Great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.25e Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster

The Age of Tribulation

The History of Alair from 1818 to 2100 (Imperial)

• 1850           In Nhased, the Voice of the One, desperate to end the sectarian war between the Voicers and Gilraidists, begins a complex and powerful piece of ritual magic, the Ritual of Flaying. The spell is targeted on the largest concentration of Gilraidist troops, somewhere in the Brinnon region of Nhased. It takes him a year to complete and when released, inflicts unbelievable amounts of damage to both land and life. The effects are far in excess of what was intended; shockwaves ripple out from the original target for nearly two hundred miles, exterminating all life and reducing the countryside to a magically poisoned wasteland. Technically, this wins the war for the Voicers, but their country is effectively destroyed.  Over half the population of Nhased is killed in one day.  Karsten and Lanirkos are both ruined and the Cathederal of the One, centre of their faith, is destroyed and inaccessible. The Voice was not seen again after the Flaying, and it is supposed that he was destroyed by his own apocalypse.
  
  The damage of the Ritual of Flaying extends over the eastern border and engulfs most of the war zone between Nhased and the Erlyid Empire, destroying ninety percent of the fighting capability of both nations in one stroke.  A big slice of the Asedor Forest is also destroyed, displacing many wild elves and centaurs, some of whom flee north into the rest of Alair, especially Belamir.
  
  
• 1855           The Erlyid Empire dissolves into chaos as the nobles of the relatively newly settled northern provinces perceive the Emperor as weakened by the loss of his troops in the Flaying, and revolt. Duke Antorian Arric emerges as the leader of the Northern Empire and makes his bid for the Imperial Throne. Civil war tears the Empire into two, then into more parts as other factions surface and the fighting escalates over the following years.
  
  
• 1860s         More dragons come south over the Engeror to settle in the Drachenfels which expands east, west and south. Dragons range deep into Pepterus and Minensal, raiding for food, treasure and territory. Lossal is sacked and burned, and ruined again. Minensal, smaller and less of an appealing target, manages to fend off the dragons who make attacks on it. Over the next fifty years, a class of professional dragon-fighters comes into being in the city, both to defend it and for expeditions into the Drachenfels.
  
  
• 1900-1910  Dragons begin raiding into the Kordasa and New Tellare, though few come back. In 1908 the Great Wyrm Muhrmarux descends on northern Dalaghendor and ravages it. Everything north of Nasirolan is destroyed, and other dragons move into the ruins. Muhrmarux himself conquers Nasirolan and enslaves the population, reinstituting many of Varkar Barduric’s practices and taxing the humans in virgin sacrifices. Bad things start coming out of the swamps of the Deep Trakar to kill and destroy along the south-western edge of what was Dalaghendor. Somewhere deep in the Trakar, rumour persists that Tearstone, the Sorcerers’ Isle, remains a refuge, but few can claim to have seen it.
  
  The Erlyid Civil War goes on, dragging more and more of the Empire into it. City after ancient city is destroyed as one or another faction gains or loses ground, and priceless, irreplaceable things and knowledge are lost forever.
  
  Some Hill Dwarves from Hadrasar in the northern Ndrall mountains flee the effects of the Flaying to the north and make new homes in the hills of what was once Orc-Land, north of the Empire.
  
  
• 1920s         In Belámir, the Scorpion Queen Milani has spent centuries corrupting elves to the service of Sabath the Adversary.  In 1921 she executes a brutal, bloody coup. All the royal family are murdered (though persistent rumour in following years will insist that one or more children escaped). Loyalist forces, gathered by Elverandil, retreat to Lomegor and fortify it. Milani promotes her closest followers to the rank of Duke and grants them lands within Belámir, but encourages them to compete for favour and survival. War among elves, not seen since the expulsion of the Fae Mhor, never entirely ceases.
  
  Murder, plunder and treachery spread through Belámir like rot through trees.
  
  New Tellare returns to its’ original name of Tellare, though the ruler remains the Ruling Prince; wherever and whatever he now is, his descendants regard Surya the Black as the last King of Tellare.
  
  
• 1940           The mysterious Mahdi, preacher and leader from the Red Dust, leads a horde of his nomads to assault southern Stryre. The nomads have raided the south of Stryre for centuries but always on a small scale; this is a full-scale invasion. The desert horde lays waste to all of southern Stryre as far north as Lake Irrizar. Melirkos is sacked and burned. The region becomes a war zone as the Stryrans struggle to eject the elusive and mobile invaders.
  
