has led most modern historians to attribute the few remaining ruins of the Giants to the Zodastrians. The Giants themselves have no memory of their once sprawling civilization, although the stratification of their culture remains to this day.
It was approximately one and a half million years ago, long after the death of Karnak and the fall of the Kingdom of the Giants, that the Elven Empire rose to power. Empowered by their understanding of magic, the Elves came to expand their empire across much of the known world. It was the elves that came to call the world ‘Taerym’, a name used even today. The division between the three houses of elves grew over the millennia and eventually, after a reign of over seven hundred and fifty thousand years, it was this division that led to the end of their civilization. Each house retreated into it’s own homeland, focusing on the preservation and balance of magic in the natural world… with the exception of the Dark Elves, who continued to war on their brethren and on the Dwarves until they were finally driven from the mountains and down into the southern deserts where they usurped the cities of the gnomes, claiming their homeland as their own.
These wars between Elves and Dwarves were representative of the Great Sundering, the war between the gods that led to the death of the first gods and to the rise of the first pantheon. It was during this extended period that human kingdoms began to rise. First the Zodastrians, approximately twenty thousand years ago, discovered of the ancient temples of the Giants and used their new knowledge to build their own great cities, tombs and temples within the earth. Their civilization was continually besieged by the warring forces of the world, but they sought refuge in mysticism and prayer. they were eventually overwhelmed; their lack of military might their downfall.
After the fall of the Gnomish cities brought about a relative peace, and the different races were able to live more or less alongside one another, another human kingdom rose. Approximately seven thousand years ago the human warlord Telos of the Brehor Tribe began unifying all humanity under a single banner, focusing not on conquest, but on protecting the people under his control. During his long life, his noble purpose and his military genius brought more humans together under the banner of the Brehor than even came together under the Zodastrians. After his death, his sons began to battle amongst each other for power, beginning several centuries of infighting that have marred the legacy of the Brehor Empire. Instead of being remembered for the spirit of mutual protection and peace that were it’s founding principles, it is instead remembered for the civil wars and destruction that dominated much of the three centuries of it's existence. The tribes eventually splintered and fragmented away from the Brehor, and their empire collapsed. Telos himself and his principles of protecting others are remembered by the Knights of the Telos Kai.
After the fall of the Gnomish cities brought about a relative peace, and the different races were able to live more or less alongside one another, another human kingdom rose. Approximately seven thousand years ago the human warlord Telos of the Brehor Tribe began unifying all humanity under a single banner, focusing not on conquest, but on protecting the people under his control. During his long life, his noble purpose and his military genius brought more humans together under the banner of the Brehor than even came together under the Zodastrians. After his death, his sons began to battle amongst each other for power, beginning several centuries of infighting that have marred the legacy of the Brehor Empire. Instead of being remembered for the spirit of mutual protection and peace that were it’s founding principles, it is instead remembered for the civil wars and destruction that dominated much of the three centuries of it's existence. The tribes eventually splintered and fragmented away from the Brehor, and their empire collapsed. Telos himself and his principles of protecting others are remembered by the Knights of the Telos Kai.
Despite the rise of the Zodastrians and the Brehor, there had been no true great civilization since the fall of the Elven Empire, but the human’s natural tendency to grasp power would make their rise inevitable. It was the southern tribe of Aurun that eventually began to amass power. Five thousand, two hundred years ago, their development of advanced military tactics, ability to incorporate war mages into their army, and advances in agriculture allowed them to expand their influence across the known world. While their background among the Aurun were remembered, their expansive domain was known across the world as the Grand Empyrum.
It’s notable that many of the older species of the world have never risen to rule over any of the major civilizations. Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halfling have maintained their cultures for millennia, almost as long as the Elves, but they have never had the ambition to expand their holdings. Among the warring cultures of the world, the Goblins, Orc, Sylvans or Humans, it was only the Humans that had the capacity to grow beyond their baser, warring nature to build a lasting civilization.
Before they began building civilizations that expanded across the known world, Humans were among the most violent and unpredictable races, as much a scourge on the Elven and Dwarven civilizations as the Goblins are today.
