The reborn Elven homeland in the midst of the Desolation
1601
Since the Slaying, the Elvenhost which invaded the Dragonrealms under King Doronond has returned to the Desolation and started the mighty task of reclaiming the ancient sylvan homeland.
Selecting a new site, they have laid the foundations of their new city, and invoked powerful magics to roll back the corruption around it and raise new trees and grass. The new city is named Belamir in the High Tongue, a word meaning "Jewel of Strength" and chosen to reflect both the beauty of the planned new city and its' greater fortification - for the elves do not intend to be lightly evicted again.
Some have speculated that the selection of but a single site points to the grievous reduction of elven numbers since the Dragonwars; others that they have limits to their powers of reconstruction or that they cannot bear to enter the ruins of the old cities.
Certainly it will be many years before the remaining elves will be able to return from the island sanctuary of Viridor to the ancestral homeland.
Belamir was shielded with mighty arcane protections, and was perhaps over-reliant on them; the vampire Rhendal pierced them easily in his attempts to kidnap a royal elf to open the Vintares Gate. Not long after that, the Elf Hammer smashed its' way through the guardinq spells and ravaged unchecked before being halted by the intervention of unknown powers. As a result of these incursions, the elves drastically increased the physical fortifications and number of fighting men defending the borders.
The magically assisted restoration of the elven homeland pressed on apace during the years after Surya's crowning, with forests spreading across what was once ash and ruin. Proper restoration of the trees would take hundreds of years of course, but the groves were mapped out and the saplings planted, and growth accelerated in key places.
The reclaimed land (although not the trees) had finally expanded far enough northwest and southeast to join up with the untainted land north of Nhased and south of New Tellare, splitting the remaining Desolation in half. It also reached and incorporated the ruined cities of Lomegor and Lantalaure, and the long and difficult process of rebuilding these began. Elverandil the Mastersmith, as the highest-born survivor of the city's original population, was made Lord of Lantalaure, and the House of Swords was rebuilt as his palace and citadel. Their position on the edge of the land of the Elves suited Lomegor and Lanta for trade, and each was linked into the webwork of new roads along which the commercial heartbeat of Alair was once more beating.
While nowhere near as hostile to visitors as before the Dragon, the Elves were still pretty careful about who crosses their borders, especially into the inner forest itself. The Shadowguard patrolled beneath the trees, ever alert for creatures of the Curst finding their way in, and politely but firmly turning back any orc, lizardman or Kin who tried to enter Belamir.
The Elf Hammer remained buried fifty feet below the ground on the borders of Belamir. In all the time that had elapsed since its' initial attack, no-one had managed to make any form of impression on it at all. Skufruss had sent several messages to Belamir, offering to remove the Hammer from their lands, but the Elves refused him every time.
Since 1602, many more elves made the Return, and by 1655, slightly more than half the elf people lived once more in the centre of Known Alair.
In 1656, Skufruss commissioned Gorfang, Eloy and Lynien to recover the Elf Hammer. They did this, but a relatively minor incident during that adventure was to lead to the elves' downfall; the corruption of Milani. The influence of Sabath that she was tricked into accepting by Eloy turned her to the worship of that evil and subversive deity. Over several hundred years, she spread the rot through elvish society and finally executed a coup, taking over most of Belamir and establishing the Scorpion Empire. Only Lomegor remains free.