  
• 1950           The Erlyid Civil War begins to gutter out, more because all the factions are becoming exhausted rather than due to any move towards peace. Only shreds of the Erlyid Empire remain. Little kingdoms and petty warlords rise and fall and consume each other in the shadow of the ruins of greatness. After a thousand years of empire, the ability to subsist in small isolated communities is lacking in the Erlyid, and starvation and hardship increase the rate at which the population dwindles.  Thornal falls for the first time in 1963; it will be taken again and again over the following years until it is entirely ruined and nearly worthless.
  
  
• 1971           The Scorpion Queen orders a magically created disease used on Lomegor. This has only minimal effects on the loyalist elves, but is passed on to the Norton humans on whom its’ effects are devastating. Dubbed the Elf Death in the Northlands, the plague tears through Tellare, Enning, Minensal and the Kordasa. Magic and divine healing are ineffective and over three-quarters of the human population of the Northlands dies in a couple of years. The labour pool is reduced so badly that widespread famine is added to the woes of the North.
  
  Orcs turn out to be immune to the Elf Death, but with almost no-one left to fight or raid to the west, the three cities of the Gorfangach fall to discord amongst themselves and the empire splinters. All the cities except Gadhuvras and Kishshul return to the Old Gods of the orcs and wars flare continually.
  
  Ironically, with the population of the Kordasa decimated, Gadhuvras finally manages to invade the eastern marches and Karennal itself comes under siege for a while. The siege is raised by an attack from Kishshul, where the worship of Ashmuzkor-Kord persists.
  
  
• 1970s – 2010s            
  Things go from bad to worse. Constant war and destruction rage across the world, supported and egged on by the various Gods, and more and more areas become uninhabited wilderness dotted with ruins.  
  
  
• 2030           The God Kord sends his Hand, Hildraft, to the other Gods of Alair to entreat them to a conference. The other Gods, likewise fearing the complete extermination of their worshippers, agree, and a mighty host of deities gather on Stormpeak to decide what to do. All the Gods of Alair, down to the newest, Lynien the Trickster, come to the table … except Sabath the Adversary.
  
  For the first time since the Dawn Concords, when the Gods agreed never to fight directly again but to operate through their priests and heroes, the collected deities of Alair make a solemn pact – this time to end the Holy Wars and give all the mortals of Alair time to rebuild. All the Gods – except Sabath.
  
  Declared Outcast and Accursed by all his peers, the Lord of the Shadows cares naught for it; he has ever walked alone. The elves of the Scorpion Empire reject the pact.
  All other kings, priests, paladins and heroes receive instructions from their deities in no uncertain fashion to cease hostilities immediately. While by no stretch of the imagination does universal love and harmony break out, full-scale wars flicker out across Alair, except in Belámir.
  
  
• 2040-2100  The land to the south of Stryre becomes a kind of colony of the Red Dust, and is named Djasrem, populated by a mixture of the two peoples but ruled by the “Dusters”. An uneasy peace comes into being with Stryre, but trade and proper relations remain a distant likelihood.
  
  The tiny remaining northern splinter of the Theocracy of Nhased clings to nationhood, still loyal to the missing Voice of the One. The fortress Vokrid, once home to an order of knights pledged to fight the desolation, is expanded to become the last Nhasedan city.  The centre of what was Nhased remains a wasteland, no longer poisoned but uninhabitable. Many kinds of the Curst have migrated from the remaining Desolation to the Nhased Waste.
  
  Belegond, alone of the nations of Alair relatively untouched by the Holy Wars, has expanded, absorbing the abandoned Tellaran coastal fortresses of Cyrn Lothlin and Cyrn Radelin and expanding them into port cities.
  
  New Tellare, Enning, and the Kordasa endure, though reduced to a fraction of their previous size, slowly rebuilding around a core of their former lands.
  
  Most of the Northlands above Vorcrensen are wilderness, harrowed by hunting dragons and fell beasts of other kinds, though Minensal remains, protected by its’ ring of hills, and the Coronos magical academy to the south.
  
  Lying across the centre of Alair like a diseased creeper, the once fair elvish land Belamir is alone still racked with war as the loyalists strive to resist the Scorpion Empire of the Sabath-corrupted ones.
  
  Between and around these safe places lie hundreds of miles of wilderness, unclaimed and uninhabited, roamed by monsters, barbarians and beasts, dotted with overgrown ruins under which may lie magnificent treasures or hideous death.